Filipino Military Leadership Reference Guide AFPLDC - 1648773485

FILIPINO MILITARY LEADERSHIP
Reference Guide
1st Edition 
COPYRIGHT
Published December 2019 by the Armed Forces of the Philippines

Leadership Development Center (AFPLDC) with funding support
from The Asia Foundation (TAF).
The contents of this reference guide were based on literature

reviews, interviews, and focus group discussions. Appropriate
permission for printing was obtained from the concerned
individuals.
Reproduction of this document is permitted provided due

acknowledgment is given to the publisher.
The opinions expressed in this reference guide are those of the

interviewees and respondents and do not necessarily reflect the
views of the AFP.
Armed Forces of the Philippines Leadership Development

Center
Telephone Nos.: (+639)153-431-559

Website: afpldc-kms.mil.ph
Cover Design: Ms. Gari A. Acolola

Photos: Mr. Munj Mukaram
Printing: MANILA BULLETIN PUBLISHING CORPORATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our deep gratitude goes to The Asia Foundation, represented by

Mr. Sam Chittick, the Center for Family Ministries’ (CEFAM)
President, Mr. Jacinto “Titong” Gavino” Jr., DPA, and Office of the
Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) Secretary
Carlito C. Galvez for supporting the realization of this effort through
their invaluable insights and thorough guidance that gave this
reference guide its form and deeper purpose.
The assistance provided by Ms. Maria Teresa Romelyn G. Fabugais

in ways one could not imagine paved the way to the simultaneous
conduct of focus group discussions (FGDs) in the Mindanao area
that widened the scope of this effort through the time dedicated by
Ms. Miriam “Dedette” L. Suacito, Ms. Bai Sittie Jehanne U. Mutin,
and Ms. Maria Luz V. Go.
We are equally thankful to these individuals who dedicated their

time in imparting their knowledge and sharing their experiences
from their various fields of expertise: AFP Chief of Staff GENERAL
NOEL S CLEMENT AFP,LTGEN MACAIROG S ALBERTO AFP,
LTGEN ROZZANO D BRIGUEZ AFP, VADM ROBERT A
EMPEDRAD AFP, RADM ADELUIS S BORDADO AFP, BGEN
FERDINAND JOSE G RIVERA AFP, COL AUGUSTO V GAITE PAF
(GSC), Dr. Ronnie V. Amorado, Dr. Temario C. Rivera, Dr. Segundo
Romero, Dr. Gregorio E.H. Del Pilar, Atty. Engelbert C. Caronan
Jr., Dr. Lizan E. Perante-Calina, Ms. Alyn Baltazar, Prof. Ceejay
Calara, and Cong. Jericho Jonas “Koko” Nograles.
Mr. Donn David Ramos did research and hard work in writing and
reorganizing the content of this reference guide. Similarly, the
valuable contributions of AFPLDC’s Director, COL ROMULO D
QUEMADO II PN (M) (GSC), and Ms. Ma. Louella Duarte of the
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Department of Foreign Affairs provided the culture-fit and context-
driven approach of this written output making it much more worth
reading.
Prof. Josephine Codilla patiently copy-edited the manuscript, and

P2LT MA MELISSA B. BO PROF copyread and organized the
reference guide. Ms. Katline Tolosa and Ms. Jerrah Anglo assisted
in many ways from the drafting up to the printing of this reference
guide. Mr. Munj Mukaram shared the photos used in the contents,
and Ms. Gari A. Acolola did the creative layout for the overall
presentation of this reference guide.
The AFPLDC personnel have provided all the needed

administrative support.
To all the people who contributed by all means to this Center’s

initiative, this reference guide would not have been possible without
all of you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments…..……………………………….……………..… 1
Key Messages……………………………………………….………..… 5
List of Abbreviations……………………………………………….. 10
Foreword…………………………………………………..……….…… 11
Leadership Development in the AFP…………………………. 15
Leadership Development Strategy……………….………..…. 25
Leadership Development Model………………….………..…. 27
AFP Leadership Development  
Frameworks ………………………………………………………..…. 33
AFP Leadership Development Plan………………..……..…. 70
Filipino Military Leadership………………………………..…… 86
Character, Competence, and Capacity………………………..
Culture and Leadership……………………………….……..….. 128
Toward an Initial Exploration
of Filipino Military Leadership……………………………….. 177
Afterword…………………………………………………………….. 213
Bibliography………………………………………………………… 221
References and Further Readings.……………….……..….. 229
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CHIEF OF STAFF
Armed Forces of the Philippines
Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo, Quezon City
AFP Vision 2028:  

A World-Class Armed Forces, Source of National Pride
Message
On behalf of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the

Philippines, I convey my warmest felicitation to the Officers,
Enlisted Personnel, and Civilian Human Resource of the AFP
Leadership Development Center (AFPLDC) on the celebration of
your 1st founding anniversary. Highlighting your celebration is the
publication of the “Filipino Military Leadership Reference
Guide” that showcases the aptitudes and innate leadership
potentials of every soldier, airman, sailor, and marines as aptly
described in your theme of “Bringing out the Best in Filipino
Leadership.”
Written by contributors from various fields of expertise who are

well-capacitated on realizing this laudable effort of the Center, the
reference guide highlights the leadership theories and approaches
viewed through the lens of Filipino military leaders, and
theexperiences and the contributions of key stakeholders in the
functional and mission areas of the AFP. This enabled a deeper
understanding of leadership in the Philippine context. As Chief of
Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, I cannot
overemphasize the importance of this written manual that is
envisioned as the “Mother Doctrine” of all AFP Leadership
Development Centers and that would contribute to the growth and
proficiency of the organization. I also hope that this book would
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help produce leaders who will carry out our vision of “A World-
Class Armed Forces, Source of National Pride”.
With that said, in the true spirit of peace, national solidarity, and
social progress, I once again extend my sincerest congratulations to
the AFP Leadership Development Center on the occasion of its 1st
year anniversary and for publishing the “Filipino Military
Leadership Reference Guide.” This is another commendable
effort of a relatively young unit envisioning itself to become the
center for Filipino Leadership Excellence.
Mabuhay kayong lahat!
NOEL S CLEMENT AFP

Chief of Staff
!7
COMMANDER
Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo, Quezon City
AFP Vision 2028:  

A World-Class Armed Forces, Source of National Pride
Message
On November 26, 2018, the birth of the AFP Leadership

Development Center (AFPLDC) under its mother unit, the
AFPETDC, paved the way for the realization of the decades-long
aspiration of putting a premium on the importance of leadership in
the organization through the creation of a specialized office. The
activation of the Center lived up to the call of the contemporary
Philippine society, marked by an ever-changing and highly dynamic
interplay of several factors in the political, economic, historical, and
socio-cultural contexts, which all shape and contribute to the
leadership approaches of military leaders in the organization.
The Filipino Military Leadership Reference Guide fosters a

culture-sensitive approach on leadership in the AFP. This provides
a rare glimpse of a much deeper contemplation on Filipino Military
Leadership as an active effort to address the underrated discussions
on the topic fully admitting and accepting the reality of
predominantly Western based leadership theories and approaches
prevailing in the country.
The laudable contributions made by the seasoned retired professor,

Mr. Jacinto C. Gavino Jr., DPA , provided a critical and constructive
outlook on the realization of a culture-fit leadership approach
imbibed in this reference guide. In particular, the Filipino core
value of “malasakit" extends beyond the four corners of the home
by likewise exemplifying them in the AFP’s ethic. Unlike many
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others who view leadership in a nutshell of generalizations and
universality, this reference guide was written with competence and
pride undergoing a purposive process of research, critical thinking,
and methodology to capture the uniqueness of being a Filipino
Military Leader.
This thought-provoking work carries with it a deeper sense of

purpose beyond its intended scope. It becomes a testament to the
conscious effort of "Bringing out the Best in Filipino Leadership”
which is the living doctrine of the Center. Lessons learned from the
experiences of military and public leaders, in strengthening
stakeholders’ engagement, and of the undying commitment to
public service of AFPETDC, through AFPLDC, would definitely
advance our national identity as a Filipino people.
As the Commander of the AFP Education, Training, and Doctrine

Command, I would like to congratulate AFPLDC and all those
involved in this commendable effort of successfully launching
theFilipino Military Leadership Reference Guide in its 1st year
anniversary. May the Lord God continue to bless our beloved
country. Mabuhay!
RADM ADELUIS S BORDADO AFP

Rear Admiral
AFPETDC
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AETDC Air Education, Training, and Doctrine

Command
AFIG Air Force Inspector General
AFP Armed Forces of the Philippines
AFPETDC AFP Education, Training, and Doctrine
Command
AFPLDC AFP Leadership Development Center
AFPTR AFP Transformation Roadmap
ALDEC Army Leadership Development and
Education Center
CHR Civil Human Resource
CLPE Center for Leadership and Professional
Excellence
CPASC Civilian Personnel Advance Supervisory
Course
CPBSC Civilian Personnel Basic Supervisory Course
D-VUCAD Disruptive, Volatile, Uncertain, Complex,
Ambiguous, Diverse
EDLAs Enlisted Desired Leader Attributes
EPLDF Enlisted Personnel Leader Development
Framework
FFM Five-Factor Model
GHQ General Headquarters
IMET International Military Education & Training
ISO Internal Security Operations
LOE Line of Effort
MCCLE Marine Corps Center for Leadership
Excellence
MNSA Master in National Security Administration
NCO Non-Commissioned Officer
NDA National Defence Act
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NDCP National Defence College of the Philippines
OODA Observe-Orient-Decide-Act
PA Philippine Army
PAF Philippine Air Force
PN Philippine Navy
PMA Philippine Military Academy
PME Philippine Military Education
SEL Senior Enlisted Leaders
SM Sergeant-Major
VUCAD Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity,
Ambiguity, and Disruption
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FOREWORD
W elcome to the Filipino Military Leadership Reference Guide!
This Reference Guide aims to provide an overview of leadership

theories and principles based on the experience of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Our intention is to provide an
initial review of the history and traditions that underpin leadership
practice in the AFP, outline a number of contemporary theories and
methods and their relevance to Filipino military leadership, and
explore some of the challenges that may lie ahead for current and
would-be leaders in the AFP. While any reference book seeks to be
comprehensive, this material offers a perspective based on an
insider’s military viewpoint as it interacts with external
stakeholders’ needs and interests. The authors encourage the
readers to dip in and out of Filipino Military Leadership, looking at
any section, leadership theory, issue, or topic that particularly
captures their interest.
Our initial goal was to put together a material that recognizes and
celebrates the diversity of military leadership practice in the AFP.
This is largely based on existing texts and related literature, as well
as on the experiences and expertise of current military leaders who
were interviewed for the purpose of this reference guide. The key
informants come from different services and have diverse
leadership experiences. Inevitably, while acknowledging that this
Reference Guide is limited in content yet wide in coverage, we
recognize that we will not be able to capture the developing,
emerging, and ever-changing domain in its entirety.
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Structure of the Reference Guide
The content of this guide carries the indelible mark of being a

Filipino military leader from different vantage points. The first few
sections of the book deals with Filipino Military Leadership in the
context of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Dealing with Leadership Development in the Armed Forces

of the Philippines, the first section discusses the conceptual and
practical task of the guide. It should be pointed out that the
leadership development discussed here are necessarily entwined
with the substantive aspects of the operations of the AFP as well as
what is presented in the guide.
The AFP Leadership Frameworks are illustrative of the

different efforts within the AFP and AFPLDC on how leadership
development is viewed and practiced. These are also situated based
on the hierarchical structure of the institutions and constitutive of
the leaders’ manifest and unintended functions.
Filipino Military Leadership focuses on how this is practiced

and demonstrated in different internal and external contexts. It
highlights principles, tools, and other conceptual scaffolding of the
said topic. It also offers propositions that serve as potential guides
or alternatives in terms of leadership processes and practice. The
discussions in this section resonate with many other aspects
discussed in other sections in this guide which further explain the
linkages therein.
Lastly, the last section focuses on the preliminary results of the key
informant interviews and focus group discussions. This
concentrates on the research subjects’ views on Filipino military
leadership as well as on the socio-cultural dimensions of Filipino
Military Leadership. The study still seeks to capture other facets of
leadership resulting in the need for a more comprehensive research
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on the application of Filipino military leadership in various contexts
across the different major services.
This is an initial attempt to contribute to military leadership

literature in general and to Filipino leadership literature in
particular through a presentation of how leadership is practiced in
the AFP. The intent is not to give a comprehensive review of all
theories, principles, and practice, but to initially document what has
so far been done in the field, thereby serving as an input for the
development of future materials such as a Filipino Military
Leadership Handbook, a Filipino Military Leadership Case Manual,
or other tools and resources needed for leadership development in
the AFP.
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LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN THE ARMED
FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES
“Ang pagsusumikap at pagpipilit na kumita ng ikakabuhay ay

nagpapahayag ng tunay na pagmamahal sa sarili, sa asawa,
anak, kapatid, at kababayan.” - Andres Bonifacio
AFP Leadership Development
O ur Defense Force is like no other. Tasked to quash three major
internal threat groups, it must also help in speeding up the

demobilization of 40,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) fighters and is also positively engaged with the Moro
National Liberation Front (MNLF) to help attain a final closure to
peace talks. It also helps implement a decisive Whole-of-
Government campaign for localized peace initiatives for the CPP-
NDF-NPA. For all of these, it must rely upon key agencies of
government and the Filipino people in general, and at any point in
time must be able to effectively respond to various contingencies
both natural and human-induced.
Ours, too, is a vast archipelagic space. Of 7,641 islands, only about

2000 are uninhabited. There are also 16 major sealanes, a contested
vast Western maritime zone, and a porous Southern border. To top
it all, we have a vast 13 —million square kilometer expanse of the
promising Philippine Rise making our hands fuller now more than
ever in terms of protecting what is ours. For many years, the
colonial forces controlled us by making us think not only colonial
but also insular as if to deprive us of the right to go beyond our
shores and discover our genuine significance as a maritime nation.
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Our maritime treasures, combined with our ever-challenging
internal security realities relative to food security, energy, health,
and every human security indicator, can in a blink of an eye present
themselves as simultaneous flashing red bulbs. One wonders how
the Filipino Military Leader is able to overcome these challenges.
These competing defense and security priorities call for the best in
us, Filipino leaders. Our resilience has kept us relevant and
responsive, despite the odds we face. It is the same characteristics
that have kept us steady in our moral compass to pursue our core
purpose as a constitutionalist defense force.
The AFP puts premium both on its manpower and leadership. It

considers its leaders and their development as both crucial to the
human capital development agenda. We have seen how some of our
leaders failed partly because our institutions have also failed in
successfully implementing the leadership development programs
meant to equip them.
Leadership Development must, therefore, be our core

organizational interest. We pursue it with the future of our
organization in mind and the past as a perpetual reminder that we
must never give up. Our history, our current realities, and our
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meaningful pursuit of a better future have continued to shape the
mettle of our Filipino Military Leaders — as examples and as
exemplars (halimbawa). Indeed, Filipino Military Leaders journey
like no other. The context is rich, the experience distinctive, the
lessons, gold.
Our nation asks us to bring out the best in the Filipino and to
develop the core of leaders — of men and women who shall lead
honorably, serve selflessly, and exemplify patriotism as a way of life.
To accomplish this, each member navigates through the AFP

Leadership Development System which is our integrated scheme for
individual leader and leadership development. All must fit within
the finest Filipino strategic culture and incrementally progress with
self-mastery.
As inculcated in the AFP Transformation Roadmap (AFPTR), the

core values of the organization demand from the members not only
competencies but also principled decisions aligned with ethical
standards and a distinct ethos for all its leaders. The profession of
arms as a noble calling is governed by a commonly-held belief
system containing non-negotiable enduring AFP core values of
honor, service, and patriotism.
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Our desired output is to form a world-class leadership core for the
Armed Forces of the Philippines. They must be leaders of character,
competence, and capacity. These three attributes also serve as the
AFP’s major pillars for leadership development. The AFP Leader
Development Framework is founded upon the AFP Core Values.
Our Core values and the desired output are interconnected and
must be ingrained in every AFP leader’s mindset (isip), word
(salita), and operant behavior (gawa).
Our desired outcome is for the AFP leadership core to be exemplars

in their respective fields of expertise and service, bringing out the
best in the Filipino, and serving as inspiration (inspirasyon) for
national solidarity, sacrifice, and hope. Co-creating alternative
platforms for conversations in attaining shared social outcomes will
be the trademark of every Filipino Military Leader. Warfighting
(pakikipaglaban) remains their core competency while lifelong
nation-building (pakikipag kapwa-tao) will be central to his
strategic foresight. With this, they are seen as significant global
citizens in a continuous journey for higher and meaningful
outcomes.
The most effective organizations have been in the practice of

aligning leadership development to culture, context, strategy and
vision. This is also our axis of advance.
Key Features
When we imagine our truly world-class leaders—those consistently

at the top of the pack, victorious in their most challenging contests
—we see that they embody essential qualities. In this reference
guide, we outline how the AFP will develop its leaders to
demonstrate operational excellence, strong character, and resilience
at every level of seniority. The foundational specifics of leader
development will be shaped by the major services to be consistent
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with the AFP Leadership Framework, but the concepts discussed
herein shall apply to the entire Team AFP.
In as much as we want to have our own homegrown Filipino

Military Leadership Development Model and Framework, we also
had to consider tools and approaches from various leadership
scholars, such as Otto Scharmer, Peter Senge, and Adam Kahane,
contextualized and integrated into an appropriate leadership
approach in addressing an inequity/divide and challenges for a
more effective response. Following are their short descriptions and
how these were introduced in the typical AFP Leadership module:
1. Filipino Military Leadership and Warrior Ethos. The

foundations of both are grounded in history, culture, and the
Constitution. The Warrior Ethos embodies certain virtues
such as courage, honor, loyalty, integrity, selflessness — that
most warrior societies believe must be inculcated from birth.
The leadership requirements of the military are based on the
nation’s democratic principles, core values, institutional and
national vision, and Filipino standards of excellence.
Filipino warfighting and combat leadership, as they unfold
in a historical discourse, provides the reference and evolving
standard of Filipino military leadership. While the AFP
acknowledges the role of doctrine and time-proven
standards, it also remains to be adaptive and dynamic in
order to be on top of the profession of arms. Variations of
this can further be broken down to service warrior ethos
unique to the Philippine Army, Airforce, Navy, and Marines.
2. Inclusivity. Core Leadership in this sense involves all the

AFP Officers, Enlisted Personnel, Reservists, including AFP
Civilian Employees or Civilian Human Resource. While the
Officers serve as the command and control nodes, the NCOs
and EPs serve as the backbone and stewards of unit culture.
The Reservists serve as second liners but more so, as sources
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of game-changing ideas. The Civilian Employees serve as the
institutional knowledge of the organization and provide
complementing leadership for the rank and file civilian
employees
3. Ethical Leadership and Climate. Premium is

deliberately placed on professional ethics and service ethos,
both as essential inputs to leaders’ development and in
building unit culture.
4. Educational Philosophy. New emphasis is given to self-

directed learning which is now an individual responsibility
and must be inculcated toward an institutionalized adult
learning environment. In line with this, experiential learning
is given premium over classroom lectures. This time around,
multi-disciplinary learning is given more emphasis if only to
influence creative and critical thinking, among others.
5. Creativity and Compliance. A fully-developed approach
to leadership must recognize the value and balance of both
compliance and creativity. While operational creativity can
often be seen in opposition to procedural compliance, still,
they should reinforce one another. Compliance precedes
then leads to creativity. Discussions in this document factors
in this important aspect.
6. Eclectic Approach. The overall prescription is towards an

Eclectic Leadership Approach which combines leadership
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approaches based on shifting and emerging realities. It
openly encourages the practitioner to learn all available
leadership theories and approaches and provides the tools
that can be combined and/or modified to best address the
variables at hand. This shall include discussions on the need
to review the AFPLDC’s existing leadership assessment
system.
7. Commitment to Lifelong Learning. Renewed emphasis

is given to this very important discipline. Attaining
progressive and deepening knowledge presents better
opportunities for individual leadership development. The
process may include, but is not limited to, completing a
professional reading list such as travel, study, cross
discipline studies, and pinnacle studies.
8. C o a c h i n g a n d M e n t o r i n g ( P a g - a a l a l a y a t
Paggabay). Coaches and trainers develop operational
habits and skills through “sets and reps”—drills and routines
that perfect habits. Mentors do all these and more, in a way
that is more personal and involved, and of longer term. This
special connection helps protégés develop competency and
character. Mentors probe deeply into their protégés’
strengths and weaknesses, challenging them to be more
well-rounded and ever better. Advocacy activity moves
mentorship into the public sphere. By advocating for our
protégés, we move into action. We scan the environment for
professional opportunities (projects, jobs, workshops) for
which our protégés would be well matched—where they
would do well and also grow.
9. Multi-Stakeholder Approach (Bayanihan). This

document espouses multi-stakeholder approaches, culture-
fit ways, and practical means leading to meaningful social
shared outcomes. Bridging leadership (BL) application is our
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way of putting into action the concept of whole-of-nation
effort across all the mission areas of the AFP. The Filipino
brand in BL is indeed unique, as Bayanihan is our natural
way of collective action through co-ownership. Likewise,
Barangayan or Kape-Kapehan are indigenous ways of
physically gathering together in a face-to-face interaction
and working for genuine consensus. BL practitioners in the
military have observed these and have adopted the BL
framework as a time-tested approach for successful civil-
military relations. This includes bringing together different
stakeholders through engagements (pakikisalamuha) who
have different powers and interests in the situation for
collective learning, decision-making, innovation, and action
(Woodhill, 2004).
10. Public Service and Public Leadership. Filipino leaders

consider public service and support to good governance as
incremental experience as they climb toward their career
paths. Being exposed to the public at different levels is a
profound experience and presents opportunities for
connections and innate challenges as well. When we deepen
and expand our connections, we learn faster and build the
resilience that leads to toughness. Being a member of the
Armed Forces is in itself public leadership in as much as one
presents oneself as a role model for citizenship. It also
includes the role of the AFP in promoting, influencing, and
delivering improved public value as evidenced by sustained
national peace and stability within an ever-changing and
complex security environment. The sphere of public
leadership increases as one moves up the levels of leadership
and expands the leader’s domain of influence and exposure.
11. Multi-Disciplinary Solutions. Leadership Development

must be fused and aligned with Culture, Warfighting,
Leadership Development, Strategy, and Goals. In order to
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achieve this alignment, Filipino Military Leaders must learn
to network and work with other professionals. The strategic
partnership is key to mass collaboration as we aim to attain
asymmetric advantage versus the challenges that we face
given our limited capabilities. Emphasis is not only limited
to expanding the partnership but to ensuring that the
dynamic network is sustained across transitions.
12. Self-Mastery (Loob). It is a discipline of gaining a special

level of proficiency (Senge, 1998), continually clarifying and
deepening of personal vision in alignment with professional
direction and mission. This is the “Loob” in Tagalog or
“Buot” in Bisaya and “Nakem” in Ilokano, that is, the will
that is always directed towards something, or towards other
people (kapwa).
13. Dialogue. It is the discipline of recognizing the patterns of

interaction among individuals and groups of people that
may hinder learning. This is suspending assumptions and
being receptive to collective thinking and learning and, to
the Filipino, a way of engaging with different stakeholders in
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a genuine conversation. This discipline is quite challenging
but is critical in addressing an inequity.
14. Appreciative Inquiry (Kagandahang-Loob) (Reyes,

