Rep. Erico C. Aristotle Aumentado revealed this recently in his speech before the uniformed men and women, as well as guests, of the Philippine Army’s 703rd Infantry “Agila” Brigade during its 29th founding anniversary at its headquarters in Barangay Calaanan, Bongabon town in Nueva Ecija.
Aumentado was invited by newly promoted Brig. Gen. Abraham Claro Casis, brigade commander, to tell Bohol’s formula for its success story, particularly the declaration of Bohol in 2010 as insurgency-free province.
Aumentado said that, for three decades, Bohol was a member of Club 20—the country’s 20 poorest provinces. When his namesake father, former Gov. and immediate congressional predecessor Erico Boyles Aumentado first assumed the governorship on June 30, 2001, Bohol was no. 16 of Club 20.
This made the marginalized Boholanos vulnerable to the sweet talk of a better life promised by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF), he said.
Because the NPA bore arms, the government troops led by then-Col. Juanito Gomez of the 302nd Brigade based in Katipunan, Carmen town, confronted them in combat. Under the brigade’s operational control was the Sixth Special Forces Battalion under then-Maj. Casis.
The SFs were primarily trained in both unconventional warfare operations and psychological-warfare operations, and also in the art of counterinsurgency
(COIN) operations.
Then-Major Ronnie Evangelista, Casis’s predecessor, blazed the COIN trail in Bohol, but it was in Gomez’s and Casis’s time that the troops crushed the rebels big time.
Former rebels or kanhi rebels admitted that they were promised tracks of land to till, medicine for various ailments of family members, fishing gear for fishermen and support services—in short, the “better life.”
Aumentado said Bohol’s approach was two-pronged. Quoting Gomez, he said the right hand was the military’s combat, but the left hand was civilian government-led health and social services and livelihood support.
This earned the attention of the national government so that then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued an Administrative Order adopting Bohol’s Poverty Reduction for Peace and Development as template for other regions to emulate.
The senior Aumentado had tapped the churches of different denominations, non-governmental organizations, civil-society organizations, the business sector, academe, the media and the whole gamut of the private sector as partners and collaborators against the evils of communism.
He created Team Bohol and the Local Peace Forum, with then-Bishop Leopoldo Tumulak as cochair, to be the umbrella organization for pooled efforts to work toward a culture of peace.
By 2005 the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) had plucked Bohol out from Club 20. Bohol was named as the no.2 best-performing province in poverty alleviation.
From the military’s count of 283 armed rebels in 2001, the number dropped to only 64 in 2005 and still decreasing. This led to the transfer of the rebel base in Bohol to Leyte.
Following mopping-up operations, the 8th Infantry “Storm Troopers” Division under then Maj. Gen. Arthur Tabaquero, then-Chief Supt. Lani-o Nerez, Police Regional Office 7 director, declared Bohol as insurgency-free on February 10, 2010.
Then, the military transferred the responsibility of internal security operations to the police.