Oplan Bantay Laya

Oplan Bantay Laya, which was launched in 2002, is the latest in a series of counterinsurgency programs of the AFP.

The first “comprehensive and coordinated” counterinsurgency program implemented by the AFP, during the Marcos dictatorship, was Oplan Katatagan (Operation Stability) in 1982.

This was followed by Oplan Lambat Bitag I , II, III, IV of the Aquino and Ramos administrations. The Estrada Regime launched Oplan Makabayan in 1998 and Oplan Balangai in 2000.

Essentially, Oplan Bantay Laya is the same as previous counterinsurgency programs. It divided military operations into four stages, clear-hold-consolidate-develop. Military operations are conducted to “clear” the area of insurgents, paramilitary groups and an intelligence network are formed to “hold” the area; the AFP then “consolidates” the area by improving its relations with the civilian population through civic action operations such as medical and dental missions; and at the last stage the AFP “develops” the area by introducing livelihood and development projects.

In terms of military tactics, Oplan Bantay Laya employs the same combination of intensive military operations, intelligence, and civic action or triad operations.

AFP documents reveal that Oplan Bantay Laya has three strategies namely, Strategic Holistic Approach, Win-Hold-Win, and Sustained Operations.

The Strategic Holistic Approach is the AFP’s solution to what it perceived as the lack of coordination between and among government agencies, the AFP and Philippine National Police (PNP), and civil society institutions such as NGOs. On paper, the objective of this strategy is to comprehensively approach the insurgency problem. The president heads the machinery for the Strategic Holistic Approach while the AFP and PNP are in-charge of military operations and Area Coordinating Centers. These centers coordinate AFP and PNP units, local government agencies, and other sectors such as NGOs in an area for the purpose of conducting counterinsurgency operations.

As part of the Strategic Holistic Approach, the counterinsurgency program is directed by the Cabinet Oversight Committee on Internal Security, currently the most powerful cabinet cluster on the national level. At the local level, local officials are virtually stripped of decision-making authority and are even threatened by AFP commanders if they question the latter’s actions. Under Oplan Bantay Laya, civilian authority is practically subjugated by the chain of command of the AFP. Even NGOs and other civil society groups are forced to surrender their independence and to cooperate with the AFP or risk being branded as “terrorist or front organizations” and be dealt with accordingly

Consistent with the strategies of Win-Hold-Win and Sustained Operations, the AFP identified thirteen priority areas in seven regions namely, Ilocos-Cordillera, Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, Bicol, Bohol in Central Visayas, Caraga, Compostela Valley in Southern Mindanao. These areas were subjected to heavy troop deployments and sustained military operations. Only when the AFP has achieved its military objective of wiping out the insurgency and has formed a civilian self-defense force in an area does it transfer majority of its troops to another area which it then subjects to intense and sustained military operations.

An example is Mindoro. The island was subjected to intense and sustained military operations that resulted in numerous cases of political killings and other human rights violations. When the AFP thought that the island was saturated enough and that all political and people’s organizations had been destroyed, they transferred the troops and the operations to Batangas. In Central Luzon, Tarlac and Pampanga was subjected to heavy troop deployments and military operations before the AFP units were transferred to Bulacan and Nueva Ecija.

A major change in Oplan Bantay Laya, compared to previous counterinsurgency programs, is its application of target research and the fusion of intelligence and combat operations. With target research, intelligence operations are directed at what it calls “sectoral front organizations”. The key people in these “sectoral front organizations” are placed in a “sectoral Order of Battle (OB).” These intelligence operations are carried out by units and personnel of the Military Intelligence Group-Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (MIG-ISAFP) lodged at the battalion level. These units are given “Intelligence Task Allocations,” with quarterly targets for “neutralization.” This resulted in a surge of killings of political activists from 2002 onwards. Following is a table tracking the number of political killings per year.

Added to this are the 207 forcible disappearances since 2001.

These killings and forcible disappearances are carried out by death squads composed by special operations units of the army[1], police, or paramilitary forces based on lists provided by military intelligence units.

The counterinsurgency programs of the AFP are based on the unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency strategies developed by the U.S. Armed Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) particularly that on “low intensity conflict.” These can be found in U.S. Army manuals of the 1960s and 1980s. Later developments incorporated in Oplan Bantay Laya are reflective of U.S. defense strategies after 2001.

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[1] The Philippine Army Special Operations Command was organized in 1996. It is composed by seven Special Forces Battalions and three Scout Ranger Battalions. Among the tasks of these PASOCOM units are the conduct of unconventional warfare and counter-terrorist operations, and the organization, training, and control of paramilitary units.

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