2015). It is a strategy that inspires positive change, dreams,
and possibilities by identifying strengths, source of passion,
and “life-giving” forces that are found in a system. As
Filipinos, we always find what is good in others and in a
situation, and what inspires us gives us life.  
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LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
"My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to the country

begins.” ~ Manuel L. Quezon
Ends
T he AFP wants its Core Leaders to have the character,
competence, and capacity to successfully accomplish their mandate

to protect the Filipino people and the sovereignty of the State.
The AFP strives to have leaders who are not only prepared for their
current position, but are preparing for their progressive
responsibilities as well, as military professionals or later as public
servants and model citizens.
Ways
Central to this strategy is that leaders at all levels understand their

responsibility for continually developing other leaders within a
culture of leadership.
Lines of Effort
• Leadership Program Development Integration
• Multi-Disciplinary Engagement
• Training and Capacity Building
• Awareness and Advocacy
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Means
People and talent, time, publications, financial resources,

stakeholder support, knowledge management system, research
agenda, plans, programs and activities, assessment, and feedback
mechanism are integrated in the AFPLDC’s nine-year Plan. The
most effective organizations have been in the practice of aligning
leadership development to culture, context, strategy, and vision.
This is how AFPLDC also wants it to be.
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LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT MODEL
"The Filipino Is Worth Dying For” - Ninoy Aquino
T he AFP Leadership Model presents the fundamentals in
Leadership Development and may serve as a guide to the

curriculum design of AFP units in particular and Professional
Military Education (PME) in general.
It is composed of three major components — the 3-Step Base, 3

Pillars, and the Roof. All components are interconnected,
sequential, and progressively arranged.
The first base level of the model presents the overall AFP
Leadership Development effort as an integral part of the national
military strategy, command guidance, and other related standing
policies. On the second base level are the contextual inputs that
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follow based on current realities both internal and external. On the
third base level is the desired alignment of culture, warfighting,
strategy, and goals. The three bases serve as foundational inputs to
leadership development and have a profound influence over the
professional growth of the Filipino Military Leader.
The three pillars serve as the primary lanes for education, training,
and experience.
The 1st Pillar is about institutional training and education, a formal

knowledge transfer whereby the learner gets to engage with Subject
Matter Experts (SMEs) in a controlled learning environment. This
includes Professional Military Education and specialized training
opportunities. It carries the functionalist perspective of
incrementally building upon standard competencies. The
functionalist perspective embraced by this pillar envisions the
military profession as tied to an institution that is dedicated to
standardization.
The 2nd Pillar complementing the first is about field operational

assignments where one can further expand learning through actual
experience. Opportunities to serve in various areas of assignment
provide unique field exposures where the Filipino Military Leader
can apply learnings and further hone academic solutions into
pragmatic and nuanced applications. Here, lessons learned become
a critical part of stock knowledge.
The 3rd Pillar is more of self-directed learning and self-mastery. It

provides the opportunity to further hone knowledge in an adult
learning approach. It is characterized by a reflective practice
associated with the role of being a bricoleur — socially accustomed
to the artful, improvisational, and fluid formations of knowledge.
The reflective military leader is both defiantly provocative and
heftily collaborative while in continuous search for the best
solutions to problems.
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It also optimizes one’s overall cognitive growth through initiative
and an innate taste for new bodies of knowledge. Reading for new
knowledge is the most practical way to self-learn. Self-initiated
travel or networking in a cross-disciplinary manner opens multiple
learning opportunities to expand one’s network of expert advisers.
The social media presents itself as the most popular source of new
knowledge especially for Filipino Military Leaders whose access to
the internet and various platforms of information exchange is
common practice.
Leadership Development Centers
Armed Forces of the Philippines Leadership

Development Center (AFPLDC). Leadership
Development at the AFP level is centered on
supporting Professional Military Education and
Joint Training & Education. While there is no joint
doctrine on leadership development yet, the AFPLDC has already
helped bring about many initiatives, among which are the
promulgation of the Filipino Military Leadership Module, and
Leadership Development Frameworks for Core Leaders, and raising
the awareness on Leadership Development at the strategic and
organizational levels. Prior to the AFPLDC’s activation, there was
no common AFP framework on leadership development and the
synchronization of leadership programs was fragmented.
Meantime, each branch of service has their independent efforts on
Leadership Development. At the major services level, it is evident in
the existence of distinct leadership modules of each service training
and education system at the major services level. The role of the
AFPLDC is to ensure alignment, synchronization, and coordination
of plans and actions among all leadership centers. Its focus is on
achieving synergy of effort through jointness.
!29
Army Leadership Development and
Education Center (ALDEC). In the
Philippine Army (PA), the effort on leadership
development lies upon the Army Leadership
Development and Education Center. Since its
inception in 2016, it has effectively designed and
promulgated leadership development programs in accordance with
the Army’s peculiar requirements. ALDEC has the following
functions: 1) conducts researches on Army leadership; 2) conducts
seminars, symposia, and forums on Army leadership; 3) trains and
develops competencies of Army leaders; 4) formulates policies on
Army leadership development, and; 5) conducts evaluations on
Army leadership. It has also initiated multi-stakeholder
engagements to support its initiatives particularly on training. The
Philippine Army has published handbooks on Leadership
Development in 2013 which are mainly anchored on the US Army's
"BE-KNOW-DO" framework. Likewise, there had been many
publications on Leadership Development across the years which
retired senior officers published in the form of memoirs.
Air Force Education, Training, and

Doctrine Command (AETDC). The Philippine
Air Force is poised to activate an office under the
Air Education, Training, and Doctrine Command
(AETDC) on leadership development. In close
collaboration with the AFPLDC, this initiative is
gaining positive traction. PAF has also its own Officer's Guide. The
current senior leadership development training activities of
Headquarters Philippine Air Force (HPAF) with the Asian Institute
of Management (AIM) and other key stakeholders are unique and
highly commendable. The PAF OSSM and the Air Force Inspector
General (AFIG) are currently stepping up to immediately establish
their own leadership center.
!30
Center for Naval Leadership Excellence
(CNLE). Similarly, the Philippine Navy (PN) has
its own efforts on Leadership Development. It
has delved mainly on policies to support career
advancement for officers and enlisted personnel.
It has established the Center for Naval Leadership Excellence but is
so far focused more on complying with the AFP Transformation
Roadmap (AFPTR). The current thrust is to establish a separate
leadership center to be placed under the Education, Training, and
Doctrine Command
Marine Corps Center for Leadership

Excellence (MCCLE). The Philippine Marine
Corps (PMC) has activated its own Marine Corps
Center for Leadership Excellence (MCCLE).
Among its many functions are: 1) to conduct
research and development on leader development initiatives
applicable to the PMC; 2) to design new leadership modules and
programs that can be taught to PMC personnel; 3) to assess the
effects of PMC leadership and governance programs and activities
to PMC personnel; and 4) to facilitate/organize forums, seminars,
and other leadership-related activities.
Center for Leadership and Professional

Excellence (CLPE). The Philippine Military
Academy (PMA) has its own Cadet Leadership
Development System (CLDS) which is an
initiative of the Roadmap 2015. The PMA has
exerted efforts in instituting a more comprehensive
and integrated leader development system that will
become the vehicle toward achieving its vision and mission. As part
of the initiatives of the Roadmap 2028 and as an operational level
document, it takes off from the strategic perspectives and bridges
the gap between broad strategic guidance at the institutional level
and the program-based design and execution at the tactical level.
!31
The CLDS is an organizing framework designed to integrate and
synchronize all cadet developmental activities across the entire
PMA experience and gives emphasis on character development and
values formation. 
!32
AFP LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
FRAMEWORKS
“Hindi ako naparito para kalabanin ang

Makapangyarihan kundi humingi ng pagbabago para
sa aking Bayan.” - Marcelo H. Del Pilar
T he AFP leadership development framework articulates the
aspirations of the organization and places priority on the AFP core

values which are essential to all members of the organization.
These core values are the foundation for membership in the
organization and serve as the enduring qualities for anyone who
will take on a leadership role.
The framework emphasizes the mark or quality for an individual

focused on character, aptitude, and the willingness to take on
leadership responsibility. The different levels and domains are also
depicted in the framework.
There is, therefore, a

deliberate effort to build
personal capacities to be able
to focus on individual
leadership development to
lead a bigger organization.
The levels of leader development are also identified in the

framework to establish continuity starting from the foundation and
moving up to the different levels where individuals play leadership
roles. The vision underscores morals and ethics, in addition to
professionalism, which are of utmost importance and are expected
!33
of each and every leader in order to create a world-class armed
forces and a progressive nation.
Vision
The vision highlights the qualities of military experts doing the right
thing, at the right time, and for the right reasons. To be professional
means to have or to aim to acquire the competence and skills to
qualify for the job. To be professional means to be educated and
trained, to observe standards, and to be committed to provide
service. To be ethical means to follow the moral standards of the
profession. Ethical means that the leaders’ morality is reflected in
their willingness to do the right thing even if it is difficult or
dangerous. Ethics are moral values in action which often happens
in the military profession when one must kill to protect others. Such
are requirements that would be of great contribution toward a
world-class Armed Forces.
!34
Mission
!35
Officer Leader Development Framework
The AFP Officer Leader Development Framework is a shared

responsibility between the AFP (education or training institution),
the operational force (organization or unit), and the individual.
Internally, it is divided into two (2) major components, namely, the
(1) Leader and leadership development that supports the mission
and vision of the AFP and the (2) Leader Development perspective
that is focused on the development of the individual relevant to the
organization. Externally, it projects towards societal outcomes that
add premium on public leadership.
(1) Leadership Development
The first component focuses on leadership development and

relationship-building and serves as the foundation and direction of
developing leaders in the AFP. This is essential as it emphasizes the
development of social capital, that is, how the individual as part of
the organization and the AFP as a whole envisions its leaders and
!36
the organization. This element deals with what each and every
individual and what the organization espouse. These are the
principles, standards, expertise, and the manifestation of the
individual's and organization's outlook and desire which are
considered as indispensable in the development of the individual
and the organization. It affects relationships and the ability of the
leader and organization to influence other leaders and
organizations, respectively. The elements under this component are
as follows:
a) AFP Core Values: Honor, Service, Patriotism

As enshrined in the AFP Transformation Roadmap, the core
values of the organization and the profession of arms as a
noble calling demand from the members not only
competencies but also principles, standards, and a distinct
lifestyle for all its leaders, governed by a commonly-held
belief system containing non-negotiable enduring core
values of honor, service, and patriotism.
b) Desired Outcome: Character, Competence,

Capacity
In order to ensure the world-class leadership of the AFP,
positive character traits, excellence, and integrity, high-level
competence, and maximum capacity must be instilled in the
current leaders and leaders-to-be. This is one of the
baselines of the Leader Development Framework which ties
with the AFP Core Values. Core values and the desired
outcome are interconnected and must be ingrained in the
leaders’ outlook or world view.
(2) Leader Development Perspective

The two baselines serve as non-negotiable prerequisites in
developing leaders of the AFP. The second component is from the
perspective of leader development that is focused on the
development of the individual relevant to the organization. There
!37
are five main elements under this component and these are
fashioned in a laddered progression where one element serves as
the base of another element and eventually serve as bases for
succeeding elements. It focuses on appropriate role modelling, self-
awareness, and self-control. It also relates to the leader's ability to
deal with complexity, maintain situational awareness, and apply
innovative techniques that are aligned with the concept of
individual betterment. The following are the explanations for each
of the steps:
a) Lead Self
The ladder system
starts with this stage
and focuses on the
individual. It is the
foundation of leader
development. Leading
one’s self means
maintaining awareness
of emotions and using it
to guide positive
thinking and actions.
This stage also requires
an individual’s ability to
recognize gaps in its own skillset, take advantage of learning
opportunities, and set personal goals to chart actions and
effect change in one's sphere of influence. It also means that
the individual volunteers to undertake related activities,
create good work and personal habits, and effectively
organize and prioritize daily workload. It serves as a
foundation and is observable in the education and training
units such as Officer Candidate or Cadet Organizations by
aligning one's personal goals to the organizational goal.
!38
b) Lead Teams
In this stage, the leader is pushed to lead and to be the
person others choose to follow. The second stage provides
motivation, purpose, and direction and is taught to
demonstrate self-control and recognize own pressure points.
It also lets individuals realize the importance of seeking the
appropriate training and/or coaching. Further, it aims to
make individuals volunteer to undertake tasks that can
stretch their abilities and transform them to possess a
strong work ethic and be able to manage workload
autonomously. This stage is essential in small tactical units
like platoon and company organizations.
c) Lead Leaders
It is the stage which teaches the leaders to manage other
leaders’ expectations. This prepares other leaders and keeps
everyone equal. It also lets the leaders learn to adopt an
approach without putting their own agenda first or
compromising outcomes. In this stage, it allows the
individuals to challenge inefficient/ineffective work
processes, to offer constructive alternatives, analyze work
errors, successes, and failures, and set learning strategies.
Lead Leadership is practiced in a large body of troops like
battalions and brigades within an operational level.
d) Lead Systems
This stage allows leaders to lead other leaders within a
system and manage resources. It teaches leaders to
comfortably handle risks and uncertainties and become
decisive in ambiguous situations. Furthermore, it imparts to
individuals the wisdom of using setbacks in a constructive
way and to demonstrate a mindset of continuous learning
and improvement. Lead Systems is applicable in large
military units or formation to include joint service
components like divisions and joint task forces.
!39
e) Lead Organizations
This stage gives the leaders a chance to provide inspiration,
strategic objectives, and multiple oversight and to exhibit a
high level of emotional labor. It draws upon self-awareness
and self-control to identify and manage the emotions of self
and others. In this stage, the leader should know how to
adapt easily in a continually changing environment and
positively influence others to adapt. A leader must also
know how to solicit feedback from a professional and
personal network of experts and strategic advisers. Lead
Organization occurs in formations of a state's armed forces
which are responsible for a branch of service or a certain
area of territory. It is responsible for leading and
influencing other organizations and for strategic matters.
Enablers
The Enabler provides the series of transitions that help the leader
into moving up from one stage to another. It is where a leader is
prepared in order to be able to move into the next higher leader
level. Transitioning from one stage to another requires the leader to
submit themselves to the tutelage or instructorship of the following:
a) Institution
It is where education and training occurs where a leader is
capacitated through current, relevant, and responsive PME,
specializations, and other training curricula. The Institution
is instrumental in providing leaders the opportunity to
practice leadership in a controlled environment to provide
them with experiences in a school setting. It engages leaders
in a way to check and ensure that through their training,
they will contribute to the overall achievement of the
organization's mission.
!40
b) Organization
The organization is essential to the continuous development
of the leaders’ soft skills in the workplace, the employment
of managerial skills and administration in the office, and in
honing in workplaces, assignments, deployments, and
operational areas. It engages other leaders and reinforces
their purpose relevant to the unit's mission and to the
overall mission of the organization.
c) Self-Development
It is considered as the most important enabler as it
emphasizes the leader's desire for lifelong learning and its
impact on the development of the organization. The leader
seeks external and personal opportunities in order to
improve and see continuous progression in the leader's
personal and professional development.
Roles in Public and Civic Organizations

The AFP leader development framework aims to capacitate
individuals to undertake various roles in Civil-Military Relations
(CMR) across the progressive span of their active service, to provide
leadership in multi-sectoral engagements, to meaningfully partner
in the whole-of-government effort, and to strengthen institutions in
order to better address development and governance challenges.
The Filipino military leaders would
be reared by the organization to be
truly made worthy of their calling
as constitutional public servants
and to be the AFP’s
intergenerational contribution to
nation-building.
a) Public Leadership
It is the role where a person holds
a public office and/or serves,
!41
guides, and inspires the community, the nation, or the
public as a whole to attain a shared goal. For the AFP
Officers, the sphere of public leadership increases as they
move up the levels of leadership and expands their domain
of influence and exposure. In the essence of democracy, this
is a consequential reality that Filipino Military Leaders must
be able to handle. Being constitutionalist members of the
Armed Forces is in itself public leadership in as much as one
naturally present themselves as role models for citizenship.
It is not to take away the official role of elected public
officials but to positively bolster the former’s position
toward good governance by helping participate and, if need
be, create new platforms of dialogue, push for opportunities
to strengthen government institutions, support civilian
oversight, and present themselves as co-guardians of the
Filipinos’ aspirations. It also includes the role of the AFP in
promoting, influencing, and delivering improved shared
public values as evidenced by sustained national peace and
stability within an ever-changing and complex security
environment. Accountability, transparency, and
responsibility as Filipino leaders are just but a few key
public governance advocacies. Partnership with like-minded
democratic institutions is also another key engagement
agenda.
!42
b) Public Exposure
This describes the incremental and experiential journey to
personally witness the plight of the Filipino people across all
sectors and social strata of society. Public exposure
intensifies as one goes up the different stages of leader
development. The primary stakeholders are the Filipino
people, the very ones the leaders have vowed to serve and
protect. Public exposure provides an avenue for the
dissemination of the ideals and aspirations of the
organization. It also opens the lines for open feedback from
the people. During public and civic engagements like
dialogues, debates, network-building, consensus building,
and working for new collectives, Filipino Military Leaders
must be able to progressively engage and consequently
attain strong co-ownership of necessary actions for peace,
security, and development.
Some Recommendations
The refinement through execution of this framework is an essential

next step.
Leadership is a rich and complex subject. Putting it into practice

requires skill, reflection, and imagination that are part of life-long
study, training, and experiential learning. On the other hand,
leaders will never be lacking; certainly, there is always somebody
who will rise to the occasion when needed but the organization
needs somebody who will always be ready and available when the
situation warrants. Leader and leadership development are
processes that align training, education, and experience to prepare
leaders who exercise command to prevail over tactical, operational,
and strategic challenges.
The AFP needs to produce professional leaders who ensure that

they do not just do but also execute with superior performance. The
!43
AFP should produce leaders who are not
only prepared for their current position
but also ready for their progressive
responsibilities. Doing this requires
every leader to take the initiative to have
a broad and institutional view of the
AFP and to allow subordinates to take
advantage of opportunities for further
development.
Taking advantage of opportunities also involves reflecting on how

the organization views its human capital and how it sees its social
capital. Reflection looks into what has already happened, whereas
imagination gazes at what could happen in the future.
If the proposed Officer Leader Development is not addressed, it

might hinder the goals of the AFP in the future. Continuous study
and discussion of context and contemporary issues must be done in
order to enhance efforts and to address additional issues
confronting leaders. Leaders need to reflect and ponder on what
issues may surface in the future and to address them through the
implementation of relevant programs.
There are no integrated leadership

programs that the AFP is
implementing at this time along the
lines of the foregoing framework on
Officer Leader Development. Closer
collaboration between AFPLDC and
the leadership centers in the Major
Services is needed for better
synchronization, alignment, and integration of plans on leadership
development.
!44
It is therefore recommended that a series of formal guidelines be
created to aid commanders in their development of officer leaders
focusing on the combination of both leader and leadership
development (human capital and social capital) to maximize
effectiveness and ensure balanced development.
In addition, alignment of development guidelines alongside the

PME, positions, and assignments will allow the creation of a
tailored development plan for officers based on their individual
requirements for growth and development in the profession.
Related to this is the need for the Major Services to craft their
respective Leadership Requirement Models.
Lastly, the AFP Leadership

Development Program must be
anchored on the security sector
reform efforts and, therefore,
must accept public participation
from key stakeholders. Only then
will all efforts gain deep meaning
and strong co-ownership. After all, the expanded concept of
Security Sector gives a clear hint for sustained success.
Enlisted Personnel Leader Development Program
!45
Similarly, the AFP Enlisted Personnel Leader Development
Framework (EPLDF) following the approved AFP Officer Leader
Development Framework intends to put premium on the leadership
development of the corps of NCO officers which invariably serves as
the indispensable link between the Officer Corps and the Enlisted
Personnel. This corresponds to the premise that Non-
Commissioned Officers (NCOs) serve as the backbone of the AFP
for providing invaluable support toward the overall attainment of
the mission and vision of the organization. The framework, in fact,
likewise was realized after a meeting of minds of the three
stakeholders mentioned: the AFP (education or training
institution), the operational force (organization or unit), and the
individual in order to come up with this shared responsibility in
leader development.
The crafting of the EPLDF, apart from being consistent

with the AFP Transformation Roadmap and Major
Services’ initiatives, was in adherence to the following
directives: (1) Approved Letter Directive Nr 5, GHQ, AFP
dated 22 January 2019 re: AFP Officer Leader
Development Framework; and (2) Circular Nr 6, GHQ,
AFP dated 30 September 2015 re: AFP EP Professional
Military Education Program (PME) Framework geared
toward the attainment of the imperatives expected of
AFP Senior Enlisted Leaders (SELs), Sergeants Major
(SMs), and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) which is
to develop a “Professional and ethical AFP Senior
Enlisted Leaders, Sergeants Major, and Non-
Commissioned Officers toward a world-class Armed
Forces, Source of National Pride.”
In alignment to the AFP Officer Leadership Development

Framework, the EPLDC is divided into two major components.
Internally, this relates to leader and leadership development that
support the mission and vision of AFP leader development.
!46
Externally, it projects toward societal outcomes that add premium
to public leadership deemed to be crucial among all core leaders in
the AFP especially the NCOs who serve as the backbone of the
overall organization
Similarly, the first component focuses on leadership development,

by improving relationships as it fuels on the development of social
capital, that is, how the individual as part of the organization, and
the AFP as a whole, envisions its leaders and the organization. This
includes the principles, standards, expertise, and the manifestation
of the individual's and organization's outlook and desire which are
considered as indispensable to the development of the individual
and the organization. It affects relationships and the ability of the
leader and organization to influence other leaders and
organizations, respectively. The three elements under this
component are as follows:
a) AFP Core Values: Honor, Service, Patriotism

As enshrined in the AFP Transformation Roadmap, the core
values of the organization and the profession of arms as a
noble calling, demands from its members not only
competencies but also principles, standards, and a distinct
lifestyle for all its leaders, governed by commonly-
held belief system containing the non-negotiable enduring
core values of honor, service, and patriotism.
b) Desired Outcome: Integrity, Character,

