There is no truth to the rumor that former Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano left for the United States a few days ago to ensure the victory of John McCain.

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Armed Forces chief Gen. Alexander Yano blames prison officials and guards at the Quezon Provincial Jail in Lucena City for the escape of suspected New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.

Men wearing the uniform of antinarcotics agents and SWAT policemen sprang their comrades inside the jail in a swift attack.

Yano said he was “very disappointed” over the escape of the suspected NPA leaders who were captured by the military in different encounters.

Blaming others is useless since it is as much the fault of the prison guards and the police in the province as the military.

The AFP’s Southern Luzon Command (Solcom) is based in Lucena City.

If military intelligence received reports about a plan by the NPA to spring its leaders in the jail, how come soldiers were not assigned to secure the jail?

If the Armed Forces were relentless in their search and destroy missions against the NPA, the rebels would always be on the run and, therefore, not capable of doing anything else.

What’s wrong with government soldiers is that most of them are always sleeping in their garrisons instead of pitching camps in the jungles and mountains where their enemy lives.

If the AFP did not give any quarters to the NPAs – and for that matter, the Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) – the rebels and bandits would not be able to make the mountains and jungles their habitat.

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The only way for the Armed Forces to beat the NPA and the MILF is to play their kind of game, to be like them.

The NPA and MILF attack in small groups, and therefore, are highly mobile. Small groups are able to move fast.

The AFP is divided into cumbersome divisions and brigades that are very ineffective in guerrilla warfare.

The solution is to reorganize the AFP into small battle groups such as the Army’s Battalion Combat Team (BCT) in the 1950s and 1960s.

Each BCT was complete in itself. It had artillery, tanks and aircraft.

But the BCT relied mainly on its foot soldiers who were divided into platoons (40 men for each platoon) and squads (10 men for a squad).

The BCT platoons and squads moved so swiftly they easily caught up with the Huks, forerunner of the NPA and the outlaws in Sulu.

When a platoon or squad was under fire from the enemy, it asked help from the battalion’s artillery group or air assets which bombarded enemy positions.

In the AFP’s present set-up, if a unit is pinned down by the enemy, it takes hours before reinforcement is sent to the beleaguered group.

An order to reinforce a unit under fire travels through channels – from the company commander, to the battalion commander to the brigade commander and finally, to the division commander.

By the time the reinforcement arrives, the military unit needing help is already decimated.

Reinforcement or help to a beleaguered unit should take only minutes. That’s why the BCT was very efficient.