New AFP battle plan aims to defeat NPA before 2015

The new military battle plan that will be implemented starting January next year aims to defeat the communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in three to five years, an official from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said Thursday. “The planning time frame is three to five years. We want to end this (insurgency) within the three- to five-year time frame. This cannot continue forever," Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, the military deputy chief of staff for operations, said. Bautista is in charge of the crafting of the new battle plan, which will be submitted to President Benigno Aquino III for approval. The new plan will replace the three-year-old Oplan Bantay Laya II, which expired last June. Bautista said the new battle plan will focus more on winning the trust of the rebels than engaging them in combat. “Unlike before where we resort to body count as a measure of success, our parameter now maybe is the number of friends that we won over. So it’s winning peace rather than defeating the enemies," he said. During the previous administration, the military failed to beat its June 30, 2010 deadline to end the decades-old insurgency problem in the country, saying rescue and relief operations for the victims of tropical cyclones Ondoy and Pepeng sidetracked them from accomplishing their goal. The deadline was given by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. June 30, 2010 was the date she stepped down from power. Told that the objective may be a long shot, Bautista said: “Long shot, but don’t you want us to finish this?" “If we fail here, it’s not the military only who will fail. It’s not the just government. It’s going to be us, the Filipino people who will fail if we do not succeed," he added. - KBK, GMANews.TV