Competence, and Capacity
This is also aligned with the Officer Leader Development
Framework which aims to ensure a world-class leadership in
the AFP. It must be instilled in the current SELs, SMs and
NCOs to see to it that they possess positive character traits
and competence at the maximum level. This is one of the
!47
baselines of the leader development framework which ties
with the aforementioned AFP core values.
c) Leadership Development Levels, Domains, and

the Career-Long Development Enlisted Desired
Leader Attributes (EDLAs)
The leadership development levels span across the learning
continuum from the EP pre-entry level to the basic, advance,
and Sgt Major courses up to the pinnacle level which is the
SEL course/keystone program. The primary objective of the
EDLAs is to promote the profession of arms in support to
the AFP Vision and anchored on the AFP and EP core
values. The EDLAs focus mainly on AFP SEL/SM and NCO
Development where the EP leadership development
program is arranged by level from crew/fire/team/squad/
section, platoon, company, battalion, (Group, Brigade,
Wing, Category III Ship Force, Joint Task Force/ Division)
and their equivalent in the Philippine Air Force and
Philippine Navy. It is also important to note that the EDLAs
mentioned and adapted in this framework is based on the
United States Army Enlisted PME Continuum approved by
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction
1805.01B dated 15 May 2015, entiitled: “Enlisted PME
Policy.” This took into consideration its applicability to the
EP-PME in the AFP.
The second component is from the perspective of leader

development that is focused on the development of the individual in
the organization, in this case the EP Leaders in the AFP. There are
five main elements under this component is fashioned in a laddered
progression where one element serves as the base of another
element and of succeeding elements. Therefore, each element is
deemed crucial and has repercussions to the development of others
!48
as it focuses on appropriate role modelling, self-awareness, and
self-control. It also relates to the leader’s ability to deal with
complexity, maintain situational awareness, and apply innovative
techniques which are aligned with the concept of individual
betterment. The following are the five steps in EP leader
development:
a) Lead Self
The first block in the ladder focuses on the individual and
serves as the ultimate foundation of leader development. In
this stage, the EP is expected to maintain positive thinking
and actions through emotional awareness and to initiate
pursuing activities that create good work and personal
habits. More importantly, one develops the ability to
recognize gaps in one’s skillset and takes advantage of
opportunities to address that can bring positive outcome not
only to the leader but also to the organization.
The importance of followership specifically of “dynamic

followership” should be given equal importance as a
manifestation of discipline and improvement of leader-
follower culture in the organization apart from the required
mandate instilled in the chain of command which the EP
must follow. Despite it being practiced across the framework
from the lead self, lead teams, lead leaders, lead systems up
to the professional adviser and lead organization,
followership for EP is vigorously introduced under the
foundation phase to every individual, soldier, marines,
sailors, and airman in order to instill the relationship
between military leadership and followership, including the
role that courage plays in professionally dissenting from a
military officer when the latter makes an unethical decision.
!49
b) Lead Teams
In this stage, the EP leader is pushed to lead and be the
person others choose to follow. This becomes the ground for
influencing others in the attainment of a shared mission
where the individual is being driven by motivation, purpose,
and direction, and is taught to demonstrate self-control and
to recognize his own pressure points. The leader begins to
recognize the importance of seeking the appropriate training
and/or coaching for personal and professional development.
Furthermore, it aims to make the leaders volunteer to

undertake tasks that can stretch their abilities and
transform them to possess a strong work ethic and be able
to manage workload autonomously. This stage is essential in
small tactical units like platoon and company organizations.
c) Lead Leaders
It is the stage wherein the NCOs are taught to manage other
leaders’ expectations and to adopt an approach without
putting personal agenda first and without compromising
outcomes. It allows the leader to challenge inefficient/
ineffective work processes, to offer constructive alternatives
and solutions, and at the same time analyze work errors,
successes, and failures and to set learning strategies. Lead
Leaders are practiced in a large body of troops like
battalions and brigades within an operational level.
d) Lead Systems
This stage allows the individual to lead other leaders and
manage resources within a system. It teaches the NCO to
comfortably handle risks and uncertainties and become
decisive amid ambiguous situations. Furthermore, it
imparts to the NCO the wisdom of using setbacks in a
constructive way and of demonstrating a mindset of
continuous learning and improvement. Lead systems are
!50
applicable in large military units or formations including
joint service components like divisions and joint task forces.
e) Lead Organization (As Professional Adviser to

the Commander/Chief of Office at the Strategic
Level)
The SEL/SM/NCO at this particular stage is expected to be
always prepared in giving confidential advice, in providing
inspiration and multiple oversight, and in exhibiting a high
level of emotional labor. The NCO should know how to
adapt easily in a continually changing environment and
how to positively influence other SEL/SM/NCO to do the
same. Consistent with “The Command Team,” the NCO will
be a close adviser to the leader and will be the Commander’s
strongest supporter and will do so by promoting their vision,
elaborating on their intent, and explaining personal
directions to the NCOs of the armed forces. The NCO must
also know how to solicit feedback from a professional and
personal network of experts and strategic advisers. Lead
Organization occurs in formations of a state's armed forces
which are responsible for a branch of service, or a certain
area or territory, are responsible for leading and influencing
other organizations, and are responsible for strategic
matters.
The organization also has Enablers that serve as a series of

transitions that help the leader into moving up from one stage to
another. It is where a leader is prepared to move into the next
higher leader level. Transitioning from one stage to another
requires the leader to undergo the following development
mechanisms:
1. Institution
It is where education and training occur where the NCO is
capacitated through current, relevant, and responsive
!51
Professional Military Education (PME), specialization, and
other training curricula. The Institution is instrumental in
providing leaders the opportunity to practice leadership in a
controlled environment and in providing leaders with
experiences to ensure that they will contribute to the overall
achievement of the organization's mission.
2. Organization
It is essential in the continuous development of the leader's
soft skills in the workplace, employment of managerial
skills, and administration of the office; builds leaders in
workplaces, assignments, deployments, and in operational
areas, and engages other leader and reinforces their purpose
relevant to the unit's mission and to the overall mission of
the organization.
3. Self-Development
It is considered to be the most important enabler as it
emphasizes the leader's desire for lifelong learning and its
impact on the development of the organization. The leader
seeks external and personal opportunities in order to
improve. It also seeks continuous progression in the leader's
personal and professional development
Leading Roles in Public and Civic Organizations
As an organization, the EP Leader Development Framework will

certainly contribute in capacitating individuals to undertake various
roles by providing leadership in multi-sectoral engagements and
undertakings that would help address development and governance
challenges. To develop leaders in the organization worthy of their
calling is the organization’s contribution to nation-building in order
to bring positive social change especially in the Philippine context.
Such leadership roles are displayed in the situations as enumerated
in the Officer Leader Development Framework.
!52
In conclusion, the NCO Corps, which is the backbone of the AFP,
must be able to display the following attributes: Lead by Example;
Train from Experience; Maintain and Enforce Standards; Take Care
of Soldiers; and Adapt to a Changing World in order to attain the
vision of the EP Leader Development Framework to become a
“Professional and Ethical AFP SEL, SMs & NCO towards a world-
class Armed Forces, Source of National Prides”.
The Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) are the leaders of soldiers

and a member of a time-honored corps. They serve as the backbone
of the AFP providing overall support to all levels as mandated by
the organization. Given the NCO’s crucial role in the AFP, the
Enlisted Personnel Leader Development Framework (EPLDF) tries
to address the identified gaps in the leadership development of the
NCO Corps especially in enhancing the EP-PME to ensure the
attainment of the vision of developing a “Professional and ethical
AFP Senior Enlisted Leaders, Sergeants Major and Non-
Commissioned Officers towards a world-class Armed Forces, a
Source of National Pride.”
The current organizational context in the AFP calls for the timely
promulgation and cascading of the EP Leader Development
Framework to address all EP-related concerns in leadership and
leadership development. Purposive and intentional education and
training programs must be conducted with continuous effort to
advance the level of instruction. The NCOs must have the attitude
of pursuing learning and maximizing opportunities for training
combined with the infusion of ethical and moral values that shape
their character as members of the AFP.
Like the Officers, the NCOs need to reflect and ponder on the issues
that may surface in the future and to help find ways to address
!53
issues such as through responsive programs. This highlights the
need for leaders who are future-oriented; yet, this should not ignore
the importance of history and of lessons learned.
The EPLDF, being the first of its kind to be formally introduced in

the AFP, entails the need for a closer collaboration between
AFPLDC and the Leadership Centers of the Major Services to
ensure the alignment in their initiatives and programs. There is a
need for a series of formal procedures especially with respect to a
balanced assessment of needs between the leader and leadership
development components among the NCO leaders. This also
requires constant monitoring and evaluation through the use of
appropriate and well-developed tools to determine the effectiveness
of the programs.
With regard to the output of PED goals and objectives that are
specifically focused on the development and enhancement of the
EP-PME, there is a need for the following to better address the
framework: (a) Develop and publish a standard AFP Policy for EP-
PME; (b) Review and update the current Career and Leadership
Courses; and (c) Establish an AFP NCO Academy.
Lastly, the AFP Leadership Development Program must be

anchored on security sector reform efforts and must therefore must
invite public participation from key stakeholders. Only then will all
efforts gain deeper meaning and stronger co-ownership. After all,
the expanded concept of Security Sector gives a clear hint for
sustained success.
Civilian Human Resource Leader Development

Framework
Through the years, civilian human resource (CHR) serves as the
institutional memory holders in the different offices/units of the
AFP as military personnel get reassigned from one office/unit to
!54
another. They are the invaluable support to the organization along
with NCOs as they ensure the continuity in the programs and
projects of the AFP. CHRs are expected to provide support,
assistance, and advice on areas such as administrative, financial,
accounting, medical, academic, and other technical requirements
all contributing toward the attainment of the AFP Vision of
becoming “A World-Class Armed Forces, Source of National Pride”
through the pursuit of initiatives that complement the military’s
agenda in advancing peace and promoting national development.
Parallel with the vision for the Officers and Enlisted Personnel of
the AFP, the civilian component of the organization envisions to
become “Professional and ethical civilian human resources
complementing the military towards a world-class Armed Forces,
source of national pride.”
By means of professionalism, CHRs are expected to be educated

and trained, should observe proper standards, and must be
committed to provide excellent service. By being ethical means that
!55
CHR shall uphold a strong moral compass as reflected in their
willingness to do the right thing even if when risks are involved.
Complementarity implies that civilian human resources have a vital
role in the organization as competency developers, change leaders,
and strategic partners of the military. In this regard, the AFP shall
upgrade the status of the civilian human resources from mere
institutional memory holders to competent partners for peace and
national development.
Similarly, the first component in the CHR Leader Development

Framework focuses on leadership development by improving
relationships as it fuels on the development of social capital, that is,
how the individual as part of the organization and the AFP as a
whole envisions its leaders and the organization.
AFP Core Values: Honor, Service, Patriotism

These serve as the guiding principles in performing the
mission and vision of the organization. In particular, honor
serves as the AFP’s crowning value and the hallmark of
military conduct. It means moral uprightness, integrity in
action, prudence in speech, and truthfulness in words and
actions. Service, on the other hand, is the value of discipline
and responsibility manifested through the professional
performance and accomplishment of one’s tasks. Lastly,
patriotism refers to the feeling and expression of love for
one’s country. Every member of the AFP should live by these
values to develop a professional culture which is ideal for
the development of leadership qualities in the organization.
AFP Civilian Human Resource Core Values

The core values of the Civilian Human Resource are
Integrity, Excellence, and Professionalism. Integrity means
moral uprightness and strong adherence to honesty and
!56
fairness devoid of any personal interest and undue influence
and to remain steadfast in honesty even amid challenging
situations. Excellence, on the other hand, refers to high
standards of performance by being responsible for work
results through continuous improvement and cost-efficient
process, and delivering superior quality results at prescribed
timelines that meet or exceed the organizational goals of the
AFP. Lastly, professionalism means presenting oneself in a
manner that depicts the respect for the AFP organization
through service above self, patriotism, fairness, duty,
dedication, perseverance, persistence, and compliance to
processes and procedures. It also promotes the value of
resourcefulness, flexibility in providing responsive and
timely service to stakeholders, and mindfulness of the
dignity of one’s profession by committing one’s self to
continuous learning, growth, and self-mastery.
In the case of the AFP, the Civilian Human Resource

Learning and Development Program was crafted to address
the need for civilians to upgrade their level of competencies.
The adoption of the Civilian Human Resource Learning and
Development Program was based on the provisions of SOP
Nr 13, GHQ, AFP dated 20 July 2018, re: AFP Civilian
Human Resources Learning and Development Plan.
Complementing it is the AFP Transformation Roadmap and
other modernization initiatives of the organization.
The AFP Civilian Human Resource Learning and

Development Program aims to provide the skills and
competencies to civilian human resources necessary for
their designation to higher positions. The program further
shapes the professional growth of the civilian human
resources as they progress in their career path. Ideally,
civilian human resources should have undergone the
required learning and development packages under specific
!57
ladder training programs prior to their promotional
advancement or before they take on higher leadership roles.
Similar to the AFP Officer Leaders Development Framework and

Enlisted Personnel Leaders Development Framework, there are five
main elements under this component following the laddered
progression where one element serves as the base of another
element and eventually serve as bases for succeeding elements. The
following are the descriptions for each of the five ladders:
Lead Self
At this stage, the civilian human resource provides support
on areas such as administrative, financial, accounting,
medical, academic, and other technical requirements. With
respect to their complementary role toward the military
leaders, the civilian human resource serve as academic
professionals at the PMA and in the other education and
training institutions of the AFP. In order to prepare the
Civilian Human Resource for this ladder, specific learning
and development interventions are programmed, as follows:
a) Onboarding Program. This refers to activities and

programs designed to develop the entrants’ commitment
to public service and to inform new civilian human
resources about agency/government programs, thrusts,
operations, and benefits.
b) Values Orientation Workshop. This refers to a short

workshop designed to introduce the public service values
that the new entrants may adopt to become effective
government officials and/or employees. Initially included
in this workshop is the discussion of the norms and
!58
provisions under RA No. 6713 and other values and
cultures unique to the AFP.
c) Values Clarification Workshop. This workshop is

provided to civilian human resources who need
interventions in relation to cultural integration in the
military organization. It may also be conducted when
specific public service values need to be inculcated
among a target civilian human resource group.
d) Employee Development Program. This refers to the

program aimed at maintaining a high level of
competence on basic workplace skills among employees
in the first level of the career service. They include, but
are not limited to, short courses and/or seminars like
Computer Appreciation Seminars, Gender and
Development Seminars, Social Media Management
Training and Product Development Course.
e) Civilian Personnel Basic Course (CPBC). The CPBC aims

to enable the participants to perform their duties and
responsibilities with the highest degree of effectiveness
and efficiency. It also helps them internalize their roles
and realize the importance of doing their assigned duties
and responsibilities effectively and efficiently for the
accomplishment of their unit/office mission and
objectives.
Lead Teams
At this stage, civilian human resource provides
administrative, financial, accounting, medical, academic,
and technical assistance needed by the military leaders to do
their job. To lead the teams means to provide motivation,
purpose, and direction, as well as to demonstrate self-
control and recognize own pressure points. With respect to
!59
their complementary role with those of the military leaders,
the civilian human resource serves as skilled and
administrative staff at tactical/strike wings and other
similar units in the AFP. In order to prepare the civilian
human resource for this ladder, specific learning and
development interventions are programmed, as follows:
a) Values Enhancement Program - This program is

designed to enhance and harness the public service
values of participants to help them become effective
government employees and capacitate them to provide
appropriate counsel among colleagues.
b) Specialized Training Programs - This includes trainings,

workshops, and courses which aim to develop the
technical competencies of the individual. Examples
include trainings on Human Resource Management,
Logistics and Supply Management, and Information
System Management.
c) Local and Foreign Training Grants - These refer to

courses, trainings, and seminars for Specialists which are
availed of after careful selection and deliberation of
candidates by the appropriate Civilian Human Resource
Learning and Development Committee. These grants are
usually offered under the International Military
Education and Training (IMET) and expanded IMET (e-
IMET) programs from the USA and the Defence
Cooperation Program from Australia.
d) Civilian Personnel Basic Supervisory Course (CPBSC) -

The CPBSC aims to equip the participants with the
fundamental knowledge to identify the duties and
responsibilities of a supervisor and carry these out in
their actual performance. It also helps the participants
!60
apply the different principles of management, techniques
of leadership, and problem solving in their daily
activities, and make them demonstrate the leadership
qualities and traits of efficient and effective leaders.
Lead Leaders
In Lead Leaders, the third ladder, the individual is taught
how to manage other leaders’ expectations. This prepares
other leaders and makes everyone of them equal. It also
allows the individual to adopt an approach without
compromising outcomes. At this stage, civilian human
resources provide technical and managerial expertise in the
administrative, financial, accounting, medical, academic,
technical, and other areas. With respect to their
complementary role to those of the military leaders, the
civilian human resource serves as skilled and administrative
staff at tactical/strike wings and other similar units in the
AFP.
The specific learning and development interventions

programmed for the second ladder of the leader
development perspective is still applicable in this stage.
Lead Systems
In this stage, the civilian human resource develops systems
and policies on areas such as administrative, financial,
accounting, medical, academic, and other technical
requirements. With respect to their complementary role
with those of military leaders, the civilian human resources
serve as section or branch chiefs in regiments, joint task
forces, wings, divisions, and other similar units in the AFP.
In order to prepare the civilian human resources for this

ladder, specific learning and development interventions are
programmed, as follows:
!61
a) Master in National Security Administration (MNSA).
The MNSA is the only graduate level program that offers
a master’s degree covering the broad spectrum of
formulation, implementation, and evaluation of policies
in national security administration.
b) Middle Management Development Program. This refers

to a set of planned learning and development
interventions and training courses designed to provide
officials with management and administrative skills and
to prepare them for greater responsibilities. In the case of
civilian human resources in the AFP, this may include
partnerships with leadership training institutions like the
Civil Service Institute, Development Academy of the
Philippines, Asian Institute of Management, Ateneo de
Manila University, and University of the Philippines.
c) Civilian Personnel Advance Supervisory Course (CPASC).

The CPASC aims to enhance the participants’ knowledge,
skills, and attitude necessary in the performance of
supervisory functions with higher degree of competence
and deeper sense of accountability, commitment, and
dedication to public service.
d) Local and Foreign Training Grants. These refer to

courses, trainings, and seminars which are availed after
careful selection and deliberation of candidates by the
appropriate Civilian Human Resource Learning and
Development Committee.
e) Certificate in Leadership and Management (C-Pro). A

graduate of the C-Pro from the CSC shall be considered
to have met the master’s degree requirement for
purposes of meeting the education requirement for
Division Chief and executive/managerial positions.
!62
Lead Organizations
At this stage, civilian human resource provides military
leaders administrative, financial, accounting, medical,
academic, technical, and other supports for the latter to be
able to provide inspiration, to achieve strategic objectives, to
provide multiple oversight and to exhibit a high level of
emotional labor. With respect to their complementary role
with those of military leaders, the civilian human resources
serve as division chiefs or chiefs of offices/units at the Major
Services and GUAs.
To capacitate civilian human resource for this ladder, the

following learning and development interventions are
recommended:
a) C-Pro (refer to item 4e)

b) Executive Development Program (EDP). The EDP refers
to training programs and continuing education intended
to enhance the managerial skills of government officials
or executives.
c) Executive Course on National Security (ECNS). The
ECNS aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of
the theory and practice of national security.
The AFP Civilian Human Resource has long been playing a

significant role in the organization with the assistance they provide
to the AFP in administrative, financial, accounting, medical,
academic, technical and other institutional requirements. They are
as important as the other members of the organization, thus, there
is a need to ensure that they have the requisites for personal and
professional advancement. CHRs are expected to do the right thing
at the right time and for the right reasons.
!63
In order to upgrade the status of the civilian human resources as
competent partners of the military sector in peace and national
development, there is a need to enhance the CHR Leader
Development Framework. It must be supported by formal
mechanisms such as guidelines and procedures that will help the
leaders identify the gaps in the current career path of CHRs and
provide the corresponding programs to address them.
While by nature the AFP puts emphasis on the leaders and

leadership development of the members of the military, the
crafting, promulgation, and cascading of the CHR Leader
Development Framework signify the unequivocal value given to
civilians as contributors to the overall attainment of the mission of
the organization. A more encompassing and flexible avenue for
education and training awaits the civilian human resources as they
capacitate themselves to become leaders. This must be taken more
purposively though continuous review of the interventions that
have been laid out and their effectiveness.
In addition, while programs for civilians are reflected on the

framework, there is a need to intricately review and develop the
areas of specialization among civilian leaders as they provide
assistance in the proper functioning of the organization and in the
accomplishment of the core purpose of the AFP. They must be
trained to be experts in particular areas to contribute significantly
to the organization as they work with Officers and EP. Moreover,
CHR leaders also need to reflect and ponder on the issues that may
surface in the future and must help in ways to address these
through responsive programs.
Correspondingly, there is a need for closer collaboration between

the AFPLDC and the Leadership Centers of the Major Services to
ensure that there is alignment in their initiatives and programs.
Constant monitoring and evaluation through the use of appropriate
and well-developed tools to determine the effectiveness of the
!64
programs must be put in place. The importance of multi-
stakeholder engagements in AFP operations would strengthen the
organization’s intent of capacitating its leaders.
!65
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AFP LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PLAN
“Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of

tomorrow?” - Jose Rizal
T he AFPLDC has embarked on a nine-year plan covering 2018 to
2026. Four major lines of effort (LOE) provide the backbone for
execution and may also serve as reference for alignment across the
AFP. These lines of efforts are re-vetted every quarter of the year
and are managed by a dedicated Officer and their team.
This plan is a work in progress and necessary adjustments are

regularly done with the vision and mission at the core of the
decision space. A typical AFP Campaign Plan lasts for six years. The
nine-year cycle adopted by this plan intends to cover the short leap
for transition. Leaders will tend to look beyond terms of office and
fixed timelines, thus, the 3-year allowance.
!70
Each line of effort has activities lined up in a 3-6-9-year array.
These activities may be dissolved, modified, or combined whenever
the situation warrants. The LOE Manager recommends such
actions to the Head of Office. The refinement through execution of
this plan is an essential next step.
Professional Military Education and Leadership
The AFP puts premium on its manpower. It views leader

development as a human capital necessary to collectively perform
its mandate in upholding the sovereignty and preserving the
patrimony of the State. Similarly, it underscores leadership
development as a social capital, enabling each member of the
organization to contribute effectively to the organization's mandate.
Leader and leadership development are activities of great

significance but are elusive, difficult to pull off, demanding, and
dynamic, thus, it must be purposive, unceasing, adaptive, and
progressive.
A clear and common understanding of what the AFP does from an

organizational and individual perspective provides the basis for
developing officer leaders. Clearly defined roles and expectations
along with the appropriate career and development systems are
designed to prepare AFP officers as leaders who will address the
challenges in tactical, operational, and strategic environments and
may even present themselves as models for strengthening
institutions and for societal change.
In terms of training, leadership programs are already embedded in

the Professional Military Education (PME). There are existing and
varying unit-initiated programs such as: reading programs,
seminars for commanders, and graduate studies. Yet, currently,
these programs are still disjointed. Apart from this, there is also an
!71
uncertainty of continuously
taking these programs by the
individuals involved, to
include the ambiguity in
leader development progress.
To bridge this gap, there is a
need to ensure the alignment,
continuity, and
standardization of leadership
development programs.
In collaboration with its

stakeholders, the AFPLDC has embarked on a work-in-progress to
achieve alignment, flow, and standardization of Leadership Topics
and Modules.
The levels of leader development were also identified to establish

continuity starting from the foundation and moving up to the
different levels where leaders play leadership roles. The vision
accentuates morals and ethics in addition to professionalism which
are of utmost importance and desired by the organization for each
and every leader in order to create a world-class armed forces and a
progressive nation. The framework also considers the retirement
phase wherein the patriotic journey is pursued as a responsible and
model citizen or a prospective public servant or even as corporate
leaders.
The proposed leadership topics

covering the foundational
education and training for
recruits and junior officers were
laid down in an attempt for
standardization but without
necessarily compromising unit
service ethos.
!72
In close collaboration with the PMA and Major Service training
institutions, the AFPLDC has embarked on interactive engagements
in order to get as much feedback from the system. Leadership
Training Summits will also provide the venue for sustained
collaboration while applying lessons learned and done on a learn-
as-we-do scheme. The refinement through execution of this
framework is an essential next step.
In like manner, close

coordination and
cooperation with Major
Service Training
Institutions, the NDCP,
and the AFPCGSC is
crucial for attaining
synchronization, flow,
and alignment of
proposed leadership
topics across the progression from PME to SMEE, with CGSC
providing the highest professional military education. Meanwhile,
the planned Capstone and Pinnacle Courses are still at the
conceptualization stage.
The continuum relates five military educational levels to five

significant phases in an officer’s career. The PME Continuum posits
the production of the largest possible body of fully qualified and
inherently joint officers suitable for joint command and staff
responsibilities.
Therefore, the implied critical points of collaboration would be

between Curriculum Evaluation Centers. Ideally, for Leadership
modules and topics, regular evaluations must be standardized and
integrated. Research-based policy recommendations, synchronized
leadership research agenda, distant learning system, and multi-
disciplinary academic undertakings will be the new norm.
!73
On a final note, the most effective organizations have been in the
practice of aligning leadership development to culture, context,
strategy, and vision which is the AFPLDC’s intent.
Context of AFP Leadership
Context has a profound impact on the behavior of Filipino leaders

and followers. It is common practice for us to grapple with the
inside stories or dig deeper whenever big decisions have to be made
(pakapa-kapa). When our decision space is complex and uncertain,
our common behavioral default is to buy time to make more sense
of the situation (pakikiramdam). When interpersonal dealings are
of importance, we often refer to our own cultural value sets and
when pushed back, we give way under the pretext of giving it a go
anyway (pagbigyan), if only for the sake of a calibrated decision
(pagbawi). These are just some of the more obvious nuances to our
sensitivity to context as Filipino leaders and commanders.
!74
Internal and Organizational
As military professionals, our natural immediate point of view or

perception space is our unit or organization. Unit esprit de corps is
a unique attribute of military tactical units gained over many years
of service deployments and field experience.
A second look at the AFP organization reaffirms the most obvious,

the chain of command and top to bottom flow of authority and
orders. At the critical nodes of the organization are the leaders or
designated commanders. Organizationally, this implies classic
compliance to authority, lineal seniority, key position, span of
influence, and vertical feedback, among many others.
It is further characterized by the typical levels of command—

