Incoming AFP chief vows to initiate more SSR, fulfill military's constitutional mandate

From the Philippine News Agency (Jan 16): Incoming AFP chief vows to initiate more SSR, fulfill military's constitutional mandate

With his appointment as Armed Forces chief-of-staff, Lt. Gen. Emmanuel Bautista has vowed to initiate more security sector reforms (SSR) and do everything in his authority to fulfill the military's constitutional mandate. He said that SSR, under the broadest of contexts, is the effort to make the AFP more efficient, transparent, and more oriented in participation in community development - the basic precepts of Internal Peace and Security Plan "Bayanihan", the military's ongoing solution to armed insurgency in the Philippines.

Bautista also added his appointment as AFP chief will give him more authority and leeway to implement "Bayanihan". He added this is because the AFP chief is considered the operational post, unlike his former job as Army chief which is only limited in nature as he is only assigned to provide the needed force requirements to implement the program. "I will (now) have a direct hand in the implementation of 'Bayanihan'," Bautista stressed.

Under "Bayanihan" the military, with assistance of civilian stakeholders, must win the peace through community development works and other peaceful pursuits by 2016. Bautista said the results seem very satisfactory so far as proven by the signing of the Framework Agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front last October. He added he is hoping the New People's Army will be an inconsequential force by the end of his term in 2014.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=&sid=&nid=&rid=487999