There will be little disagreement that the Philippines is a difficult battleground and peace is elusive. Military adventurism remains a constant threat in the feeble political system, nourished by a fragile economy, alleged corruption in the home base, an almost non-existent budget for modernization and rebellion from all sides of the political spectrum.
The long search for political harmony and peace in a deeply divided cultural territory has eluded this country for decades. The Filipino soldier is caught in the crossfire not only in the raging guerrilla war but also in the unchartered milieu of a greatly changed world order.
But the world’s oldest military treatise defined long ago the strategy for doing battle in difficult ground: "Mountain forests, rugged steeps, marshes and fens–all country that is hard to traverse: this is difficult ground. In difficult ground, keep steadily on the march," Sun Tzu wrote.
But "keeping steady" may yet be the Philippine military’s greatest challenge against the influx of change that is sweeping the world. One thing is certain: the military, steeped in tradition as it were, will benefit from new knowledge and fresh views from the outside world to help it understand its role in today’s society and find its voice in the national narrative.
In 2000, the highest echelons of command decided that for the country’s future military leaders, it’s time to go out of the barracks.
Col. Eduardo SL Oban Jr., executive officer at the Office of the Assistant Chief of Air Staff for Operations at the Philippine Air Force headquarters, got a call from the AFP Educational Benefits Systems Office (AFP-EBSO) to prepare for an interview with a military panel who will chose the initial batch of scholars of a newly formed foundation.
Col. Oban, then stationed at the 5th Fighter Wing in Floridablanca, Pampanga, was in Manila for a brief visit and had to wear a barong tagalog instead of full military uniform to the interview.
From a shortlist of 10 other interviewees considered for the scholarship, Col. Oban made it, along with two other officers from the Army and the Navy.
It turned out that the scholarship was from the Sapientes Milites Foundation, an organization that provides grants and scholarships to members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and their dependents.
What followed, he reveals, was a rigorous 11-month course called the Strategic Business Economics Program (SBEP) at the University of the Asia and the Pacific (UA&P).
"It’s a course giving us perspective on both business and economics, which is very different from my orientation in the Armed Forces. But I picked up many concepts, particularly in management, that would really be applicable in the military," he says of the program, which leads to a Master’s degree in Business Administration. Graduates are given two years to finish their theses after completing the academic requirements.
Business school for an Air Force officer? "My schooling and training in the past were purely under a military environment, both locally and abroad. The SBEP is an entirely different experience," he admits.
Col. Oban, who graduated seventh in a class of 129 from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in 1979, is a trained pilot. Aside from regular pilot training in the Air Force after graduation, he attended a flight safety officers’ course at the USAF Safety Agency in the US, an International Defense Management Course at the Naval Post Graduate School in California and the Pacific Air Power Workshop in Guam.
"It’s very structured in a military school, including the manner in which things go inside the classroom. Even our statements are structured such that there is a way to ask questions, to answer questions coming from a professor," he relates. "In the SBEP program, everybody talks spontaneously and I really enjoyed interacting with my civilian classmates from various disciplines."
But it’s more about adapting to a new environment, he stresses. And as he made his way through talks and discussions on macroeconomics and microeconomics, he began to see how the economy and the nation work.
"It’s nice to learn about business. I would say that the Armed Forces is also in business–our business is service and the customer is the Filipino people or the nation. That’s how I relate the concept. We can actually enhance our service to the nation, for example, by striving to increase the productivity of our people, giving them the right training, incentives, morale and welfare, or just the way businesses treat their human capital," he explains. Col. Oban’s thesis is entitled "Strategic Options for the Armed Forces Modernization".
"For one, it is very relevant because we are developing our capability. We started in 1995 but we haven’t felt the modernization yet. But with this capability development, we will be in a better position to improve our services. My study is to offer strategic options for this modernization campaign," he explains.
What Col. Oban was not be aware of at the time he was chosen as a Sapientes Milites scholar was that the scholarship grant is strictly invitational; applications are not entertained. Each year, AFP-EBSO comes up with a shortlist of 20 enlisted officers who will be sent to the UA&P program.
The vision, according to Commander Wenefredo Banua, general manager of AFP-EBSO and himself a former scholar, is to develop officers who will later become chief of staff or commanders of the major services.