Tactical, Operational, and Strategic— with key leaders at the top.
According to the Stratified Systems Theory, “hierarchy is the best
way to manage command and control.” This arrangement
“romances leadership” wherein the fate of the organization is
always believed to be in the hands of the leader (nasa kamay ng
pinuno).
Another way of viewing

organizational context is
by determining one’s
affiliation with a group
or unit in order to
establish one’s identity
and context in relation
to the larger or smaller
organizations where the
leader is in. In relation to the Particle Theory, “leadership in the
organization can also be broken into component parts,” by virtue of
affiliation and position. The ‘in' groups (tayo) and the ‘out’ groups
(sila) have a profound impact on relationships and leadership alike.
!75
Sub-cultures thrive within bigger units. To get big things done,
coordination across social and organizational barriers is crucial,
and in many instances, transactions has to be face-to face
(pagharap sa kapwa) to convey trust (tiwala) through personal
appearance.
A popular basis for organizational context can also be set by the

AFP Transformation Roadmap. This living document has been the
organization’s standard change management futuristic plan.
Internally, the context for the Organization is driven mostly by the

AFP’s Vision and Mission that makes the AFP Transformation
Roadmap an important document as it ensures focus and continuity
for growth. It is the major driver for leadership
A snapshot of how the

AFPTR drives AFP
leaders to contribute
to Key Results. To the
left are the elements
of the AFPTR and to
the right are the
leadership objectives.
The Filipino Leader

understands the sense
!76
of urgency and the meaningful impact of the AFPTR. Leadership is
the foundation and invisible hand that guides the organization in
steering and navigating through the conduct of mission at all times
in all situations to achieve its vision. But the bigger task at hand is
to be able to harness the cooperation of key stakeholders towards
attaining a shared social outcome.
The Filipino Military

Leader is typically in a
state of renaissance in
terms of digesting newly
-published documents
that aim to
institutionalize the
AFP’s gains and from
which to draw plans for
the future. The quest to
write down lessons learned, plans, doctrines, official guidance,
policies, and the like is the basis for our decisions and thrusts. All of
these documents are hinged on a shared organizational vision of a
modern and truly world-class Defense Force that is a source of
national pride. Various official documents of the AFP serve as
supplementary basis to leadership execution.
Before we end this part of the sub-chapter, it would be worth some

time answering some deep questions. Considering all these internal
realities, parochial issues are the ones that keep on shaking the
organization from within. Despite the policies and regulations in
place, ethical and moral issues still affect the AFP from time to
time. How can the organization better transcend these
transgressions? What other options available in addressing
corruption, toxic leadership, unfair practices, careerism, politicking,
fraternization, inter-service rivalry, gender related violence, and
domestic marital problems leading to more problems, like weak
sense of service, work stress, gambling, alcoholism, drug abuse,
!77
manhandling, and the like? The Filipino Military Leader is more
than just the commander of the unit. In many ways he is the
father/mother, the brother/sister, the confidante and a respected
senior, making day-to-day decisions from small but complex, to big
and complicated issues. The line between personal and
organizational issues is thin when one manifests considerable
subjective and objective emphasis over the other.
External and Operational Context

While the 1935
N a t i o n a l
Defense Act
defines the
external defense
responsibility of
the AFP, the
latter has also
been directed to
provide assistance
in internal security operations (ISO), employed to respond during
national calamities, and even to participate in post disaster/conflict
development works. The AFP’s involvement in ISO is considered by
the AFP as a deviation from its primary duty of developing its
conventional military capabilities. New generation officers say that
by giving more importance to internal security problems, it diverts
its endeavors in realizing a self-reliant defense by pursuing
modernization projects. The general view is that the military’s long
drawn-out involvement in internal security prevents it from
acquiring strategic air and maritime capabilities that are equally
important and supposedly takes years to build up.
In the meantime, the AFP continues to undertake non-traditional

military roles, such as support to law enforcement activities and
search and rescue operations along with its traditional duty of
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protecting the State’s borders. The AFP has also been assisting the
local government units, national government agencies, NGOs, and
private entities in environmental awareness and protection, anti-
drugs, and anti-transnational crime activities. Furthermore, the
AFP has also participated in peacekeeping and humanitarian
operations in countries under the ambit of the United Nations
Peacekeeping Operations. To a certain extent, the mixture of
economic activities, constabulary-type duties with combat
operations has characterizes the military’s campaigns such as
counterterrorism and counter-insurgency. Its involvement in
economic functions has been justified on the grounds that it is
critical to ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of those living on the
frontlines, supporting relief operations, protecting critical
infrastructure, and engaging in efforts to conserve natural
resources.
While the primary responsibility of the AFP is “protection of the

people and State” as stipulated in Section 4 of the 1987 Philippine
Constitution, the implementation of development projects, such as
environmental protection, disaster response, and community
engagement, is also consistent with this mandate. Similarly, in
zones of insecurity and violence, the AFP is semi-equipped with
apparatus needed for logistical capability to build roads, schools,
health facilities, and other basic infrastructures especially in
Geographically-isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDAS).
!79
The consequence of relying too much on the AFP to carry out
development projects has however been a matter of some debate.
Various narratives caution that the divergence from the external-
defense role could strain the military’s professionalism, and the
military’s involvement in these unconventional tasks could increase
its political autonomy and weaken its competency in its core role of
warfighting.
The AFP is in reality no different from other Defense Forces in

performing non-traditional roles, with some members even ending
up in public service after retirement. For years, the country has
borne the effects of lingering internal conflicts and, as a result, has
sought to reinforce the linkage between development and security, a
connection that reinforces the military’s role in nation-building
and, above all, in strengthening civil-military relations.
However, the AFP cannot be undermined whenever it executes non-

traditional military tasks by the national government provided it is
within the bounds of the Constitution and the government’s policy
framework. The Concept of Fighting in a “3 Block War” is brought
to mind where troops may be required to conduct full scale military
action, peacekeeping operations, and humanitarian aid within the
space of three contiguous city blocks. The thrust of the concept is
that modern militaries must be trained to operate in all three
conditions simultaneously, and that to do so, leadership training at
the lowest levels needs to be high. The latter condition caused
USMC General Krulak to invoke what he called "strategic
corporals,” low-level unit leaders that are able to take independent
action and make major decisions more popularly labeled as
“Mission Command.”
These are just but a few of the senior leadership concerns that
needs deep thought and mature handling.
!80
Some Strategic Imperatives
In a nutshell, the AFP leadership is managing strategic VUCAD

concerns both internal and external threats, and other challenges.
These include, but are not limited to, the following:
Closure of Domestic Insurgency
An overextended
insurgency complicated by
decades of internal
political strife pose the
following concerns: (1) a
crisis on organizational
purpose and existence
needing clear and
consistent articulation by the AFP's leadership, thus, the need for a
Stratcom Plan; (2) questions on the effectiveness and impatience
over the AFP's Intensified Stakeholders’ Engagement to attain a
“Whole-of-Nation effort,” thus the need to ensure that EO70
succeeds; and (3) the internal divide created within the security
sector, thus, the need to work on a renewed and stronger mindset,
fighting will, and genuine solidarity.
Core Leadership Development
Initiating change
within the VUCAD
realities of the AFP
requires leaders of
c h a r a c t e r ,
competence, and
capacity who are
sincere in pursuing security sector reform. Core AFP leaders must
be able to nurture an ethical climate, and hold on to
!81
intergenerational gains to bring out the best in the Filipino and to
serve as an inspiration to fellow countrymen. No matter how
relatively small the armed forces are, the leaders are the ultimate
capability integrators, the asymmetric advantage, and the final
deterrent.
Strengthening of Institution
Filipino Military Leaders must find themselves positively
participating in policy formulation that can be game changers, like:
• Updating the National Defence Act (NDA);
• Reviving the SRDP initiative and supporting a local defence
industry;
• Amending the existing Government Procurement Reform Act
(R.A. 9184);
• Rotating the Chief-of-Staff of the AFP among the main branches
of the AFP and pursuing a strategic culture of jointness;
• Adopting ICT support Systems that will promote internal
transparency and enhance security; and
• Acquiring asymmetric capabilities as part of defense build-up
Leaders’ perspectives on what to prioritize may vary, but at the end

of the day, it is how they are able to steer themselves as a nation,
!82
opening new platforms for meaningful conversations, and finding
themselves more ready than before towards an uncertain future
that matters most.
Addressing Complex and Hybrid Threats

The contemporary Filipino Military Leader must seamlessly work
and collaborate with interagencies communities in order to remain
relevant and adaptive. As stated in the National Military Strategy,
globalization, sustained advances in technology, and fast-paced
interconnectedness are the broad conditions of security that
threaten national security and are exploited and leveraged to
undermine national security.
The strategic environment in which the AFP now operates can be

described as unusually complex and fast-leading towards hybrid
levels. The method of transformation by some external forces had
been validated to be following indirect ‘ways’ and ‘means’ to mask
the true intent of attacking the country’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity. The true intent remains to be occupation and control. It is
now evident that those who threaten the country’s national security
are using non-military means to pursue their hegemonic intentions.
It is therefore necessary that military leaders are adept and are
always systematically apprised. They must be capable of building
and managing strategic alliances among domestic and national
security sectors. The purpose is to move major players to pursue
collective security and defense.
The Filipino Military Leader must bear the sophistication of a

modern strategic leader; able to detect complex warnings,
indicators, and political tripwires; able to conceptualize hybrid
options and asymmetric actions; able to take advantage of natural
strengths; and, most importantly, be a strategic inspiration to the
Filipino people.
!83
Paradoxes and Dilemmas
The military context is an environment

extremely full of paradoxes that necessitate
a military leader’s very good grasp of
competing demands in order to ensure the
survival and adaptability of the organization
to the dynamic and evolving security needs
of the nation.
There is a need to emphasize consciousness

and regard for these competing demands in
the quest to develop a capable military
leader.
These competing demands or paradoxes are exemplified in

situations and/or dilemmas that the AFP is confronted with, as
follows:
• Shared leadership versus hierarchical leadership;
• Flexibility/creativity versus conformity/discipline;
• Complexity/chaos versus simplicity/linearity;
• Hegemonic leadership versus leadership of multiple identities;
and
• Distant leadership versus intimate leadership.
The dynamic of each of these competing demands is likely to have

been experienced by leaders in the AFP at one point or another in
their military careers. To grasp these dynamics in the Philippine
military context, it is necessary to codify their experiences into an
overall leader development framework.
Given the need for strong leadership in the face of complexities,

current AFP Leadership Development programs, trainings, and
policies have innate gaps that have to be filled, aligned and
synchronized across all services and ranks to be responsive and
!84
relevant to the
aspirations of the
organization. These
include the need to
consider the AFP
leadership context that
presents itself as a
paradox to better
detect, distill, and
understand them.
!85
"May mas malaki tayong kalaban sa mga Amerikano–ang ating

sarili.” - Heneral Antonio Luna
O ne way of trying to understand the uniqueness of Filipino
Military Leadership is to dissect through history the core reasons

that brought Filipino leaders together as one fighting force — those
moments in early history that caused them to decisively coalesce to
protect their families, clans, and communities. Much later, Filipinos
had to fight for a wider identity and for more abstract concepts like
freedom and democracy.
The first recorded big fight of the Filipino Combatant Leaders was
more about identity (pagkakakilanlan) and respect (respeto).
While the Filipinos at that time

were still grappling with its
identity as a people, there was
clear distinction of their
identity as a people .
The hubris of Ferdinand

Magellan that landed with him in Limawasa on March 16, 1521.
With little respect and fear for the Filipino natives, Ferdinand
Magellan fervently believed that his men and their modern
weaponry were so superior that he allowed 49 of his crew members
to face off against a force of 1,500 enraged natives. According to
historian Pigafetta, they arrived at the shores of Mactan three hours
before sunrise. Magellan sent a message to the natives saying that if
!86
they refuse to recognize the Spanish king and pay him tribute, they
would demonstrate how effective their swords were.
When the sun rose, Magellan and his crew of 49 (11 remained on
the ship) witnessed how the natives were highly organized at
warfare. In a desperate move, Magellan burned houses of natives
which, only made things worse. When they saw their houses
burning, the natives were roused to greater fury, as described by
Pigafetta.
Simply put, it was a foreigner (dayo) who wanted to impose his

authority (kapangyarihan) and has employed coercion
(pananakot) in order to force the Filipinos into submission
(pagbigay-pugay) to a king they never knew.
The second big fight of the Filipino Leaders was more about liberty,
independence (kasarinlan), and freedom (kalayaan).
Liberty, Independence, and

Freedom have slightly differing
meanings. Freedom is a state of
being without repression or
restraint, while liberty means
casting of restraint and is a step
toward freedom. Independence is a state of freedom from a socio-
political standpoint, and could also mean self-governance. Freedom
or Kalayaan, a word cited only in 1972, meant the combination of
freedom and liberty in the national language.
For over a hundred years, Filipinos have defended a precious

inheritance bestowed by the proclamation of the Philippine
Independence on June 12, 1898. Filipinos were soon Asia’s
pioneering democrats by 1899. Through two foreign occupations,
and one World War, Filipinos have stood their ground.
!87
The birth of the Katipunan and the string of leaders it produced —
the finest of the Filipinos at that time — planted the seeds for a
strategic culture of the modern Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Katipunan civics were highly spiritual. Reasoning (katwiran), by
pursuing the righteous path, protects freedom (kalayaan) and
ensures the bounty of the Motherland resulting in prolific
(maginhawa) and progressive (maunlad) lives. For the Filipino
Military Leader, it was a time to seek freedom, lead with freedom,
and live with freedom.
The third big fight of the Filipino Military Leader was more about a
combined struggle for internal consolidation (pagkakaisa),
solidarity (pagkamatatag), and peace (kapayapaan).
This has so far proven to be the most complex as the Filipinos saw
themselves locked into the Southern secessionist problem, a series
of internal strife (coups) in the 1980s, and a protracted communist
insurgency. The Philippines is a democracy always being tested by
violent anti-government rebel groups. Three major insurgencies
and a terrorist network with a grand dream of establishing a
caliphate have seen the bravery (katapangan) and decisiveness
(pagkadesidido) of the Filipino Military Leader. However, the
unfortunate thing in this equation, according to former National
Security Administration Chief Jose T. Almonte, is that the enemy is
us (kalaban natin ang ating sarili).
But all those turbulent years also served as the gestation period for
the concept of Filipino Military Leadership. Many years of national
contingencies that followed had since forged the Filipino
Leadership as a unique brand, and
has brought about the best in the
Filipino.
With the sustained efforts on

reform, transformation, and
!88
modernization, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and its
leadership have embarked on the most challenging aspects of its
third big fight.
These were the big fights, the reasons across generations for the
Filipinos to consolidate, organize, train, and fight. Learning from a
slow bloody process, their warfighting skills were a product of
native brute force, indigenous maneuver warfare, and the brand of
command and control driven by Filipino Military Leaders across
generations.
Some say that the next big fight will be about honor (dangal) and
patriotism (pagkamakabayan) and with its expected intensity, will
re-test all the valued principles of the country’s past big fights. As
the journey as a nation continues, the same principles and values,
this time in varying intensities, will drive the Filipino Military
Leaders day to day in the exercise of their mandate as a warrior-
public servant.
Filipino Military Leaders can be uniquely characterized by the

foundational sphere, which mainly includes the national cultural
identity, strategic aspirations, historical context of their struggles,
and warrior ethos. All these serve as the context for the advancing
standards of character (pagkatao), competence (kagalingan), and
capacity (kakayanan) that will enable them to better address the
security and defense challenges of the future.
!89
Filipino Warrior Ethos
Ethos is defined as the disposition, character, or fundamental

values peculiar to a specific person, people, culture, or movement.
The Warrior Ethos, the professional attitudes and beliefs that
characterize the Filipino Soldier, was initially reflected in the
collective foundational belief systems and which much later evolved
to include the nation’s enduring values of the profession charged
with protecting those values. The Warrior Ethos is the foundation
for the Filipino Soldier’s total commitment to victory across all
mission areas.
The warrior ethos is a sacred covenant not just among members of

the military profession, but also between the profession and the
society in whose name the AFP fights and serves. The warrior ethos
transcends the laws of war; it governs the warriors’ behavior. The
warrior ethos makes units effective because of the values of trust
and self-sacrifice associated with it—but the warrior ethos also
makes wars less inhumane and allows the profession of arms to
maintain self-respect and to be respected by others. Without it the
Filipino military leaders are just killers, mercenaries, and traitors.
Just like the enemy collaborators— the Makapilis— during World
War II who sold off their fellowmen and spied for the enemy,
evoking more fear of them than the real enemy itself.
!90
Philippine Army
No history of the Philippines is
veritable than the history of its
armies as literary writer Nick
Joaquin averts. Being the oldest
of the major services, the
Philippine Army serves as the
backbone of Filipino military
strategic culture. In its campaigns
saw the incremental shaping of the Filipino Warrior Ethos.
The Army Warrior Ethos states, "I will always place the Country
first (para sa bayan), I will never quit (walang atrasan), and I will
never leave a beleaguered comrade behind (walang iwanan)." The
Warrior Ethos is a set of principles by which every soldier lives. In a
broader sense, the Warrior Ethos is a way of life that applies to the
Filipino military leaders’ personal and professional lives as well. It
defines who we are and who they aspire to become.
Scout Rangers
The Philippine Army Scout Rangers (SR) have
gained international recognition for their
exemplary fighting skills and field
achievements. Etched in their standard Ranger
Tab are the words “We Strike” reminiscent of
their propensity to take the initiative to defeat
the enemy by force as the first and only option.
In the heat of battle, within the ranks are
whispers to this effect: “Di bale nang mamatay huwag lang
mapahiya” (It is alright to die than to be humiliated). Its long
history of intense battles has earned the 7-man Ranger Team a
fierce Filipino warrior brand like no other. Colonel Dennis Eclarin
(ret), PMA Class 1992, a former scout ranger himself, wrote a book
that embodies lessons from jungle and urban warfare to teach
soldiers the basics of heroic leadership. Through the narratives of
!91
elite Philippine Scout Ranger fighters, the book presents time-
tested techniques in leading by example even in tough times. It also
showcases practical combat leadership insights and the scout
ranger ethos. The Ranger Song is also in many ways reflective of the
unit’s ethos.
Special Forces
For the Philippine Army Special
Forces (SF), the unique operational
imperatives are anchored on the
operational concept of “Develop,
Organize, Train, Equipt, Command
and Control (DOTEC) Indigenous
forces in the area.” This scheme
places them in a unique and prolonged face-to-face exchange with
the Filipino masses. Living, eating, sleeping, and learning with the
community has given the SF a unique front seat for encapsulating
the ground zero context that matters for a successful military
campaign. Socializing (pakikisalamuha), adaptability
(pakikibagay), and influence (panghihikayat) are the people to
people skills that make it unique, resilient, and potent as force
multipliers in warfare. Fighting as a homogenous 12-man team, it
presents multiple options of infiltration like no other. Its credibility
as valued game changers in military campaigns are subdued by its
organizational humility as silent professionals.
Philippine Air Force

January 11, 1936 saw the creation of
the Philippine Army Air Corps which
was with its nucleus the Philippine
Constabulary Air Corps, and later
renamed to its final heritage title —
Philippine Air Force (PAF). Perhaps
the biggest leadership recurring challenge that the PAF faces is the
lack of modern combat aircraft due mainly to limited funds.
!92
In many of its early air combat sorties, Filipino sky warriors had to
face a superior enemy force with outclassed and ageing aircraft. It
was pure Filipino grit and suicidal bravery that made the difference.
What it lacks in equipment, it makes up with gallant Filipino pilots
and airmen. On the ground, Airforce fighting as infantry were never
short of heroes too.
Its core values of Integrity (Karangalan), Service (Serbisyo),

Teamwork (Pakikipag-tulungan), Excellence (Kahusayan), and
Professionalism (Propesyonalismo), all serve as guide posts to
leadership.
PAF 5th Fighter

Wing. Its warrior ethos
is effectively embraced
within its battle cry “Fly-
F i g h t - D e f e a t
Adversaries” and “Fight’s
on! Check Six!” These depict their decisive “can do” attitude
as if to positively condition everyone in the decisive process
of defeating an enemy in air combat no matter the odds. The
Filipino pilots of this unit embrace the fact that they will be
fighting with limited capabilities and mostly on their own.
One can only surmise their mindset despite their most likely
impaling fate in air combat.
15th Strike Wing. Their motto,

