blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

2012 marks the centennial of citizen's military training in the Philippines which began at the University of the Philippines on 17 March 1912. While Filipinos have throughout history responded to calls to defend their land (Filipinos resisted British occupation in 1762), the Spanish Army having earlier established a militia at the University of Santo Tomas (General Antonio Luna learned his basic military tactics here), it was only in 1912 when the citizen's army was really meant to defend the Philippines and not just the imperialist power which had sovereignty over the islands then. This is the essence of a citizen's armed forces to defend the home and hearth. The idea wasn't new. The British Army established militias in their colonies and it eventually became the nucleus of the revolutionary army that forced the British out of the American Colonies. In other British colonies which had a peaceful transition to independence and sovereignty, the militias became the nu...

One of the major national security issues that face the Philippines and neighbouring countries is massive environmental changes that can cause the displacement of hundreds of thousands if not millions of citizens. As of this writing, metropolitan Bangkok is now being innundated by massive monsoon floods and the engineering interventions made by the Thai government in the last 20 years of rapid economic development are proving of very little use. The Prime Minister of Thailand  Ms Yingluck Shinawatra, has to call on the Thai armed forces to offer relief and rescue. Like the Philippines, the massive evacuation of thousands of citizens is a logistical challenge that will tax the capacity of the government of Thailand. However the Kingdom of Thailand is in a much better position to respond. Why? The Armed forces of the ASEAN countries have seen improvements in training, equipment and recruitment. These countries armed forces have enough strength to call in times of national environmen...

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has publicly expressed its desire to bring back the ROTC as a required college subject for males. Well I don't agree. It should be a required subject for females also! :-) Seriously, I don't agree with the proposal making ROTC mandatory at all. This for the following three reasons. 1) The national security environment has changed . The Republic has different threats to its security as compared to that 40 years ago. (My example to fellow ROTC alums is that before our "enemy" were the Commies across the China Sea now it is natural and man made disasters give or take a few terrorists!) 2) The AFP will have to have a more responsive training strategy and program for citizen soldiers given this new security environment. 3) The AFP is ILL EQUIPPED to train an effective citizen army more so with ROTC cadets that serve because they are required to do so. Making ROTC mandatory defeats the whole purpose of having an effective and re...