"With the deputy chief for personnel (J1) and with the participation of the AFP-EBSO (as the secretariat), we look at the list of all majors and lieutenant colonels in the service, both active and reserve. We find out who among them have the potential for future leadership. We look at their resume–military schooling, awards and decorations, assignments, responsible staff positions," he shares.
Sapientes Milites, which means "soldier as scholar" or "intellectual warrior", is the brainchild of now Local Government Secretary Angelo Reyes during his stint as AFP chief of staff. Cmdr. Banua reveals that the seed fund of P4 million came from the Presidential Social Fund. However, since the program started in 2001, other funding sources have been tapped to support the program. Personal donations, fund raising campaigns and the assistance of the UA&P School of Management itself have kept the program alive.
To date, 12 enlisted officers from the three major service branches of the Armed Forces have finished the coursework of the SBEP program; five more are currently enrolled in the course. Other schools have also opened their doors to Sapientes Milites scholars like the Ateneo Graduate School of Business.
Cmdr. Banua reveals that a large percentage of enlisted officers are eager to avail of opportunities for higher studies, but limited funding at the moment prevents them from supporting more scholars not only in the sbep program but in other fields of specialization as well.
In teaching military men the rudiments of business, the foundation hopes to broaden the perspective of the military and give them a good grasp of the economic environment.
"When we confront the insurgency, we look at it as a military problem requiring a military solution. But of course it is not. There are political, economic and social factors that need to be taken into consideration," Cmdr. Banua says. "With the SBEP program, your military knowledge will be enriched, deepened and broadened."
Cmdr. Banua shares that before taking the SBEP, he looked at military performance indicators in terms of body counts or number of firearms recovered from the enemy. But now, he has developed the habit of looking at the human development index as well–education, jobs created, businesses established–which all relates to the economic aspect.
"The economic situation is always a big factor in the insurgency problem. They say that peace precedes development, but in some countries, development precedes peace. In Malaysia, when their economy improved, insurgency just died a natural death," he says.
Col. Vicente Yordan, of the 51st Engineering Brigade of the Philippine Army, agrees.
"My idea in light of our internal security problem is that it is no longer necessary to go out and fight. Send more troops of engineers to areas of conflict–not to fire guns at the enemy but to develop the countryside," he volunteeres.
"The benefits are numerous. First, if you develop the road network, the insurgents will have no place to hide. Second, it will also make it easy for people in the hinterlands to seek help from the authorities. And thirdly, by constructing farm-to-market roads, you develop the economy and the people’s means to transport their products and enliven the countryside," he explains, citing the case of Thailand where the government embarked on a massive infrastructure building project back in the ’70s and ’80s.
Col. Yordan, who was the first scholar of the Sapientes Milites Foundation when it debuted in 2001, says that the Philippine Army has five engineering brigades which can be utilized not in waging war but in promoting peace. "It is important to realize that peace and order are important in economic development and the military’s role in the government effort to achieve self-sufficiency is huge," he says.
Col. Yordan relates that the best lesson he learned from SBEP is critical thinking. "In an organization, you always have to ask: Am I efficient? Am I contributing to the overall goals of the organization? Is this important to national development? (These are) the very questions that the military has to ask itself in order to be responsive to the needs of the Filipino people that it serves."
He has a valid point. In refurbishing the old Customs building in Cebu City to serve as President Arroyo’s headquarters in the Visayas or the so-called "Malacañang of the South", the Army’s engineering brigade did the work for free.
In rebuilding Camp Abubakar, the former stronghold of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the engineering brigade–particularly the 52nd, 55th and 54th battalions–was deployed to help the Department of Public Works and Highways implement the infrastructure projects.
Currently, Col. Yordan is also working on his thesis entitled "Development Strategy Solutions for Internal Security Projects" while Comdr. Banua, who also holds a Master of Applied Finance degree from Melbourne, Australia, is working on the "Strategic Development Plan for the Educational Benefits and Systems Office".
Learning finance and economics, Cmdr. Banua admits, was literally a backbreaking and mind-bending experience for a military officer like him with no backround in business. But he is happy that national development and nation building, strategy, economics and management are now integrated into the curriculum of the PMA.
With the seemingly insurmountable problems of the Philippine military, these three military officers can provide fresh inputs to a military institution that is struggling under the weight of tradition and help find strategic solutions to the country’s never-ending quest for peace and development.
The peace path taken by these three rising military officers and other "soldier-scholars" like them could prove to be the path of highest excellence that our country must take to get to our goal of a strong and progressive nation for all Filipinos.