“First of the First Force,” confidently
packages themselves as an elite air
combatant unit. They present
themselves as a primary course of
action whenever there is need to
accurately destroy high value targets
through sheer air power. This unit
has a glorious combat record and is highly respected by
!93
Filipino ground units of the AFP. Their firepower brings in
hope to the fight. They can easily be considered the most
combat-committed unit of the Philippine Air Force due to
their heavy involvement in internal security operations.
Their warrior ethos is evident even in their color and shark
design schemes.
The 205th Helicopter

Wing’s “Always There.”
and 505th Helicopter
Wing’s “So that others
may live,” are the unique
and invaluable
contributions of these
gallant rotary units that
have been the Air Force’s
workhorses in the most isolated ground zero areas of the
archipelago. These units are mostly known for their death-
defying maneuvers to infiltrate and land in their designated
target areas. The “Vampire” unit even specializes in night
flying operations. Their warrior ethos is a matter of proving
success to those impossible missions. The fact that air
mishaps in the distant past were due to ageing helicopters,
one can only imagine the grit these Filipino pilots have to
volunteer and perform those high risk, high pay-off missions
for the nation. Despite this stigma, Filipinos still volunteer
for these airforce units.
Philippine Navy
“Show the Flag!” is now a
common operational battlecry as
the Philippine Navy (PN)
expands its operational reach
and put into decisive action
concepts like maritime presence,
!94
maritime domain awareness, maritime diplomacy and fleet-marine
team operations. As the guardians of the maritime state, the
Philippine Navy espouses the Active Archipelagic Defense Strategy
(AADS). In a maritime State, the PN has always been aware of its
emerging role and has deliberately been planning for the future
with its “Sail Plan 2028.”
Philippine Marines
Since its creation in 1951, this
elite amphibious combined
arms unit has made a brand
name for its own. Marines are
known for the highest form of
Filipino style discipline as
reflected in their motto
“Karangalan, Katungkulan,
Kabayanihan,” all of which in essence capture the Marine ethos.
Depending on the era, the other popular battle cries are the “First to
Fight,” “The Few, The Proud,” “Warriors from the Seas,” The Best
in Filipino Soldiery,”The Force of Choice,” and “Salty Boots.” All
these phrases seem to exude an inclusivity effect possibly to boost
internal morale that training and life in the Marines is difficult but
is worthwhile. In the field, usual exchanges during operations
include, “Hurrrahhh!” “Lakad habang may lupa,” “Banat lang!”
“Huwag mangamote!” and “Basta buo tayo!” The Philippine
Marines presents themselves as the necessary national amphibious
maneuver force for a maritime State like the Philippines. During his
stint as the Philippine Marine Corps Commandant, Gen Emmanuel
Salamat AFP (Ret) published the Marine “Ethos Book” in 2017
which effectively serves as the Corps’ official reference book. The
Marine Hymn and Marine Oath are organizational platforms of the
Corps’ ethos.
!95
Naval Special Operations Group
The Naval Special Operations Group
(NAVSOG) is another worthy elite fighting
unit of the Navy trained in special operations,
sabotage, and psychological and
unconventional warfare. It is heavily
influenced by its US Seals counterparts. “First
to Respond, Last to Leave” is their
operational mantra. They have in recent big
battles proven their mettle as a special
operations unit. Secretive and truly elitist in their ways, this unit,
however small, aptly represents the Filipino maritime
unconventional warfighter.
!96
The Contemporary Filipino Military Leader
So what is it that makes the Filipino Military Leader?
Context (konteksto), as we have lengthily discussed so far has a lot

to do about it. This is made up mainly of culture (kultura), history
(kasaysayan), and the unforgettable experiences (karanasan)
along the way, and the challenges (hamon) of current realities
(kasalukuyang kamulatan).
Filipino Leaders are mostly described by their character (kalooban)

which is often attributed to their basic foundation which is the
family (pamilya). The Filipino family has profound influence on the
typical serviceman because it has shaped his faith (paniniwala),
demeanor (asal), and principles (paninindigan), among other
things.
Lastly, Filipino military service is driven by its mission (layunin)

and vision (pangarap). Both inspire and motivate for superior
performance and acts of gallanty in the field.
Konteksto and Kalooban are major spheres that compose the full
spectrum of the Filipino leadership journey. These two major
aspects have therefore been considered in the AFP Leadership
Development Program. Relatedly, Layunin and Pangarap
effectively motivate the leaders and define their core purpose.
The Eclectic Leadership Approach
The Armed Forces of the Philippines has got its hands full. It is an
overutilized military. From internal security operations, to support
to law enforcement, to crisis response, to disaster rescue, and relief
and rehabilitation, its mission sets transcend the traditional AFP
mandate which is to defend the State. The AFP’s expanded concern
!97
to help address full spectrum human security indicators has in
many ways affected its organizational growth and outlook.
As a result, focus on external defense is hampered by domestic

security concerns. The security of the country’s territorial baselines
is now heavily challenged by a major threat. Traditional and
conventional courses of action seem to be anachronistic. The AFP
shall be in need of Military Leaders who understand, embrace, and
can operationalize big concepts like “whole-of-nation,” “asymmetric
response,” “phase zero operations,” “strategic paralysis,” and can
anticipate second and third order effects of decisions.
The strategic environment will also progress toward

interconnectedness using key technologies that the threat may also
exploit and leverage. These threat actions are sure to become more
complex in the coming years, and new generations of Filipino
Military Leaders are sure to face these realities.
Meantime, military threats to national security will continue to

evolve into more complex, modern, and hybrid imminences.
Considering the glaring disparity and volatility of the situation, the
AFP’s catch-up plan, however good, can only be realized with
effective key leaders. The Filipino Military Leader, then, is its best
asymmetric capability.
Threats to national security exploit the vulnerabilities of the State,

society, and communities. The desired posture of mission readiness
and the corresponding
development of military
capability integrated by key
leadership will be critical in
sustaining the effort against
complex threats at the national
and regional levels.
!98
The evolving internal and external environments are confronted
with diverse issues and challenges that threaten the country’s
national security. Hence, survival and existence must be ensured
across the AFP operations continuum whether in peacetime,
conflict, and wartime. All these will continue to challenge the
Filipino Military Leader.
As seen in the typical continuum of AFP operations, the intensity of

military tasks execution can be drawn as a sine curve whereby
peacetime demands minimal AFP task participation and shall
incrementally increase with the escalation of conflict even toward a
full-blown war.
Likewise, a given reality is that the AFP would simultaneously

execute military tasks across four mission areas on a regular basis.
Each mission area demands a different leadership approach
depending on the variables and the dynamics in play. In such
scenario, the stakes are high and the price of failure is
consequentially viscous that it must bring out the best in the
Filipino in order to survive and win.
To illustrate, a Philippine Navy Landing Dock ship leaves port at

Sangley Point on a logistics run mission with Marine Troops bound
for Sulu to support ISO imperatives. Along the way, it jibes the
routine maritime patrol along the country’s important sealanes. It
also jibes transporting relief items to Central Mindanao which was
recently hit by an intensity 7.5 earthquake. As it traverses the
Southern border, it establishes contact with Malaysian and
Indonesian Navies in
connection with the Indonesia-
Malaysia-Philippine Tri-lateral
Border Agreement and then
executes a PASSEX. This
presents a classic all-in-one
mission for the skipper of the
!99
Philippine Navy Ship and its crew. Leadership approaches then
adapt in an eclectic manner to the multi-mission execution.
Across the continuum of AFP operations, while performing multiple

tasks across all mission areas, a flexible leadership scheme which
combines leadership approaches and theories would present the
most realistic and pragmatic leadership style. As the situation
escalates, the Filipino Military Leader shifts and combines the best
fit leadership approaches in an eclectic manner. The refinement
and execution of the approach based on the Framework is an
essential next step.
To be an "eclectic leader,” one should take into account the

prevailing context, accommodate the best of leadership qualities
from all models, and require them to constantly adapt their
approach in order to get the best from their team. To be effective,
therefore, leaders need to be able to develop freedom of action and
to shape their environment. This simply means not ascribing to one
single way of leading but to have an open mind to possibilities.
Most importantly, it allows for spontaneity, and a context-driven,
and more natural leadership style to come through.
In essence, the Filipino Military Leader is open to creating its own

leadership style that does not merely mimic another leader’s style.
Therefore, there is a need to study, understand, and appreciate the
different leadership approaches then to pick out the elements that
best suit the situation and mission. Eclectic Leadership better
positions the leader to address obstacles in more creative and
effective ways.
The following table shows some of the popular leadership

approaches with their corresponding attributes. Building an ethical
leadership climate is ideally a common thread in all of them.
!100
Some Filipino Military Leadership Tools
Self-Mastery (Loob)
It is the discipline of gaining a special level of proficiency (Senge,
1998) continually clarifying and deepening one’s personal vision in
alignment with its professional direction and mission. This is the
“Loob” or “Buot” in Bisaya and “Nakem” in Ilokano, that is, the will
that is always directed towards something, towards other people
(kapwa).
There are many approaches, methodologies and tools on this topic,

but the basic tools used so far are Leadership Journey and
Leadership Capital.
Leadership Journey is the basic tool in recognizing one’s leadership

roles in all of life’s phases by identifying patterns and values that
point to one’s purpose.
The Leadership Capital is another tool in identifying one’s “capital”

as a leader. This capital may include, but is not limited to, one’s
!101
values, experiences, expertise, and relationships at the local and
national level, for instance.
Both tools are administered in a separate workshop and is done

individually by the participants.
Systems Thinking
This is a methodology that aims to aid in understanding systems
rather than the individual parts of a pattern; more clearly, in
looking how it affects one another and at how change is addressed
and initiated effectively.
The process of doing this may vary depending on the tool that is
being used (e.g. fish bone, problem tree, causal loop). All of these
tools are helpful in deepening the analysis of the issue, identifying
which are recurring, what the pattern is, and what are the possible
root causes and effects of the issue are.
Robust and honest discussions on overcoming real-world paradoxes

and contradictions give the learners a chance to detect, reflect,
resolve, and build upon the emerging ethical backbone of the
organization. Discussions go beyond being dogmatic to doctrines or
the absence thereof. It strives to be contextually adept. Relational
thinking is emphasized as a key input in the decision-making
process of Filipino leaders.
Theory U
Discovered by professors in the
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, this is a
complementing tool in doing
systems thinking as a
methodology. This theory
introduces the levels of change:
Structures, Process, and
!102
Thinking (mental models). Through systems thinking, one is able to
identify variables that are just an event that was brought about by
the patterns caused by the system, the structures, and the thinking
(mental models) of the people who created/contributed to the
emergence of the issue.
Theory U has three major movements, as follows: Sensing

(pakikiramdam) which is an innate skill of a Filipino, which is
to be aware of the situation (ulirat), and to be able to read other
people’s feelings, mental models and inner state; Presencing, that
is at the bottom of the U, may represent new ideas generated from
the information gathered (sensing) although this does not
guarantee an immediate success. However, in the last movement –
Realizing, prototyping is the first step to ensure effectivity of the
intervention. These three movements and their seven capacities (as
shown in the diagram) are used as a guide in analyzing issues and
initiating change effectively.
Multi-Stakeholder Approach (Bayanihan)

The Multi-Stakeholder Approach brings together different
stakeholders (pakikisalamuha), who may have different powers
and interests in the situation, for collective learning, decision-
making, innovation, and action (Woodhill, 2004).
Recognizing that in addressing inequities, one individual or sector

cannot do it alone, there is the need to identify and engage critical
stakeholders who may affect and might be affected by the issue.
This process includes Stakeholder Analysis and Identification (SAI),
a tool that each participant will use in utilizing such an approach.
The analysis is crucial in understanding the power and interests of

each stakeholder in the issue. This is done all throughout the
implementation of the project as these may change over time. This
process therefore is iterative and will need an indigenous approach
to be effective.
!103
Dialogue
This is the discipline of recognizing the patterns of interaction
among individuals and groups of people that may hinder learning.
This is suspending assumptions and being receptive to collective
thinking and learning. It is Filipino way of engaging with different
stakeholders in a genuine conversation.
T h i s
discipline is
q u i t e
challenging
but is critical
in addressing
an inequity.
For example,
t h e
participants
are allowed to
experience the process (as shown in the following table) through
case analysis.
Guided by the levels of conversation— Talking Nice, Talking Tough,

Reflective Dialogue, and Generative Dialogue— the participants are
to come up with a better and effective solution to the issue which is
based on a common ground.
Appreciative Inquiry (Kagandahang-Loob)

Kagandahang-Loob (Reyes, 2015) is a strategy that inspires
positive change, dreams, and possibilities by identifying strengths,
source of passion, and “life-giving” forces that are found in a
system. Filipino leaders always find what is good in others, and in a
situation, what inspires them, and what “gives them life.”
!104
Coaching, Mentoring, and Counseling (Paggabay at
Pagpayo)
Table 1.0 Comparison of Counseling, Coaching and

Mentoring
Counseling Coaching Mentoring
Purpose Review past or Guide learning Provide

current or guidance
performance to improvement focused on
sustain and skills. professional or
improve personal
current or growth.
future
performance.
Source Rater, chain of Assigned coach Those with
command. or trainer greater
with special experience.
knowledge.
Interaction As a formal or During practice Conversation

informal or on a
conversation performance personal level.
between between a
superior and coach/trainer
subordinate. and the
individual,
observation,
guidance.
How it works Identify the From Apply the
(what the need. Prepare opportunities mentor’s
counselor, for the session. for Experience to
coach or Conduct demonstration guide the
mentor does) counseling to of a skill, protégé.
encourage observe
subordinate’s performance
active and
participation. provide
Set goals. guidance.
Follow-up on
progress.
Outcome Formal Behaviors Personal

(Individual identified for commitment
Development improvement, to career
Plan) or higher choices,
informal goals performance intent to
for level. improve.
sustainment &
improvement.
!105
Requirement Required – all Required or Voluntary,
subordinates voluntary. mutual
are to be commitment.
developed and
counseled.
Occurrence Prescribed Training or Initiated by

times IAW performance either party.
performance events.
evaluation or
upon event
when rater
determines a
need.
These are approaches that seek to facilitate sustained learning that

is translated to attitude and behavioral changes, a connection
between and among people that are engaged in a meaningful
conversation that brings out the greatness in people (Tschannen-
Moran, 2010).
The core skills of coaching is listening and asking powerful

questions. These are being introduced in the class through a triad
practice in coaching. Each of them will act either as the coach, the
coachee, and the observer. Then they shift roles after the given
time. Their experience will be processed so that their attempts to
coach may be enhanced further through feedback from their
coaches and the observer.
Leaders have three principal ways of developing others. They can

provide knowledge and feedback through counseling, coaching, and
mentoring.
Providing feedback is common to interacting with others during

development. Feedback significantly contributes to development,
accelerates learning in day-to-day experiences, and translates into
better leader performance. Providing feedback starts with
observation and accurate assessment of performance. Planning to
make observations of a subordinate is the first step in feedback. The
best observations occur when subordinates engage in critical
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performance, interact with their subordinates or other soldiers, or
address a challenging problem. Keeping observation notes is useful
when tracking multiple subordinates.
Counseling
Counseling is central to leaders’ development. Leaders who
serve as designated raters have to prepare their
subordinates to be better soldiers or Army civilians. Good
counseling focuses on the subordinates’ performance with
an eye toward tomorrow’s plans and solutions. Leaders
expect subordinates to be active participants seeking for
constructive feedback. Counseling cannot be an occasional
event but should be part of a comprehensive program to
develop subordinates. With effective counseling, no
evaluation report – positive or negative – should be a
surprise. A consistent counseling program includes all
subordinates and not just people thought to have the most
potential.
Counseling is the process used by leaders to guide

subordinates to improve their performance and to develop
their potentials as they actively participate in the counseling
process. It uses a standard format to help mentally organize
and to isolate relevant issues before, during, and after the
counseling session. During counseling, leaders help
subordinates to identify strengths and weaknesses and to
create plans of action. To make the plans work, leaders
actively support their subordinates throughout the
implementation and assessment processes. Subordinates
invest themselves in the process by being forthright in their
willingness to improve and being candid in their assessment
and goal setting.
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Approaches to Counseling
Inexperienced leaders are sometimes uncomfortable
when confronting a subordinate who is not performing to
the standards set. Counseling is not about leaders’
comfort but is about correcting the performance and
developing the character of a subordinate. To be effective
counselors, leaders must demonstrate certain qualities
such as respect for subordinates, self-awareness, cultural
awareness, empathy, and credibility.
One challenging aspect of counseling is selecting the

proper approach for a specific situation. To counsel
effectively, the technique used must fit the given
situation. In some cases, this only requires listening to or
giving pertinent information. A subordinate might call for
just a brief word of praise to improve one’s performance.
Other situations may require structured counseling
followed by specific plans of action. An effective leader
approaches each subordinate as an individual.
Counseling includes (a) directive; (b) non-directive; and
(c) combined approaches. The major difference among
the approaches is the degree to which the subordinate
participates and interacts during a counseling session.
Directive Approach. The directive approach works

best to correct simple problems, to make on-the-spot
corrections, and to correct aspects of duty performance.
When using the directive style, the leader does most of
the talking and tells the subordinate what to do and when
to do it. In contrast to the non-directive approach, the
leader directs a course of action for the subordinate.
Non-directive Approach. The non-directive approach
is preferred to most counseling sessions. Leaders use
their experiences, insight, and judgement to assist
subordinates in developing solutions. Leaders partially
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structure this type of counseling by telling the
subordinate about the counseling process and explaining
expectations.
Combined Approach. In the combined approach, the

leader must use techniques from both the directive and
non-directive approaches and adjusting them to
articulate what is best for the subordinate. The combined
approach emphasizes the subordinate’s planning and
decision-making responsibilities.
Coaching
While a mentor or counselor generally has more experiences
than the person being supported, coaching aims to teach
and guide subordinates to bring out and to enhance the
capabilities already present. It gears toward helping
someone through a set of tasks with general qualities where
those being coached may or may not have appreciated their
potentials. The coach helps subordinates to understand
their current level of performance and guides them how to
reach the next level of knowledge and skills.
This is a development technique used for a skill, task, or

specific behaviors. Coaches should process considerable
knowledge in the area in which they coach others. An
important aspect of coaching is identifying and planning for
short and long-term goals. The coach and the person being
coached discuss strengths, weaknesses, and courses of
action to sustain or to improve.
Mentoring
Current and anticipated operations place additional
pressures on developing leaders rapidly. To help leaders
acquire the necessary abilities, the Army relies on a leader
development system that compresses and accelerates
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development of professional expertise, maturity, and
conceptual and team-building skills. Mentoring is a
developmental tool that can effectively support many of
these learning objectives.
It is not required for leaders to have the same occupational

or educational background for them to be coached or
counseled. In comparison, mentors generally specialize in
the same area as those they mentor. Mentors have likely
experienced what their proteges are experiencing or are
going to experience. Consequently, mentoring relationships
tend to be occupation-specific, with the mentor having
expertise in the particular area. Mentoring focuses primarily
on developing a more experienced leader for the future.
Mentorship is the voluntary developmental relationship that

exists between a person of greater experience and a person
of lesser experience that is characterized by mutual trust
and respect (AR 300-100). Mentorship is generally
characterized by the following:
• Mentoring takes place when the mentor provides a less
experienced leader with advice and counsel over time to
help with professional and personal growth.
• The developing leader often initiates the relationship and
seeks counsel from the mentor. The mentor takes the
initiative to check on the well-being and development of
that person.
• Mentorship affects personal development (maturity and
interpersonal and communication skills) as well as
professional development (technical, tactical, and career
path knowledge).
• Mentorship helps the Army maintain a high competent
set of leaders.
• The strength of the mentoring relationship relies on
mutual trust and respect. Proteges carefully consider
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assessment, feedback, and guidance: these become
valuable for growth to occur.
Supportive mentoring occurs when a mentor does not

outrank the person being mentored who has extensive
knowledge and experience. Contrary to common belief,
mentoring relationships are not confined to the superior-
subordinate relationship. They may occur between peers
and often between senior NCOs and junior officers. This
relationship can occur across many levels of rank. In many
circumstances, this relationship extends past the time where
the party has left the chain of command.
Tools for Adaptability

The AFP has yet to develop a Comprehensive Soldier Fitness
Program to provide critical adaptation, resilience, and
coping skills to Military, CHR, and family members to
handle transitions such as deploying to new geographical
regions, career changes, and dealing with family and life
situations. The program intends to maximize potential
through improved performance and readiness.
Operational Adaptability
Operational adaptability is the ability to shape conditions
and respond effectively to changing threats and situations
with appropriate, flexible, and timely actions. Leaders
exhibit this quality through critical thinking, creative
thinking, displaying comfort with ambiguity, willingness
to accept prudent risk, and ability to adjust rapidly while
continuously assessing the situation. Leaders possess a
clear understanding of the commander’s intent and apply
initiative to defeat enemies, influence foreign
populations, and control terrain. Leaders enable
operationally adaptive units through flexibility,
collaborative planning, and decentralized execution.
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Mission command fosters initiative and the ability to
operate aggressively and independently within the
commander’s intent.
Problem Solving Processes – JOPS and

Operational Art
While adaptability is an important tool, leaders at all
levels must use their cognitive abilities to counteract the
challenges of the operational environment through logical
problem-solving processes such as the Joint Operations
Planning Process and the Design Methodology. Concepts
of the Operational Art underpin the leader’s role in
promoting innovative, adaptive work, and guiding
planning, preparation, execution, and assessment in
operations. It requires agile and versatile leaders who
foster continuous organizational learning while engaging
in iterative collaboration and dialogue to enhance
decision making.
Relational Thinking
Relationalism seeks eclectic methods of inquiry and
exposes both paradox and equivoques inherent to
military interventions. This philosophy explores ever-
shifting patterns of meaning from multiple points of view.
Whereas rationalism seeks clarity of meaning through
simplification, relationalism seeks appreciation of
multiple meanings and complexification. It supports a
more critical philosophy—toward wisdom in practice. In
many ways LDC has found this very Filipino.
Ming-Jer Chen and Danny Miller (2011) present a

definition of relationalism “a thought system in which
concepts and entities enjoy no final definition, but are
constantly redefined by their context. In such a system,
paradox is not an irrational state; that is, a paradox need
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not be rendered rational through the cancellation of one
or the other of opposing entities of which it is composed.
Instead. . .entities simply exist with respect to and within
the context of another.”
A promising military designer or design team, then,

involved with reframing a military intervention, has to be
open to multi-meanings of mind. Relational thinking
promotes the never-ending search for multiple means of
framing a problem; discovering that metaphoric
reasoning is an important art form; accepting the ethos of
“quadigenous” or relational meanings; and opening
minds toward a more humble and fluid role as bricoleur,
where military design is improvising situational
meanings in- and on- action that continuously remake
the profession. This way of thinking continuously
challenges doctrine or institutional looms and is the
Filipino Military Leader’s only viable post-institutional
way out of institutional quagmires it faces now and
towards the future.
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CHARACTER, COMPETENCE, AND CAPACITY
“Ang ginawa ko ay para sa iniibig kong bansa. Walang sakripisyo

na kay hirap. - Gregorio del Pilar”
T he distinguishing characteristics of the profession of arms as a
unique and special vocation are its expertise, responsibility, and

corporate nature. The command, operation, and control of a human
organization whose primary function is the application of violence
distinguish the profession. The military profession establishes,
certifies, and maintains standards of competence and appropriate
conduct for tis members. These standards are not limited to
warfighting skills, but apply to ethical behavior as well. It is the
sense of duty and mission that elevates the profession of arms.
The AFP Leadership Development Model emphasizes Character,

Competence, and Capacity — better known as the 3C’s:
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Character: In the context of AFP leadership development, this is
considered the most critical component. Character (pagkatao)
includes personal moral virtues (kabanalan) unique to the leader.
It is the leader’s internal and true identity. It includes the leader’s
sense of purpose (ipinaglalaban), values, principles (prinsipyo),
conscience (konsensiya). Character also manifests in behavior
(katangian), attitude (ugali), demeanor (asal), and self-mastery
(pagkatotoo sa sarili). Hereunder are phrases synonymous to
character:
• Virtuous Attributes
• Selfhood
• Genuine Personality
• Temperament
• Integrity and Values
• Ethics and Morals
1. Building Character. Most of the the AFP leader’s character is

built upon his formative years even before entering the
service. Character forms over time through education,
training, and experience in a continuous, reinforcing, and
iterative process. Character development is achieved on a
day-to-day basis through actual field experience, coaching,
mentoring, counseling, reflection, and regular formal, and
informal feedback. While it is the individual’s responsibility
to attain a high level of self-mastery, the unit or organization
sets the necessary policy support and institutional level
programs to hone and shape the leader’s journey as he
enters, serves, and retires from the service.
2. Importance. Character is so important as a leadership

quality because decisions (isip), spoken words (salita) and
actions (gawa) are almost often vdemonstrated to others.
Trust (tiwala) and cohesion (pagkakabuo) within the group
are in many ways affected by the demonstrated character of
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the leader, and may spell the success ofrfailure of the team.
Team character is the melding of the individual’s character
into the team. 
 
