File photo of the New People’s Army (NPA) Guerilla Front 21 with their high powered firearms and the communist flag along the mountains of Marihatag town in Surigao del Sur.
PHOTO BY ERWIN MASCARIÑAS
MANILA, Philippines — Col. Manuel Lukban Jr., head of the Philippine National Police Directorate for Police Community Relations (DPCR) plans and programs, came up with the idea of turning a strategy of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) against it.
Lukban told the Inquirer in a phone interview that the concept of building a global coalition of advocacy groups and force multipliers was from a tactic used by the CPP-NPA.
“It was supposed to be, at the start, just aimed at countering the strategy of the CPP-NPA. We analyzed how this group has been operating all these years and saw that they had this AOM strategy,” Lukban said.
He explained that AOM stood for: Arouse, Organize and Mobilize, which targeted different sectors and enabled the CPP-NPA to recruit members.
‘Brainwashing’
According to Lukban, Arouse entailed drumming up antigovernment sentiments among members of different sectors. “The CPP-NPA then exploits these negative sentiments to organize these sectors into groups,” he pointed out.
Mobilize, he said, was the part where the indoctrination and “brainwashing” begins and the sectors are encouraged to take part in street protests up to the extent that they would be willing to take part in the communist rebel’s armed struggle.
“We observed that this has been very effective. So three years ago we helped organize a youth group in response to this CPP-NPA tactic which we noticed mostly targeted young Filipinos,” Lukban pointed out.
“Helping organize this youth group, giving its members the right information and encouraging them to help the government in any way they can, we put them out of the CPP-NPA’s reach,” he added.
After observing that this can be done, the DPCR official said the PNP saw the potential of tapping the youth and other sectors in the overall campaign against criminality as volunteers.
In the Kabataan Kontra Droga At Terorismo (KKDAT), he pointed out, the PNP emphasized that for its members to merely avoid Illegal drugs, crime and violent extremism is already a big help to improving peace and order.
“We reached out to other sectors by supporting their various advocacies. In turn, they volunteered to help the PNP in its anti-criminality campaign and support police programs as they are able,” Lukban said.
“Of course, they cannot undertake law enforcement duties, those are the PNP’s responsibility,” he added.
Broad coalition
With the exponential growth in membership of the advocacy groups, Lukban said that the PNP decided to gather them in one broad coalition of volunteers: the Global Coalition of Lingkod Bayan Advocacy Support Groups and Force Multipliers.
He said that to date the coalition, made up of the KKDAT; the National Coalition of Information Technology Advocates for Change; the Joint Industrial Peace Concerns Office/Alliance for Industrial Peace Program; the Kaligkasan; the International and Local Help Desk; Global Peace Community Relations; Anti-Crime Community and Emergency Response Team; the Association of Chiefs of Police of the Philippines Inc; the Affiliated NGOs; the Foreign National Keepers Network; the Project Juana (Magdalena Mission); barangay-based organizations; faith-based organizations; and Force Multipliers, has 17 million members here and abroad.
2.6M members
Out of the 17 million coalition members, force multipliers number 2.6 million nationwide.
Force multipliers, he explained, are basically more “warm bodies” to augment the 220,000-strong PNP although they are not allowed to conduct actual law enforcement.
“Our force multipliers are volunteers who provide the PNP with information or beef up the number of policemen out on patrol,” Lukban said, adding that it helps a lot in anticrime operations that the policemen on the field have extra sets of eyes and ears.