Saturday, March 31, 2007 Military to conduct info drive on troop deployment in metro
* Senator says urban poor communities in Metro Manila 'need services, not militarization
OPERATIONS managers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have recommended the launching of an information drive to settle ones and for all the real intention why soldiers are being deployed in the urban poor communities in Metro Manila.
A study group headed by the office of the AFP deputy chief of staff for operations told Armed Forces Chief Hermogenes Esperon Jr. that there was a need to tap the media in the information dissemination, through the conduct of information briefings.
The group's report, signed assistant deputy chief of staff for operations Romeo Lustestica, said the information briefing should be spearheaded by military agencies led by the AFP deputy chief of staff for civil military operations.
The agencies recommended to be tapped for the information briefing is the office of the AFP civil relations service and AFP public information office, and the military's National Capital Region Command (NCRcom).
It said the offices of the deputy chief of staff for operations and of the deputy chief of staff for intelligence should be supporting the campaign. The military has what it calls the "triad staff" composed of its operations, intelligence and civil military operations branches.
Lustestica said there is a need to maintain the deployment to prevent the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), from infiltrating the urban poor communities and recruiting from among the results.
The soldiers have been in the urban poor communities in Quezon City, Manila and Caloocan City since November last year under its Community Organizing and Development program, which calls for the conduct of medical and dental missions and pursuit of "limited engineering works."
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) had ordered the AFP last week to pull out more than 200 soldiers from the NCRcom deployed in the urban poor communities.
The CHR said the soldiers were duplicating the jobs of the PNP and that the militarization is tantamount to violation of civil and political rights of the people.
A number of leftist groups have filed electioneering charges against the military. One of the groups, Gabriela, said the soldiers were harassing its members and supporters to derail its bid to secure a party-list seat in Congress in the upcoming May elections.
The study group also recommended that a formal request be made for Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales on the sending of a military team to brief the members of the clergy on the "nature of the deployment."
Bishop Broderick Pabillo - an auxiliary bishop in Manila - earlier said the military has a "hidden agenda" for deploying the soldiers in urban poor communities and that harassment could be one of them.
Meanwhile, Senator Pilar Juliana "Pia" Cayetano said the urban poor communities where soldiers are deployed "badly need social services from the government like education, health, and basic utilities like clean water and cheap electricity."
"They don't need intimidation and militarization," Cayetano added. (VR/CPB/Sunnex)