In the AFP’s renewed interest in molding ethical leaders and
ensuring a solid ethical climate for the organization, it gives
the highest premium to character as the backbone of its
leadership development programs.
3. Self-mastery. This will make one embrace his authentic self

(tunay na pagkatao). Reputation is how one is perceived by
others, but his character is what he truly is.  
 
It matters to understand, acknowledge, and be in control of
one’s weaknesses as much as one’s strengths in character.
The process of self-mastery is the most effective way to do
this. It is essential to have good character in order to pursue
the profession of arms with integrity and honesty.
Character and Ethics
Adhering to the principles of the AFP Core Values of Honor,

Service, and Patriotism is essential to upholding high ethical
standards of behavior. Unethical behavior quickly destroys
organizational morale and cohesion; it undermines the trust
and confidence essential to teamwork and mission
accomplishment. Being ethically consistent forges strong
character in individuals and expands to create a culture of
trust and to nurture an ethical climate throughout the
organization.
Ethics indicate how a leader should decide and behave in

the face of ethical dilemmas and moral crisis. The AFP
Values therefore represent a set of common beliefs that
leaders are expected to uphold and reinforce by their
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actions. The translation from desirable ethics to internal
values and to actual behavior involves choices and
conviction.
Ethical conduct must reflect genuine values and beliefs. AFP

Core leaders adhere to the AFP Values and traditions of
valor, duty, honor, solidarity, and loyalty because they want
to live ethically and profess the values because they know
what is right. Adopting good values and making ethical
choices are essential in producing leaders of character.
The AFP Code of Ethics and the AFP Articles of War codify
the law of war and outline ethical and lawful conduct
operations. They distill the essence of the law of war, Army
Values and ethical behavior: AFP Core leaders must
consistently focus on shaping ethics-based organizational
climates in which subordinates and organizations can
achieve their full potential. Leaders who adhere to
applicable laws, regulations, and unit standards build
credibility with their subordinates and enhance trust with
the people they have sworn to serve and protect.
1. Ethical Reasoning. To be an ethical leader requires more

than knowing the AFP Core Values. Leaders must be able to
apply them to find moral solutions to diverse problems.
Ethical reasoning must occur during the operations process.
Leaders consider ethics in planning, preparing, executing,
and assessing operations. Ethical choices may be between
right and wrong, shades of gray, or two rights. Some
problems center on an issue requiring special consideration
of what is most ethical. Leaders use multiple perspectives to
think about ethical concerns, applying the perspectives to
determine the most ethical choice. Overcoming ethical
dilemmas and challenges is part of character development.
Context provides the key variables, while maturity in the
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service and service ethos help achieve the best decisions in
the trenches.
2. Ethical Orders. Ethical Orders. Making the right choice and

acting on it when faced with an ethical question can be
difficult. Sometimes it means standing firm and disagreeing
with the commander on ethical grounds. These occasions
test character. Situations in which a leader thinks an
unlawful or illegal order has been issued can be the most
difficult. 
 
Under normal circumstances, a leader executes a superior
leader’s decision with enthusiasm. Unlawful orders are the
exception: a leader has a duty to question such orders and
refuse to obey them if clarification of the order’s intent fails
to resolve his objections. If a subordinate perceives an order
to be unlawful, intensive efforts to fully understand the
details of the order and its original intent must be made. The
subordinate should seek immediate clarification from the
person who gave it before proceeding. If the question is
more complex, seek legal counsel. If it requires an
immediate decision as may happen in the heat of combat,
make the best judgment possible based on the AFP Core
Values, critical thinking, and relational thinking.
Competence. A leadership competency is a characteristic

contributing to superior performance in achieving organizational
objectives and goals. These include measurable or assessable
knowledge, skills, and abilities plus other characteristics such as
values, motivation, initiative, and self-control that distinguish a
superior performer from the average person. Leadership
competencies can be developed. By mere performance of missions
and tasks, one may be able to sustain and improve these
competencies. To improve proficiency, leaders can take advantage
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of chances and opportunities to learn and gain experience to be
competent.
Some of the more common phrases related or similar to

competence are the following:
• Superior Performance
• Core Skill sets
• Functional Expertise
• Aptitude in the service
• Technical Prowess
• Native Talent
Levels of leadership competencies.
1. Organizational Competency. From an organizational

perspective, the fundamental purpose of the Armed Forces
of the Philippines is to defend the nation and its vital
interests. To do this, it must rely on its core competencies.
Core competencies are the most important functions or
groups of functions that define the basic purpose of the AFP
now and in the future. 
 
While keeping the nation safe and secure, the AFP’s core
competencies may involve combat or warfighting on
domestic soil. In some extremely unlikely scenario of last
resort, more typically the AFP fulfills that function of
keeping the nation safe and secure via territorial defense
operations that are designed to contribute to international
peace and security. That often involves the conduct of
activities and operations that demand skill sets other than
those usually associated with warfighting: increasingly,
those skills are more properly associated with what has
become known as nationbuilding. Thus, while warfighting is
indeed an integral part of the AFP mission area and may, in
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fact, be a core competency, it may not be the AFP’s only core
competency.
2. Individual Leadership Competency. Competencies provide a

clear and consistent way of conveying expectations for AFP
leaders. Current and future AFP core leaders want to know
what to do to succeed in their leadership responsibilities.
The core leader competencies apply across all levels of the
organization, across leader positions, and all throughout
careers.  
 
Competencies are demonstrated through behaviors that can
be readily observed and assessed by a spectrum of leaders
and followers: superiors, subordinates, peers, and mentors.
This makes them a good basis for leader development and
focused multi-source assessment and feedback.These
include groups of actions universal to leaders, across major
services and operational commands, functional
specializations, and throughout all mission areas. Leader
competencies develop from a balanced combination of
institutional schooling, realistic training, self-development,
and professional experience.
Categorization of Competencies based on

perspective.
1. Organizational or Core Competency is an aspect of the

business believed to have the greatest strategic value. The
AFP must not lose focus of these things that matter most and
that are critically central to its identity and purpose. Core
competencies are can also be considered as the intellectual
capital of the AFP.
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2. Functional Competency is a specific knowledge or
specialized skill area that relates to successful performance
of a job description or functional position.
3. Foundational Competency — A foundational competency

represents a set of skills, knowledge, and attitudes/attributes
necessary for broad job functions. These are supporting level
competencies linked to successful performance, and are
desirable and basic, regardless of an individual’s area of
expertise or role.
4. Strategic Competencies — These are individual leadership

skills and capabilities, that aim for higher goals like
articulating a unit's vision, influencing unit culture, critical
resource generation, policy-level actions, and building
consensus. Strategic leadership competencies are not just
taught in the schoolhouses or learned through events on the
training calendar—they are also taught through
developmental assignments and through the everyday field
experiences of core leaders in and out of the organization.
Capacity. This refers to optimizing all aspects about the leader.

Qualified leaders enhance their leadership skills, core
competencies, and character as fast as their organization is
growing. In the AFP, qualifying never stops; there is always a higher
level to achieve, to capacitate one’s self. Capacity is seldom on the
list of leadership traits. And yet, it is extremely important to be
competent and effective in attributes like processing the
information one receives, having good discernment, being able to
carry and execute significant responsibilities and being able to
endure and excel under heavy demands and pressure. The following
areattributes associated with the capacity of an effective leader:
Professional Mastery, Work Load Efficiency & Effectiveness,
Superior Proficiency, Multi-tasking workload, and IQ & EQ
capacity.
!121
1. Professional Mastery means superior performance of the
required competencies, the appreciation of why they are
being performed, the flexibility to perform them in a range
of circumstances, and the self-confidence to apply them in
conditions of risk and ambiguity. Professional mastery
requires an excellent and comprehensive understanding of a
profession’s vast body of knowledge that is complemented
by the recognized ability to apply that knowledge unerringly
to achieve the desired objective. Professional Mastery is also
in many ways related to capacity and competency.
Professional mastery is a systems view of the AFP that offers
an integrated understanding of how the individual and the
organization interact to deliver the human dimension of
warfighting. It recognizes the impact of human competence
in the achievement of success. Professional mastery is the
human dimension of the warfighting capability. In fact, it is
the single most important prerequisite for the operational
success of the AFP, and leadership is the key to professional
mastery. 
 
The principal responsibility of the AFP Core leader is to the
nation. The discharge of this responsibility requires mastery
of the specialized skills and knowledge inherent to the
profession. Mastery of these specialized skills entails
acceptance of the responsibility. The capacity to fight and
win is achieved by developing and sustaining the
professional mastery of military personnel.
2. Professional mastery involves:

a. Choosing to pursue professional mastery as opposed to
competence which is a standard required skill;
b. U nd e rs t a nd i ng t h a t i nd i vi d u a l a nd c o l l e c t i ve
performance are interdependent and that the
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relationship is mediated by the environment that leaders
create;
c. Understanding and developing the human dimension of
warfighting capability and appreciating that these
elements are disproportionately important to success in
warfighting; and
d. Configuring the organization so that all the AFP’s
personnel realize their potentials.
3. Aspects of Filipino Professional Mastery

a. Technical and Tactical Mastery 
Technical and tactical skills and knowledge are linked,
and mastering these areas ensures that the individuals
and the organization are brilliant at the basics of the
profession. To start with, as an archipelagic state, the
AFP must embrace realities that will enable it to
maneuver and fight in a maritime terrain using the same
to its advantage and developing capabilities to exploit
this natural advantage. It also demands an
understanding of one’s institutional doctrine, while at the
same time an appreciation that doctrine should not be
used blindly. Operational realities provide the context for
adaptive action and TTPs.
b. Mastery of Strategic Thinking 

The AFP is the most experienced defense force in the
ASEAN region, having been committed to continuing
operations for many decades. By this reality, its
experiences are worth their weight in gold when
translated to higher knowledge distilled for strategy.  
 
The mastery of strategic thinking at its core should
develop professionals with a deep understanding of war,
core interest, and elements of national power. Its
foundations must begin early in the career of a military
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professional. The development of the competency also
demands that an individual must have the capacity to
work within a wider strategic, political environment and
must appreciate dynamics of civil-military relations. 
 
Strategic thinkers appreciate critical and creative
thinking and are more likely to provide that space for
innovation to break through.  
 
This capacity for strategic thinking and its ongoing
development is especially compelling as mistakes in
operations and tactics can be corrected, but political
and strategic mistakes will haunt a nation. While
military institutions do notseek to make every junior
officer a strategist, even the most junior leaders in the
future will increasingly rely on better strategic awareness
and understanding to guide their tactical activities. 
 
Mastery of strategic thinking will further enable better
execution of operational art. This shall ensure that
tactical actions meet strategic ends through operational
design and enhance the capacity to work within and
exploit fusion in joint and interagency undertakings,
multi-domain operations, and asymmetric warfare. 
 
Finally, strategic thinkers have a deeper appreciation of
organizational theory, change management, military
history, lessons learned, doctrine development, including
the evolving concepts of academic disciplines as they may
apply in national defense and security.
c. Physical Mastery 
The second competency builds upon such base by
creating mastery “of the body,” which involves both
physical fitness and resilience. Physical fitness also
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builds self-confidence and facilitates group activities that
enhance team cohesiveness while minimizing injury and
maximizing personnel availability. Physical mastery is
also linked in many studies to cognitive performance,
improved capacity to cope with stress, cognitive control
and memory. It should be noted that the Filipino
physique, when developed is a power house judging from
the long line of top athletes and premium we give to
sports excellence. Harnessing this innate appreciation for
vigor and natural resilience to stress, there is no reason
we cannot develop warriors of excellence with extreme
physical capacities.
d. Psychological and Cognitive Mastery 

Psychological and cognitive mastery forms the third
competency: increasing mental capacity, stock
knowledge, improving muscle memory, and appreciating
the cognitive demands of warfare and conflict. While
conflict avoidance remains the natural preference, the
cognitive preparation for war is a compelling and central
competency for the military professional. It requires a
focus on understanding cognitive bias, complexity
theory, communications theory, heuristics, multi-
disciplinary learning, and relational analysis.  
 
The AFP is gradually giving premium to training,
education, doctrine development, and knowledge
management. There is also the move to empower beyond
the officers corps, this time to includeEnlisted Personnel,
NCOs, and evenCivilian Employees, thus the
conceptualization of the term “Core Leaders.”
e. Mastery of Leadership and Ethics 

Leadership is the capability integrator of the AFP. It is
the art of influencing and directing people to achieve the
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team’s or organizational goal.  
 
Mastery of leadership and ethics is a life-long journey of
theory and practice. This includes strengthening ethics
around decision-making and diverse leadership
approaches to address various situations. 
 
Along this line, spiritual growth and food for the soul
finds its way. Filipinos are innately religious and faith in
the Almighty is a day-to-day dogma that certainly cannot
be missed and must be nurtured.  
 
Finally, achieving mastery in leadership must include
humanities, philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies to
generate wider viewpoints for command as well as to
strengthen understandings of diversity and ethical
considerations. This is imperative as the country’s
military forces become more internally diverse,
externally deployed in mixed social networks and its
operations continue to see the organization working with
a broader range of nationalities and ethnic groups.
Conclusion 
 
Character is the power and competencies are the tools in
leadership. The AFP leader needs both to accomplish anything
significant and lasting. In most cases, Character + Competence =
Capacity. AFP Core leaders cannotreach their full capacity unless
they are continually growing in both character and competence.
Professional Mastery is initiated by the military professional toward
increasing the capacity to plan, perform, evaluate, and adapt, as
necessary, in order to achieve superior performance. 
 
Wars are essentially moral conflicts where victory follows the
collapse of the enemy's will. 'Fighting power' is the term used to
!126
describe the Army's capacity to fight and win. AFP forces
generatefighting power through the combination of three
components: The intellectual component provides the knowledge to
fight; the moral component provides the will to fight; and the
physical component provides the means to fight. These three
components are interdependent. All are to be found in the collective
character, competency and capacity of the Filipino warfighter-
leader. 
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CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP
"Ang tunay na kabanalan ay ang pagkakawang-gawa, ang pag-

ibig sa kapwa at ang isukat ang bawat kilos, gawa’t pangungusap
sa talagang katuwiran.” - Emilio Jacinto
W e will now look at the process of how leadership theories and
the guidance laid out in the foregoing chapter are synthesized by an

individual person or group in order to apply these in deciding and
acting for mission success and to create and develop a world-class
Armed Forces led by professional and ethical AFP leaders.
As has been expressed in the earlier part of this book, there are key
ideas and approaches — not home-grown — that have been adopted
from the works of various thought leaders and scholars on
leadership that are deemed applicable in a wider, universally
applicable context.
!128
For the purposes of this chapter, we will be looking at the eclectic
application of leadership theories particularly through Relational
Thinking and the OODA-loop in order to raise the importance of
cultural awareness and understanding in an environment in which
the military necessarily operates with omnipresence to keep the
nation safe and secure.
Although this was discussed thoroughly in the previous section, the

reference guide would like to highlight this as essential to culture.
From a most rudimentary point, relational thinking implies
“relativity” of one thing, such as an idea or an event, to another;
therefore, an idea or an event can be perceived simultaneously in
many ways from multiple points of view because it is all “relative.”
By its very nature, the AFPLDC finds Relational Thinking very

Filipino because it supports wisdom in practice. As defined by
Chen and Miller, relationalism is a thought system in which
concepts and entities enjoy no final definition,but are
constantly redefined by their context. In other words, the
thinking appears close to the Filipino colloquialism: “Depende; Pa-
iba-iba; Kailangan laging handa; Maigi na ‘yung handa ka, ‘di ka
magugulat at matulala, hindi alam ang gagawin; mamamatay ka
sa akala.”
The military designs team with an “accelerated” OODA Loop that is

conscious, aware, mindful, and practices relational thinking open to
multiple meanings and able to anticipate possibilities that impact
strategies, tactics, and operations vis-a-vis the relativity of entities,
events, and situations. As such, military design would be able to
improvise situational meanings in action and on action thereby
continuously remaking the profession.
!129
The OODA Loop
The OODA loop is the dynamic cycle of Observe-Orient-Decide-

Act1. The second O, Orientation, defined as the repository of genetic
heritage, cultural traditions, and previous experiences is the most
important part of the OODA loop as it shapes the way we observe,
the way we decide, and the way we act.
To lead to win, one has to observe what is going on, orient one’s
self, decide what to do, and act before the opponent has completed
its version of the same process, repeating, and repeating the loop
faster than one’s foe.
The toughest part of the OODA loop is the last letter which stands
for Act. Alertness and awareness of the cultural environment and
good pattern recognition makes “Observing” relatively easy to
accomplish. Of the four OODA words, “Orient” is the least intuitive
because it derives from genetic heritage, and requires the
acquisition of knowledge, and the analysis and synthesis of new
information and previous experience as well as cultural awareness.
As a metaphor for reading maps, “Orient” can be thought of as

gathering one’s energies and resources to pivot the team toward a
general direction. Being observant and having a good team that can
give valuable insights to cleanse and to perfect observations would
naturally help orient the leader.
Moreover, relational thinking also provides input into the “Orient”

part of the OODA Loop. Deciding is not easy but input from
observations and orientation makes it straightforward.
It is the last word – Act or Action – that can be challenging because

it is not easy to get resources (like budget and bureaucracy), and
1A concept in military strategy developed by John Boyd, a colonel in the United

States Air Force.
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make commitments (to cultural styles and dimensions) to execute
plans. There are so many barriers to action; for example, the
operation of the different cultural dimensions in daily life; typical
situations where people get busy with other tasks; initial passion for
a decision have cooled down; and people outside one’s orbit have
different priorities. These barriers to action sap momentum and
can stall or paralyze actions. Changing things is never easy but the
OODA loop is a helpful way of confronting a challenge and moving
forward.
Consider the diagram below 2:
The OODA loop was designed by John Boyd describes an individual

decision-maker in a situation more complex than shown in the
diagram, such as a D-VUCAD3 environment. In the “Orient” box,
there is much filtering of the information through “our and their”
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
3 D-VUCAD - Disruptive, Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous, Diverse.
We are now well beyond a VUCA world – characterized by volatility, uncertainty,
complexity and, ambiguity – and must add two Ds to the acronym to reflect the
broader context of the journey ahead. Everyone’s leadership journey will now
take place in the ‘D-VUCAD’ environment. At the front, overshadowing
everything, is disruption (whether in the form of technology, social change,
industry/organization reconfiguration or the like). We continue to experience
volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, but must add to this the reality
of diversity (including gender balance, plus cross-cultural and intergenerational
diversity). In the D-VUCAD world, your personal leadership journey will include
more frequent pathway changes, all of which you should navigate consciously
(Woodward, 2018).
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culture, genetics, ability to analyze and synthesize, and previous
experience. Previous experience, in this context, will include the
totality of all leadership trainings and learnings in the life of a
military person from top to bottom and bottom to top.
We can now look at the elements of culture in leadership from the

following points:
• Culture is an important ingredient in leadership development;
• An effective organization aligns strategy, goal, and culture;
• The organization’s profile and personality are affected by the
national cultural identity; and
• The leader’s outlook is also shaped by the internal organizational
culture
Defining Culture
Culture is the tacit social order of an organization. It shapes
attitudes and behaviors in wide-ranging and durable ways. Cultural
norms define what is encouraged, discouraged, accepted, or
rejected within a group. When properly aligned with personal
values, drives, and needs, culture can unleash tremendous amounts
of energy toward a shared purpose and foster an organization’s
capacity to thrive. Culture can also evolve flexibly and
autonomously in response to changing opportunities and demands.
While strategy is typically determined by the top brass, culture can
fluidly blend the intentions of the top echelons with the knowledge
and experiences from the military frontline.
Culture has four generally accepted attributes, as follows:

1. Shared. Culture is a group phenomenon.
2. Pervasive. Culture permeates multiple levels and applies very
broadly in an organization. Sometimes, it is even merged with
an integral part of the organization itself
3. Enduring. Culture directs the thoughts and actions of group
members over the long term.
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4. Implicit. Despite its subliminal nature, people are effectively
hardwired to recognize and to respond to culture instinctively.
Research shows that two primary dimensions of culture apply

regardless of the organization’s type, size, industry, or geography:
(1) the manner in which people interact independently or
interdependently; and (2) how an organization, at the individual
and team levels, responds to change (Groysberg et al., 2018;
Gleeson 2018).
People Interactions
An organization’s orientation toward people’s interactions
and coordination will fall on a spectrum from highly
independent to highly interdependent. Cultures that lean
toward independence place greater value on autonomy,
individual action, and competition. Those that lean toward
interdependence emphasize integration, managing
relationships, and coordinating group effort. People in
interdependent cultures tend to collaborate and to see
success through the lens of the group.
Response to Change
Whereas some cultures emphasize stability—prioritizing
consistency, predictability, and maintenance of the status
quo—others emphasize flexibility, adaptability, and
receptiveness to change. Those that favor stability tend to
follow rules, use control structures such as seniority-based
staffing, reinforce hierarchy, and strive for efficiency. Those
that favor flexibility tend to prioritize innovation, openness,
diversity, and a longer-term orientation. It has also been
said that while there are changes in external events that we
cannot control, we can control and calibrate how we
respond to these changes. We cannot always control our
circumstances but we can always control our
response” (Mattis & West, 2019).
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Culture: An Important Ingredient in Leadership
Development
Given the three major internal threat groups in the Philippines and
the Filipino nation, the AFP Core Values of Honor, Service, and
Patriotism, as well as the desired outcomes (the 3Cs) being
Character, Competence, and Capacity, it is readily seen that these
values and outcomes are mutually reinforcing variables/ingredients
in developing the quality of leadership expected to be possessed and
practiced by the Filipino military leader.
Where would culture be subsumed?
Perceived from the lenses of Relational Thinking and the OODA-

loop, we can appreciate that the military leaders’ dual responsibility
for their own troops and the local population require them to shift
interpersonal relationships and leadership styles as the situation
demands. One determinant of applicable leadership style is the
active, real time context of the situation on the ground. Leaders are
called upon to engage socially across cultures --- to build trust,
create alliances, read intentions, influence, and understand people
and their motivations
Building cultural competency is as much a necessity as building all

other competencies and values to develop leadership in the military
and to close critical sociocultural knowledge gaps4 where the
complexity, paradoxes, ambiguities and the D-VUCAD nature of
combat and culture face the soldier and his officer every day.
Cultural intelligence or “socio-cultural savvy” is subsumed as part

of the 3Cs and these 3Cs which are in turn reflected when military
4Laurence, Janice H. “Military Leadership and the Complexity of Combat and

