EDITORIAL - Winning hearts and minds

In counterinsurgency, winning hearts and minds is as critical to success – or even more so – than victory in the armed aspect. Winning hearts and minds is important especially in communities and sectors that are most vulnerable to rebel recruitment.

As of this point, the government is losing the battle for hearts and minds in what it describes as hotbeds of communist rebel recruitment: school campuses, starting with the University of the Philippines. Any specter of state repression of academic freedom, whether real or imagined, alienates students from the government, and has the potential to drive more youths into the arms of insurgent movements.

Winning hearts and minds calls for efficient messaging. It’s good that the spokesman for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict or NTF-ELCAC, Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., has apologized for threatening to use the new Anti-Terrorism Act against journalist Tetch Torres-Tupas for allegedly disseminating “fake news” about Aetas opposing the ATA before the Supreme Court.

It would be better, however, if the incident that prompted the apology had not occurred in the first place. A simple verification by Parlade would have shown that the story was carried by other news organizations and was based on documents filed with the Supreme Court.

It’s not the first time that Parlade, who heads the AFP’s Southern Luzon Command, has come under fire for red-baiting. Last year he also received flak for linking several entertainment personalities to the communist underground.

The NTF-ELCAC has been pushing a message that, if properly delivered, could resonate even among the youth: communism has been discredited in much of the planet, and armed struggle is not the way to change the world.

Businessmen are tired of armed extortion and destruction of their property by the New People’s Army, which demands “contributions” and “revolutionary taxes” even from poor people in the countryside, hampering development of the poorest regions. The NPA continues to assassinate government security forces, not discriminating between abusive soldiers and cops and those who are honestly serving the people – and there are many of the latter in the uniformed services.

But red-baiting and threats – which can translate into violent and lethal attacks in this country – can only be counterproductive in the long term. Insurgencies are fed by social injustice and oppression. If the government wants to discourage dalliance with insurgencies, people must be won over rather than scared into submission.