Outgoing Armed Forces Chief Gen. Emmanuel Bautista. PHOTO from AFP Public Affairs Office
MANILA, Philippines–General Emmanuel Bautista, Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff, is set to bow out of service on Friday as he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 56.
He will be replaced by Lieutenant General Gregorio Pio Catapang, the military vice chief.
Both are from the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1981.
President Benigno Aquino III will lead the change of command ceremonies at Camp Aguinaldo.
Bautista was a freshman cadet at the PMA when his father, Brigadier General Teodulfo Bautista, and 33 others were gunned down by Moro National Liberation Front rebels in Sulu in 1977.
But did Bautista succeed as AFP chief? Or did he fail during his mandate?
During his leadership of 18 months, his leadership was challenged by the Zamboanga crisis, Bohol earthquake, Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) and intrusions by the Chinese in the Philippine waters at the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea).
It was also during his time that the Philippine military, one of the weakest in Asia, pursued military modernization to build a minimum credible defense.
Bautista, the 44th AFP chief of staff, led the formulation of the anti-insurgency campaign, the Internal Peace and Security Plan (IPSP) Bayanihan when he was the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (J3).
The IPSP Bayanihan shifts focus from traditional combat operations to “developmental activities.” The campaign aims to make the communist rebels irrelevant by 2016.
It was during his leadership when top communist leaders, Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, were arrested by authorities last March. The couple is believed to have taken over the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines from Jose Ma. Sison, who is on exile in the Netherlands.
As he steps down from the military leadership, the strength of the New People’s Army remains vague. Early this month, the military said they are still assessing the number of communist rebels, although they have announced that for this year, 431 NPA returned to the government fold, which is more than half of last year’s 701.
In 2013, the AFP said the NPA were at “a little over 4,000,” which is not a significant decline from the previous years.
The CPP, in a statement last week, said the Bayanihan is “a complete failure” and its forces also continue to grow.
“The AFP has failed, not only in its declared objective of decimating the NPA in three years’ time, but also in putting a stop to the nationwide growth and strengthening of the NPA,” it added.
“What the AFP failed to achieve in the battlefield, it now is trying to gain in terms of media and publicity by carrying out successive ‘surrender’ ceremonies, intimidating and rounding-up civilians and presenting them as surrenderees, if only to let military officials pocket millions of pesos in reward money,” the CPP said.
The Abu Sayyaf has also been aggressive in Mindanao. Only last month, seven soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded in clashes in Sulu.
Bautista’s successor, Catapang, is described as “instrumental in the normalization of Northern and Central Luzon.”
He will be the fifth AFP chief under the Aquino administration.
Before he was appointed as vice chief in May, he headed the Northern Luzon Command and the Army’s 7th Infantry Division. At that time, he envisioned the Army’s shift from internal security to territorial defense.
Catapang is also known for recognizing the other ‘enemy on the horizon’ which is climate change.
When he was a junior officer, he was part of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement that plotted the revolt against then President Ferdinand Marcos.
He has barely a year left in service as he is scheduled to retire on July 11, 2015, when he reaches the mandatory retirement of 56.
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