Culture”. Military Psychology Vol. 23 pages 489-501. Temple University,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. C2011 p491.
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personnel actively demonstrate the AFP Core Values in their
interaction with fellow
citizens.
The Philippine military today

now, more than ever, is
virtually omnipresent in many
of the government’s
mobilizations such as
providing security during
local and national elections, and

humanitarian action during
disasters and search and rescue
operations. As stated by BGen
Ferdinand Jose G. Rivera of the
Corps of Professors, “the
Philippine Military’s tasks have
gone beyond traditional
warfighting and management of
violence; the Philippine military
is now just as active in
humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR). The AFP is the
most organized, have the proper equipment, and always ready when
asked to assist.”
Mobilizing for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief is an

opportunity to be closer to the
citizens, reach out to them,
establish rapport with them,
help them feel safe and secure
in the awareness that Filipino
lives matter and the
government cares, taking away
people’s instinctive fear of the
military, the “most dangerous
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tool of the Government, because they bear arms”.
Today’s challenges faced by the military show critical sociocultural

knowledge gaps in leader development. Cultural competencies are
required that will foster cultural understanding and communication
and require the active support of the local community to achieve
victory.
In counter insurgency (COIN), for example, operations must be

conducted with humanity and compassion toward the local people.
Behavior by soldiers that is deemed disrespectful by the locals and

their legitimate leaders can impede cooperation and even provoke
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attack, either directly or through cooperation with insurgents and/
or terrorists. In dangerous contexts, subordinates – soldiers –
monitor and re-evaluate trust in formal leadership. The
establishment of trust outside of organizational and cultural
boundaries needs to be paid attention to because trust, respect and
value congruence enhance leadership and, hence, organizational
effectiveness.
In counter-insurgency (COIN), the social demands must be met

within the context of cultural challenges. There are cultural
differences and misunderstandings between the military and
civilians; when lethal weapons and tactics abound, these differences
are exaggerated and can have grave consequences. Predictability
and uniformity of action are stymied by differences in the language,
religion, behavior, values, beliefs, social organizations, political
systems, economic systems, education, history, law, customs and
social controls.
In addition to proven high level tactical skills, leaders need strong

communication and diplomatic skills. Underlying such skills are
social, emotional, and cultural literacy or intelligence. These
elusive skills address the capacity to perceive, monitor, manage,
understand, and employ social, emotional and cultural information
to guide reasoning and action.
It is important to understand one’s own culture, values,

assumptions, to avoid cultural mistakes by behaving in a manner
that demonstrates knowledge of and respect for other cultures.
These conditions highlight the relational aspects of leadership at

the same time providing input to enrich the “Orient” phase of the
individual’s OODA-Loop.
At this point, one should ask: do we even know the Filipino people
that well?
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Within the Filipino nation, cultures within cultures can still have
nuanced differences from region to region, island to island, from
ethnic group to ethnic group. If journalists can be embedded in
combat to give accurate reports in real time on the ground, one
would think that social scientists from the University of the
Philippines and other reputable universities, those who are doing
Field Psychology and Sociocultural Anthropology, could also be
embedded when the military goes to remote areas. They can access
aid in documenting and codifying these "discoveries" in socio-
cultural knowledge to promote understanding and awareness
between the military and the stakeholders.
!138
The cultivation of relationship skills is necessary not only for
external situations but for internal dynamics as well. COIN requires
the coordination of leadership at strategic, operational, and tactical
(direct) levels.
Subordinate leaders must make crucial decisions without the direct

supervision of higher command. Higher leaders must depend on
the situational awareness of subordinates. The small unit leaders
need to understand social norms in the area of engagement and
how to communicate and mingle with ease among the locals.
This would be the case in the concept of the “Three-Block War,”

mentioned earlier. The “Three-Block War” concept requires high
leadership training at the lowest levels because modern militaries
must be trained to simultaneously operate in all three conditions of
(1) full scale military action, (2) peacekeeping operations, and (3)
humanitarian aid within the space of three contiguous city blocks
(or town/district/barangay/village). This leadership training
necessarily creates “Strategic Corporals,” low level unit leaders who
are able to take independent action and make major decisions. It
goes without saying that the corporal’s OODA-Loop must be highly
developed and instinctively applied because the situation calls for
an “A” that is independent and a “D” that is of major significance to
Mission Command, requiring the corporal to have very dynamic
“Observe” and “Orient” abilities spawned by owning the key
features of leadership development discussed in the previous
chapter
Military leaders are vulnerable in the areas of relationship skills and

understanding people; failures in campaigns have been human, not
technological (Laurence 2011: 494). Cultural competence is a
deficiency from the strategic leader level down to the direct leader
level. Cultural ignorance can have serious consequences. It is
necessary to adapt to different cultures and to be able to interpret
the behavior of others and act accordingly. Misunderstanding
!139
abounds because of different rules for the same behavior or
situation. How something is said may be as, or more important
than what is said.
Today’s D-VUCAD environment requires the military to have the

ability to deal with the civilian populace. Failure to improve
cultural awareness will be a critical vulnerability for the military.
Sociocultural knowledge is a leadership and warfightingskill. Think
about the classic truism “winning hearts and minds.” Strategic
leaders must advocate for education, training, rewarding
sociocultural competence, and they must shape the organization
and allocate the necessary resources and trainee time toward this
goal.
Aligning Strategy, Goal, and Culture
Leaders maintain organizational viability and effectiveness by

putting strategy and culture among their primary tools of leading.
Influential leaders often set new cultures in motion and imprint
values and assumptions that persist for decades.
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Leadership goes hand-in-hand with strategy formation, and most
leaders understand the fundamentals. Where strategy is clearly
defined and provides focus for collective action and decision
making, much of culture is anchored in unspoken behaviors,
mindsets, and social patterns that can impact on strategy such that
someone once said “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
To illustrate, leaders may lay out detailed and thoughtful plans for
strategy and execution but because they do not understand culture’s
power and dynamics, plans go off the rail and fail --- hence, “culture
just ate strategy.” In the words of Philippine Marines Col.
Martinez5 (retired), the OODA loop failed to function. A leadership
strategy effective in one culture can be counter-productive in
another.
Organizing Culture: Reading the Pulse of the Organization
Culture work typically has a catalyst —

commonly a shift in strategy, a new
Commander, digital or functional
transformation, regulatory changes,
increasing calls for inclusivity, or unethical
5Round Table Discussion with Col. Martinez PN(M)(6SC) in March 2019 at

AFPLDC
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behavior events. In the present context, the AFP Leadership
Development Center takes on the role of catalyst.
At the outset, senior leaders should ask the following questions to

determine what needs to be done, evaluating their catalyst, and
identifying how it can or should shift culture:
• Are we trying to achieve new things with the old ways of
accomplishing them?
• Do we have a clear view of the culture that we have and need
to have?
• Do we, as leaders, set the right tone at the top? Not just a nice
a nice tone based on our style, but the right tone for our
mission? Do we live it consistently?
• How are we operating today, and how will it change in the face
of transformation that would be brought about through the
AFPLDC?
• Is our culture an asset or impediment to a desired change in
the AFP’s strategy?
• Are there skeletons in our closet? Would we rather know and
do something about them, or just ignore and hope nobody gets
hurt?
The answers to the foregoing questions can initiate a movement. To
quantify progress, there is a need to assess data from employees of
the AFP, and from stakeholders outside the AFP, to create a
baseline of where the AFP is, and establish regular check-ins over
time to track progress. Most of these data already exist, and
advancements in analytics and technology make it easier to gather,
use, and learn from it. With this information at hand, leaders can
determine what the AFP should keep doing, stop doing, and start
doing to best drive the strategy.
A deliberately designed, measured, and enduring culture has to be

part of an organization’s growth model if it intends to win
missions. To ensure that organizational culture evolves the right
way, five steps are fundamental (Ernst & Young, 2019):
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1. Assess and diagnose the current culture of the AFP
Leadership usually starts thinking about their organizational

cultures during major transformations. The status quo gets
upended making it clearer to see what is and is not working. Every
change is an opportunity to measure and adjust behaviors. Once
the current measure has been measured, assessed, and diagnosed,
!144
the leader must define the culture that is desired and must close the
gap.
This can only happen with an honest assessment. Is the current

culture aligned with the strategy and transformation goals? Are you
trying to achieve new things through the old ways of working? Is the
tone set by the leadership right for the organization? Knowing
these answers will direct your path.
2. Reflect the organization’s core values & strategy
The AFP’s culture should be aligned with the core values of honor,
service, and patriotism. These are the guardrails on how the leader
and their followers work together, anchored on what the AFP
believes as important to the organization. But the leader also must
connect those values to overall strategy to ensure that these are
embedded in its programs, policies, and procedures. Does the AFP
value and strategically call for innovation? Prove it. People come up
with great ideas everyday. Leaders should empower their troops at
all levels so that these ideas flourish. When leaders create a safe
environment to express and advance ideas, followers are more
likely to think their workplace is innovative.
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In his book Learning to Lead, General Mattis tells us that the US
Marine Corps nurtured some of the strangest mavericks and most
original thinkers whom he has ever encountered throughout his
military career who had an apparent focus on innovation and
gaining feedback in his advice to new officers:
“Take the mavericks in your service,” he tells new officers, “the ones
that wear rumpled uniforms and look like a bag of mud but whose
ideas are so offsetting that they actually upset the people in the
bureaucracy. One of your primary jobs is to take the risk and
protect these people because if they are not nurtured in your
service, the enemy will bring their contrary ideas to you.”
!146
3. Get the Board of Generals “on board the same
page”
Board members’ oversight of workplace evolution matters. It is up

to the leaders at all levels to define and grow the AFP’s culture as a
key part of the overall operational behavior of the AFP as an
organization. That oversight starts at the top and boards play an
important role in holding accountable the executive team of leaders
down the line.
They can do this by including cultural indicators in performance

metrics, discussing how incentive structures impact behaviors, and
making sure executive leaders set the right tone. More existentially,
boards reflect the organization at large.
!147
4. Find the real influencers: Social mapping
Before moving toward new ways of working, leaders need to clearly

understand the social network of the AFP organization – who
actually connects to whom and who has the largest influence. Often,
these influencers are not necessarily people with traditional
leadership roles but their opinions hold sway with peers. They are
influential and the leader may have no idea who they are.
Every organization has a formal structure and an arguably more

important informal social structure. This is part of your culture. If
you do not see it today, you need to. The leader can create all the
team trainings as desired but if there are no takers, there is no buy-
in from members of the organization particularly those who are
liked and respected. Hence, culture efforts will fail. The real
influencers are not always the people in senior leadership roles and
as such the vast majority of organizations have no clue who can
really help them shift culture.
Using data, for example, from email traffic and calendaring, it is

possible to create social maps and determine how people are
influenced. This analytic method called Organizational Network
Analysis (ONA)6, is used globally to better understand and measure
certain aspects of culture. It allows leaders to identify areas for
impact and to design change to and through the real influencers in
the AFP.
By evaluating data from calendar flows and email exchanges—the

“digital exhaust” of the organization — the leader can create social
maps to better identify influential culture carriers throughout the
organization. Get these people aligned, and better yet, ask them to
help promote these culture shifts. This can really start to impact
behavior at scale.
6 ONA is the name of a broad perspective that consists of a set of organizational

theories and computational methods that help understanding many important
aspects of organizational collaboration and communication
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Top-down and Bottom-up
While it is true that behavior is modelled from the top down,

pushing a new way of thinking on others is not an effective
strategy for operationalizing culture. Executive sponsorship
is key, however. To get that buy-in while allowing the real
work to happen on the ground, adopt a “rocks and boulders”
approach.
At the senior level, identify the big boulders, like

governance, operating model, performance systems,
rewards systems, and organizational and/or bureaucratic
processes that must change to shift and sustain new ways of
working. Prioritize one boulder at a time so that senior
leadership can put their collective shoulders into rolling it
forward.
Outside of the senior leadership team, identify the

influencers who are open-minded and ready to do things
differently. With these people at the forefront, plan small
changes for local teams by creating an environment
conducive to learning and adopting new behaviors. Over
time, these new behaviors (the rocks) create new norms that
can be promoted to other teams as a new way of doing
things. When enough rocks move, they create an avalanche,
resulting in the force needed to truly make a culture shift.
Shape up or ship out
Everyone who works in the organization contributes to its

culture. We are each accountable for how we show up every
day. In a D-VUCAD environment, one bad egg is all it takes
to disrupt harmony and create lapses, scandals,
controversies, and mission failures.
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Organizations should be serious about stopping bad
behavior. In part, this means working on self-awareness so
that everyone understands the impact they have every day
on trust, safety, and performance. Unfortunately, some
people just will not get on board. Thus, it also sometimes
means removing people whose actions are detrimental to
the cultural health of the organization.
Aligning culture across every level of the organization so

that it enables your strategy is essential to moving with
agility in a time of unprecedented change and the challenges
that come with a D-VUCAD environment. As external
pressure mounts, leaders should take action to create a
blueprint for purpose and culture that delivers short- and
long-term value for members of the organization and the
nation’s stakeholders.
Culture is not the soft stuff; it is the real and human stuff. It
is time to get that right for each other.
5. Prioritize your people
People are value drivers; treating them as value drivers creates

more long term value. Leaders should prioritize employee
engagement and well-being. To successfully do so, that may mean
cultivating a new set of skills at the top, including empathy and
transparency that builds trust. By putting people at the center of
your mission, you move away from transactional models into modes
of true transformation, for your culture, the AFP as an organization,
strategy, and beyond.
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Cross-Cultural Competencies
In the Philippine context, the various languages, ethnic groups, and

economic disparities among islands, large and small, necessarily
imply that a leader needs to have cross-cultural awareness and
practice that result from developing these five cross-cultural
competencies (Northouse 2016: 429):
1. Understand business/trade/economy, political, and cultural

environment nationwide.
2. Learn perspectives, tastes, trends, and technologies of the
cultures indigenous to the place of deployment.
3. Work simultaneously with people from many cultures.
4. Adapt to living and communicating in other cultures.
5. Relate to people from other cultures from a position of
equality rather than cultural superiority.
In aligning strategy and goals with culture, the leader needs to

answer the following further questions that reinforce the earlier set
of proffered questions to be able to read the organization’s pulse.
• How do we define our culture as it exists today – both the Armed
Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and its internal and external
stakeholders (Diagnosis and Assessment)?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of these cultures?
• What should we potentially change about our organizational
culture in order to lead seamlessly and inter-operably in the
interest of national security, in all contexts confronting the
Philippines that are presented by both contemporary and
protracted challenges in a continuously evolving geopolitical
environment and security architecture influenced by D-VUCAD
factors?
• What systems, structures, processes, and behaviors does the AFP
need to change before organizational culture will shift in the
desired direction?
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• How will the transformation of the AFP’s organizational culture
achieve its goals, thereby showing alignment of strategy and
culture?
By using the fundamental insight about the dimensions of people

interactions and response to change, eight styles are identified that
apply to both organizational cultures and individual leaders
(Groysberg et al., 2018; Gleeson, 2018). Northouse (2018)
presents a similar set of styles that are considered as the Nine (9)
Dimensions of Culture.
Developing insight from the primary dimensions of people

interactions and response to change and melding it with a
conversant knowledge of the eight culture styles and the nine
cultural dimensions provide the leader a clear lens through which
he can deftly navigate himself and execute the “Orient” part of his
OODA loop in their personal life practice and in leading.
Leaders with ‘insightful awareness’ understand their strengths and

talents as well as their probable weaknesses in any given context.
They comprehend what will drive or block them at different points
in their leadership journey and set themselves development
objectives and priorities accordingly. This keeps their ‘personal
leadership agenda’ dynamic – consciously and continually re-
assessed (ref: Relational Thinking and OODA Loop) in light of
current and future situations – and they commit to making focused
and dedicated changes with reflection, practice, support, and
feedback. They confront hard questions such as “Am I the right
leader for this pathway?” and “Why am I doing what I’m doing on
this pathway?” (Woodward, 2018).
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The Eight (8) Culture Styles
8 Culture Styles from the 9 Cultural Dimensions

works of Groysberg, et al. (Research works of
Hofstede and GLOBE)
Caring
Uncertainty Avoidance
Purpose
Power Distance
Learning
Institutional Collectivism
Enjoyment
In-group Collectivism
Results
Gender Egalitarianism
Authority Assertiveness
Safety Future Orientation
Order Performance Orientation
Humane Orientation
Caring. A trusting environment where people support one another.

This style focuses on relationships and mutual trust. Employees7
are united by loyalty and leaders emphasize sincerity, teamwork,
and positive relationships.
In his book Call Sign Chaos: Learning To Lead, General Mattis

tells us about Competence, Caring, and Conviction in direct
leadership. Competence, caring, and conviction combine to form a
fundamental element — shaping the fighting spirit of your troops.
Leadership means reaching the souls of your troops, instilling a
sense of commitment and purpose in the face of challenges so
severe they cannot be put into words (Mattis & West, 2019).
Purpose. Shared ideals and a focus on the greater good (internally

and externally). It is exemplified by idealism and altruism. Leaders
emphasize shared ideals and contributing to a greater cause.
7 The use of the word “employees” here is in the general context wherein the
people of an organization is termed as such, “employed” and therefore,
“employees”. In this chapter, the organization is the AFP, the employer.
!153
In his book “Learning to Lead,” Gen. Mattis talks about
competence. Be brilliant in the basics. Do not dabble in your job;
you must master it. That applies at every level as you advance.
Analyze yourself, identify weaknesses, and improve yourself. If you
are not running three miles in eighteen minutes, work out more; if
you are not a good listener, discipline yourself; if you are not swift
at artillery fire, rehearse. Your troops are counting on you.  
Of course you’ll screw up sometimes, do not dwell on that. The last
perfect man on earth died on the cross a long time ago – just be
honest and move on, smarter for what your mistake taught you.
“Regrettably, too many of the men I’ve seen killed or wounded

failed to perform the basics. War is fraught with random dangers
and careless missteps. Clear orders and relentless rehearsals based
on intelligence and repetitive training build muscle – not once or
twice, but hundreds of times. Read history, but study a few battles
in depth. Learning from others’ mistakes is far smarter than
putting your own lads in body bags.
“Physical strength, endurance, calling in fire, map reading, verbal

clarity, tactical cunning, use of micro-terrain – all are necessary.
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You must master and integrate them to gain the confidence of your
troops. A good map-reading lieutenant is worthless if he cannot do
pull-ups.” (Mattis & West, 2019).
Learning. A focus on exploration, creativity, and innovation. It is

characterized by exploration, expansiveness, and creativity. Work
environments are inventive and open-minded places where people
spark new ideas and explore alternatives. Employees are united by
curiosity; leaders emphasize innovation, knowledge, and adventure.
Leaders who innovate and make an impact seek out those who do
not share their opinions. These leaders resist the tendency to over-
rely on their experience and what has worked in the past. Leaders
can encourage cognitive diversity in their day-to-day practices. For
example, when everyone seems in lockstep on a decision, they find
!155
someone who disagrees and cherish them. They cultivate an
environment where team members know they can speak up, ask
questions, and express dissent. A culture that encourages
(explicitly or implicitly) conformity of thought breeds stagnation
and imperils an organization. For this reason, initiatives to build
diversity in how employees think deserve a place alongside other
diversity programs (Canaday, 2017).
Leaders should dare to listen and seek feedback from all quarters of
their organization, and soldiers as well as internal and external
stakeholders should dare to come forward and disagree, or present
the better idea. Any policies and actions within an organization that
support this command and feedback process should be looked at
and attempted.
Leaders should constantly be supporting and pushing innovation

within the ranks, and constantly seeking feedback, and using these
innovations in order to continuously
improve the organization, mission,
military contracts, war fighting, and
strategy.
From an academic viewpoint, insights

into the Filipino psyche are
!156
extensively described by the research works done by Dr. Gregorio
E.H. Del Pilar and his colleagues of the Department of Psychology
at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. Dr. Del Pilar
developed a personality instrument called “Masaklaw na Panukat
ng Loob” or “Mapa ng Loob” (Mapa).
The Mapa is a personality inventory based on the Five Factor Model

(FFM) of personality traits measuring 22 Filipino traits or facets.
The FFM is a “hierarchical organization of personality traits in

terms of five basic domains,” and Mapa is the first Filipino-
developed personality instrument to use FFM as a base. The five
(5) domains are (O) Openness to experience; (C)
Conscientiousness; (E) Extraversion; (A) Agreeableness; and (N)
Neuroticism.
(O) Openness to Experience is concerned with reactions to and

attitudes about complexity and novelty. The “O” facets identified by
Mapa were: kakaibang pag-iisip (original thinking), hilig sa
bagong kaalaman (intellectual curiosity), pagkamasining
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(aesthetic sensitivity), and pagkamaharaya (imaginativeness). The
other domains are discussed in relation to the cultural dimensions
of Future Orientation and Humane Orientation.
Enjoyment. A culture of happiness, humor, and spontaneity. It is

expressed through fun and excitement. Employees are united by
playfulness and stimulation; leaders emphasize spontaneity and a
sense of humor.
Results. Goal-oriented and the prioritization of winning. It is

characterized by achievement and winning.
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Work environments are outcome-oriented and merit-based places
where people aspire to achieve top performance. Employees are
united by a drive for capability and success; leaders emphasize goal
accomplishment.
Order. This is focused on respect, structure, and shared norms.

Work environments are methodical places where people tend to
play by the rules and want to fit in. Employees are united by
cooperation; leaders emphasize shared procedures and time-
honored customs.
Authority. A bold approach towards controls and hierarchy. It is

defined by strength, decisiveness, and boldness. Work
environments are competitive places where people strive to gain
personal advantage. Employees are united by strong control;
leaders emphasize confidence and dominance.
Safety. An environment of planning, caution, and preparedness.

Work environments are predictable places where people are risk-
conscious and think things through carefully. Employees are united
by a desire to feel protected and to anticipate change; leaders
emphasize being realistic and planning ahead.
The Nine (9) Cultural Dimensions
Uncertainty Avoidance
We want things to be more predictable and certain, and thus we
avoid uncertainty by relying on established social norms, rituals,
and procedures. The dimension of “uncertainty avoidance” is
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concerned with how cultures use rules. Structures and laws are used
to make things more predictable and less uncertain. Filipinos want
to be “sigurado,” or “maniguro” to the farthest extent possible in
order to avoid uncertainty or that state of being “malabo” or “hindi
tiyak.”
One way to overcome uncertainty instead of simply avoiding it is to

be adept in the application of the OODA loop. In some contexts,
dealing with uncertainty would be called risk management.
Changing things and fluid environments is never easy but the
OODA loop is a helpful way to confront challenges. The leader who
hesitates is lost; the leader needs to seize the initiative and
accelerate their OODA loop.
To lower risks, it is incumbent upon every member of the AFP to do

their homework first. Before going into battle, learn by asking
veterans about their experiences and by reading relentlessly.
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Lieutenants come to grasp the elements of battle while senior
officers learn how to outwit their opponents by studying how others
dealt with similar circumstances. We must take advantage of
accumulated experiences that can be gained from relentless
reading. There is a need to read as many relevant books as possible
because our personal experiences alone are not broad enough to
sustain us. Any commander who claims he is too busy to read is
going to fill body bags with his troops as he learns the hard way.
The consequences of incompetence in battle are final. History
teaches that we face nothing new under the sun (Mattis & West,
2019).
In the world of the military, a most important key to overcome

uncertainty is preparation. Rehearse ad nauseam (over and over
again). Rehearse until there is ability to improvise on the
battlefield. This requires a mastery of the instruments of war.
Combat involves a level of intensity that is difficult to prepare for
even with the most grueling training. How do we prepare our
soldiers for the shock of battle?
Leaders need to make sure the training is so hard and varied that it
removes complacency and creates muscle memory and instinctive
reflexes within a mind disciplined to identify and react to the
unexpected. Once the soldiers are trained, the leader must ensure
that the men are on the same unit long enough to know their
brothers and develop trust and confidence in one another.
Once this building block is accomplished, the next training step is

rehearsal because the soldiers focus intently on the skills that will
constitute their repertoire in battle. Mentally, this is a step beyond
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combat skills training; rehearsal must continue during any pause in
combat, whether before a patrol or before a deliberate attack.
The leader and the men he leads must use any opportunity to
rehearse (Mattis & West, 2019).
For those who have not yet been in battle, the key to preparation is
imaging. The goal is to ensure that before he ever fired his first
bullet, every soldier would already have fought a dozen times
mentally and physically tasted the gunpowder grit in his teeth and
saw blood seeping into the dirt.
The leader must make his troops imagine what can happen, to
develop mental images, to think ahead to explosions, yelled orders,
and above all, the deafening cacophony. Battle is so loud that it is
hard to hear – let alone make sense of – what someone is trying to
direct you to do in the midst of chaos. At that instant, the muscle
memory of training and rehearsal must kick in; swift decisions have
to be made with inadequate information. Every soldier must know
his weapon, his job, and his comrades’ reactions so well that he
functions without hesitation. The soldier does not have to think
during battle. He has practiced and rehearsed so many times that
calculating is automatic, grooved into his muscle memory. The
same is true in close combat (Mattis & West, 2019).
War will always be messy. A leader can hope to control it, but in the
end it is unmanageable. This means always accepting extremely
high levels of risk.
If a leader is constantly trying to make war more precise and

predictable, this stance will promote people who thrive in squeezing
out the marginal drop of uncertainty.
If the leader recognizes war’s essential messiness and the enemy’s
adaptability, you will reward mavericks, risk-takers, and people
who thrive in uncertainty. They will have the innovative reflexes
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necessary for a war that changes barangay by barangay 8, where one
minute you may get a handshake and the next you may get a hand-
grenade. A leader needs to be able to be comfortable in uncertainty.
Power Distance
This dimension refers to the degree to which members of a group
expect and agree that power should be shared unequally. Power
distance is concerned with the way cultures are stratified, thus
creating levels between people based on power, authority, prestige,
status, wealth, and material possessions. A common Filipino
example is the “paggalang sa nakatatanda” (respect for elders) or
“paggalang sa mas mataas ang posisyon – nasa puwesto” (respect
for leaders).
For example, the styles of Authority, Purpose, and Order can

naturally co-exist with Power Distance when given proper focus and
management (Gleeson, 2018). Safety and Learning are styles that
do not naturally go hand-in-hand in cultural design while Order
and Safety generally go hand-in-hand. A culture of Order and
Safety embraces stability, caution, and structure while a Learning
culture embraces risk, change, and innovation.
In the context of the military, there is a Power Distance between the

top brass and the lower echelons. The concepts in the dimension of
Power Distance and some of the 8 culture styles coexist organically
together while others do not. Power impedes communication and
collaboration while power equalization improves interaction. For
example, in situations where there are local authority figures in the
8 Barangay by barangay alludes to “block by block,” in reference to the Three

Block War concept described by USMC General Krulak in the late 1990s to
illustrate the complex spectrum of challenges likely to be faced by Marines on the
modern battlefield. Marines may be required to conduct full scale military
action, peacekeeping operations, and humanitarian aid within the
space of three contiguous city blocks. The thrust of the concept is that
modern militaries must be trained to operate in all three conditions
simultaneously and that to do so, leadership training at the lowest levels needs to
be high. The latter condition caused General Krulak to invoke what he called
“strategic corporals”, low level unit leaders able to take independent action and
make major decisions.
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site of deployment, a military leader must learn to identify and
influence these traditional authority figures. To forge productive
relationships with them, the military leader must show interest in,
and at least be solicitous of their views (Laurence 2011: 492).
Institutional Collectivism
This dimension describes the degree to which an organization or a
society encourages institutional or societal collective action.
Institutional collectivism is concerned with whether cultures
identify with broader societal interests rather than with individual
goals and accompaniments.
A Filipino manifestation of this is expressed in the tendency to

identify oneself as “Ilokano,” or “Bisaya” and many other common
examples. Abroad, it loosely translates first as “kababayan,” or
“Pinoy kami” before it becomes more specific, for example -- more
“in-group” within the Filipino community abroad, and we see
different regions represented as groups of “Ilokanos”, “Cebuanos”,
‘Kapampangans”, etc. Locally, we can also loosely have a cursory
realization that government agencies tend to exhibit institutional
collectivism as well like “Sundalo kami, hindi pulis.”
In-group Collectivism
This dimension refers to the degree to which people express pride,
loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families. In-
group collectivism is concerned with the extent to which people are
devoted to their organizations or families. Common among
Filipinos is identification with the school or alma mater from where
one comes from before embarking on a career; for example
“Atenista” or “taga UP.” Within the AFP, we overhear light
conversations playfully saying “Army ‘yan. Navy kami.”
Sometimes, “Gawain na ng Coast Guard ‘yan. Marines kami.”
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Assertiveness
This dimension refers to the degree to which people in a culture are
determined, assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their
social relationships. Assertiveness is concerned with how much a
culture or society encourages people to be forceful, aggressive, and
tough, as opposed to encouraging them to be timid, submissive, and
tender in social relationships. Filipino manifestations of this
dimension would be the “lakas ng loob,” (courage) and
“taray,” (harshness) which also brings to note the apparent
opposite of assertiveness which are “hiya” (shame) and
“alanganin” (uncertainty).
Future Orientation
This concept refers to the extent to which people engage in future-
oriented behaviors such as planning, investing in the future, and
delaying gratification.
Paghahanda sa kinabukasan. Future orientation emphasizes that

people in a culture prepare for the future as opposed to enjoying the
present and being spontaneous. Typically, Filipinos tend to be the
colloquial “one day millionaire,” for example, spending the entirety
of a salary bonus in a short time and becoming “poor” again
overnight, apparently content that friends, family, and other
relatives benefitted from the windfall. Similarly, the earlier
discussion of preparedness under the dimension of Uncertainty
Avoidance can relate to Future Orientation. Delaying gratification
also implies the ability to set emotions aside and deftly navigate
oneself in the dynamic process of the OODA loop. This dimension
recalls the culture style of Safety.
From an academic viewpoint, the apparent lack of future

orientation in the Filipino psyche is linked to the “bahala na” (come
what may) attitude extensively described by research works done
by Dr. Gregorio E.H. Del Pilar and colleagues at the Department of
Psychology at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. The
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Mapa reveals that people with the “bahala na” attitude have “high
emotional instability and are not used to planning their tasks and
activities.” In addition, “init ng ulo” or anger hostility “borders
between high emotional instability and concern for others,” while
“pagkamatapat” or sincerity straddles “the ability to empathize and
the tendency to be generally careful and cautious.”
For the purposes of the discussion on the cultural domain of Future

Orientation, “N” and “C” are the noteworthy scores for “bahala na,”
which gives two ways of looking at the attitude.
“N” or Neuroticism is distinguished by general emotional

instability. “N” traits are hina ng loob (vulnerability to stress),
pagkamaramdamin (oversensitiveness), pagkamapagalala
(apprehensiveness), and pagkamasumpungin
(temperamentalness).
“C” or Conscientiousness is marked by an ability to focus, restrain

impulses, and delay gratification. Traits in “C” are pagkamasikap
(goalstriving), pagkamapagplano (planfulness), pagkaresponsable
(responsibility), and pagkamaingat (carefulness).
In his research results, Del Pilar found that “bahala na” is high on
“N” and low on “C.” He said there are two points of view on “bahala
na”: the traditional view of ‘fatalism,’ or the Filipino attitude of
withdrawal from a crisis, and the attitude of ‘determination and
risk-taking.’ “Traditionally, the view (of ‘bahala na’) was negative.
However, according to other Filipino social scientists Lagmay,
Jocano, and Enriquez the “bahala na” attitude is not altogether
negative. There are benefits. It is a sign of courage. In the face of
adversity, a Filipino can make up the mind to face a difficult
situation. This is confirmed by the high “N” score indicating worry
and anxiety but despite this, people are able to go through what
they have to go through when they tell themselves, ‘bahala
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na,’ (Jadloc, 2014). (Refer also to the discussion under Uncertainty
Avoidance.)
Performance Orientation
This dimension describes the extent to which an organization or a
society encourages and rewards group members for improved
performance and excellence. Performance orientation is concerned
with whether people in a culture are rewarded for setting and
meeting challenging goals.
Humane Orientation
The ninth dimension refers to the degree to which a culture
encourages and rewards people for being fair, altruistic, generous,
caring, and kind to others. Humane orientation is concerned with
how much a society or an organization emphasizes sensitivity to
others, social support, and community values. Manifestations of
this cultural dimension in Filipino society is the timeless bayanihan
(concerted effort) that happens in various situations.
In the Mapa developed by Dr. Del Pilar, the group of Filipino traits
most fitting under Humane Orientation would be the Mapa
Domains “A” and “E”. “A” — Agreeableness, is characterized by
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empathy, altruism, and concern for others. The “A” traits are
pagkadimayabang (modesty), pagka-mapagtiwala (trust),
pagka-maunawain (capacity for understanding), and
pagkamapagparaya (obligingness), while “E” is interest in
engaging one’s social and physical environment, with traits
pagkamasayahin (cheerfulness), pagkapalakaibigan
(friendliness), pagkamasigla (energy), and pagkamadaldal
(loquaciousness). The “E” domain may also be, to some extent,
seen within the cultural dimension of collectivism.
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Gender Egalitarianism
This dimension is in which an organization or a society minimizes

gender role differences and promotes gender equality. Gender
egalitarianism is concerned with how much societies de-emphasize
members’ biological sex in determining the roles that members play
in their homes, organizations, and communities. The Philippines
remains to be one of the most gender equal countries worldwide
with equal opportunities on political and economic leadership for
men and women, as reported in the 2018 World Economic Forum
(WEF). In terms of educational attainment, the Philippines ranked
first, meaning it has fully closed the gender gap, along with Canada,
France and New Zealand, among others.
Within the AFP, there are now women officers and NCOs at all
levels of the organization.
National Cultural Identity
In the 2004 Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Effectiveness (GLOBE) Research Program research mentioned by
Northouse (2016), the Philippines is clustered under Southern Asia,
along with Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Thailand, and Iran.
The clusters provided GLOBE a convenient way to analyze the

similarities and differences between cultural groups (clusters) and
to make meaningful generalizations about culture and leadership.
To create the clusters, GLOBE researchers used prior research,
common language, geography, religion, and historical accounts.
The regional clusters represented a valid and reliable way to
differentiate countries of the world into 10 distinct groups
(Northouse 2016: 435). The 10 distinct clusters are Anglo,
Germanic Europe, Latin Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern
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Europe, Middle East, Confucian Asia, Southern Asia, Latin
America, and Nordic Europe.
Research findings showed that the Southern Asia cluster, in which

the Philippines is grouped, exhibited high scores on humane
orientation and in-group collectivism. Countries in this
cluster demonstrate strong family loyalty and deep concern for their
communities. The strong family loyalty and deep concern for
communities may in part account for the tendency of the Filipino to
score low on Future Orientation.
Leadership Behavior and Culture Clusters
The GLOBE research showed how differences in cultures are related

to differences in approaches to leadership. Leadership refers to
what people see in others when they are exhibiting leadership
behaviors.
To describe how different cultures view leadership behaviors in

others, GLOBE researchers identified six global leadership
behaviors:
1. Charismatic/Value-Based Leadership. Reflects the

ability to inspire, to motivate, and to expect high
performance from others based on strongly held core values.
This kind of leadership includes being visionary,
inspirational, self-sacrificing, trustworthy, decisive, and
performance oriented.
2. Team-Oriented Leadership. Emphasizes team building

and a common purpose among team members. This kind of
leadership includes being collaborative, integrative,
diplomatic, non-malevolent, and administratively
competent.
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3. Participative Leadership. Reflects the degree to which
leaders involve others in making and implementing
decisions. It includes being participative and non-autocratic.
4. Humane-Oriented Leadership. Emphasizes being

supportive, considerate, compassionate, and generous. This
type of leadership includes modesty and sensitivity to other
people.
5. Autonomous Leadership. Refers to the independent and

individualistic leadership which includes being autonomous
and unique
6. Self-Protective Leadership. Reflects behaviors that

ensure the safety and security of the leader and the group. It
includes leadership that is self-centered, status conscious,
conflict inducing, face saving and procedural.
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These six global leadership behaviors emerged from the GLOBE
research and were used to assess the different ways in which
various cultural clusters viewed leadership.
From this analysis, a leadership profile for each cluster was

identified. The profile describes the relative importance and
desirability that different cultures ascribe to different leadership
behaviors.
The Philippines is clustered in the Southern Asia leadership profile,

a cluster found to be similar to the profile of Confucian Asia. Both
clusters place importance on self-protective, charismatic/value-
based, humane-oriented, and team-oriented leadership. Both
clusters find participative leadership ineffective. Southern Asia
countries believe that charisma is an important leader attribute.
Further, the Southern Asia countries characterize effective
leadership as especially collaborative, inspirational, sensitive to
people’s needs, and concerned with status and face-saving.
Southern Asia countries believe leaders who tend to be autocratic
are far more effective than those who lead by inviting others into
the decision-making process.
The Leader’s Outlook: 22 Valued Leadership

Attributes
The GLOBE studies identified 22 valued leadership attributes

universally endorsed as characteristics that facilitate outstanding
leadership. Based on the list of endorsed attributes, a portrait can
be drawn of a leader whom almost everyone would see as
exceptional. That portrait is of a leader who is high in integrity, is
charismatic /value based, and has interpersonal skills.
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Leadership attributes that were universally viewed as obstacles to
effective leadership were also identified. These characteristics
suggest that the portrait of an ineffective leader is someone who is
asocial, malevolent, and self-focused. People from all cultures find
these characteristics to hinder effective leadership.
At the core of training programs about culture and diversity, people

are taught about the nuances and characteristics of different
cultures and how to be sensitive to people in other cultures.
Understanding issues about culture is useful in several ways:
1. It helps leaders understand their own cultural biases and

preferences. Understanding their own preferences is the first
step in understanding that people in other cultures might have
different preferences.
2. It helps leaders understand what it means to be a good leader.
Different cultures have different ideas about what they want
from their leaders. The research findings help leaders adapt
their style to be more effective in different cultural settings.
3. It can help global leaders communicate more effectively across
cultural and geographic boundaries. By understanding cultural
differences, leaders can be more emphatic and accurate in their
communication with others.
In very practical ways, information on culture and leadership has

been used to build culturally-sensitive websites, design new
employee orientation programs, conduct programs in relocation
training, improve global team effectiveness, and facilitate
multinational merger implementation, to name a few.
The eight cultural styles mentioned by Gleeson — Caring, Purpose,

Learning, Enjoyment, Results, Authority, Safety and Order — are
in symbiosis with the nine cultural dimensions — Uncertainty
Avoidance, Power Distance, Institutional Collectivism, In-group
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Collectivism, Gender Egalitarianism, Assertiveness, Future
Orientation, Performance Orientation, and Humane Orientation to
the degree to which they reflect independence or interdependence
(people interactions) and flexibility or stability (response to
change).
No style nor dimension is inherently better than another. An

organizational culture can be defined by the absolute and relative
strengths of each of these styles/dimensions and by the degree of
employee agreement about which styles characterize the
organization. A powerful feature of this knowledge on the styles
and dimensions is that it can be used for processing and relational
thinking in the second “O” of the OODA loop to define individual
styles and how a leader’s outlook is shaped by internal
organizational culture; define the values of leaders and employees;
as well as having broader perspectives on national cultural identity
affecting the organization’s profile, repute, and personality.
Recalling the questions posed earlier when considering culture as it

relates to leadership style and strategy, a leader can consider the
following points to align strategy, goals and culture to achieve
mission success 9:
• Assess and diagnose internal AFP culture by using a series of

custom surveys and interviews to gather appropriate data. Keep
abreast of new publications in Filipino military psychology that
present research data diagnosing the existing culture.
• Identify culture strengths that can be used to drive change and
identify weaknesses that stand in the way of transforming the
AFP.
9Brent Gleeson is the founder and CEO of TalkingPoint Leadership, former Navy
SEAL, globally recognized speaker, award-winning entrepreneur and the
bestselling author of TalkingPoint. TalkingPoint Leadership is a progressive
consulting firm with a focus on leadership and organizational development,
culture transformation and building high-performance teams. Learn more at
www.TakingPointLeadership.com
!174
• Clearly articulate renewed AFP vision, especially as it relates to
culture transformation; and the steps necessary to achieve that
shift.
• Identify systems, structures, processes, mindsets, behaviors, and
cultural experiences needed to achieve the shift towards Learning
and Purpose because these styles must first change before culture
will shift.
• Select and develop well-respected leaders that best embody the
culture styles of Learning and Purpose and deploy them across
the AFP as change evangelists.
• Use “Purposeful Storytelling” through formal and informal
channels to keep everyone connected to the AFP’s mission
narrative.
• Reinforce the aspirational culture through new organization
design (processes, structure, systems) by replacing legacy
hierarchies with networks and ecosystems of empowered teams
Finally, in the words of Col. Augusto V. Gaite, PAF (Commandant,

GSC):
As a Filipino military leader, we all would say “Yes, Sir.”
We are very much positive, even though the load is very
big and we know we cannot perhaps perform; given the
resources and the personnel we have, we would still say
“yes.” We will never say “no” to government nor to our
people, when they seek help from us. We say yes, what
can I do for you? We will never say “no.” All we can do is
manage, prioritize. It will always happen and that is a
trait of Filipino military leadership that has been a part
of us since time immemorial. We just say yes and we just
think of ways on how to perform and conduct the task.
We do more than is expected of us. Why is it like that?
Because that is where the sense of purpose, sense of
altruism, and sense of humanity come in.
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“Right now, the AFP is very much critical. Although we do
warfighting, we think before we do warfighting duties; we think a
lot – about ramifications, consequences, results. That is why it is
very important and we have inculcated in ourselves the strategic
culture. We are good today, we will be better in the future because
of the strategic culture in which we have evolved.”
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TOWARD AN INITIAL EXPLORATION OF
“The glory of saving a country doesn't mean having to use the

measures that contributed to its ruin!” - José Rizal
Overview
G iven the various academic and practitioner literature,
understanding leadership has been challenging because of its

complex and diverse definitions, as well as applications (Allio, 2013;
Brigid, Ford & Taylor, 2015; Hickman, 2015; Northouse, 2017,
2018; Schedlitzki, & Edwards, 2018; Middlebrooks, Allen &
Morrison, 2019). Crawford and Kelder (2019: 133) acknowledged
that exploring and understanding leadership “has been a point of
difficulty for contemporary scholarship.” Globally, despite decades
of academic and practitioner research, as well as advances in
methodologies and approaches to find the best leadership
attributes, competencies and practice are still emergent and remain
to be complicated (Alias, Isamail & Sahiddan; 2015, Jensen,
Andersen, & Bro, 2016; Crawford & Kelder, 2019). On one hand,
part of the challenge is that within the design and development
context, leadership encompasses a diverse range of theories with
corresponding principles, indicators, and methodology that are
sometimes less grounded. On the other hand, conceptualizations of
leadership and leadership practices are still growing with different
typologies and theoretical standpoints emerging (Carroll, Firth and
Wilson, 2018; Northhouse, 2018; Roe, 2017; Waldman and
O’Reilly, 2019).
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Leadership in general and leadership in the context of the different
armed forces globally, have been centers to academic, practitioner,
and public discussion as military leadership adjusts to current and
future challenges and demands. Military leadership is ever-present
both in previous (Hollander, 1954; Hunt, 1991; Ulmer, 1998;
Horvath, Forsythe, and Bullis, 1999; Wong, Bliese and McGurk,
2003) as well as recent academic literature (Kark, Karazi-Presler
and Tubi, 2016; Connelly and Zaccaro, 2017; Nilsson, Brandow and
Ohlsson, 2017; Taylor, 2018). The aforementioned literature points
out to the partisan stance of the militaries. This mirrors the state’s
stance on the matter of ethnic conflict as “politics in Southeast Asia
involves personalist rivalries, class tensions, and ideological
disputes, and the interplay of divergent interests groups and
institutional self-interest” (Brown, 2009: 155). Moreover, Beck
observes in such cases, “…security and the military play a large role
while freedom and democracy count for very little.” “It is
contended here that such ‘local realities’ cannot be understood in
the majority of cases without taking into account the fundamental
nature of concrete and tangible contests over power and
resources” (Hadiz, 2010: 2). This then becomes a discursive
practice as the state and its perceived enemies “although they
coexist, have not become mixed because of the dissymmetry,
differences, and barriers created by privileges, customs, rights, the
distribution of wealth, or the way in which power is
exercised” (Foucault, 2003: 77).
This is viewed as critical as the leaders within the armed forces are
expected to respond to a fast-changing landscape with varying roles
and responsibilities. Moreover, different strategic and functional
considerations require different leadership demeanor, response,
and practice. In the Philippines, leadership and leadership
development in the Armed Forces of the Philippines have grown
continuously in response to socio-cultural, political, and economic,
as well as changing contexts. In an initial scoping review, there has
been limited academic discussion on the leadership in the context
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of the AFP. Some scholars have, however, indirectly touched upon it
in their analyses of Philippine politics and the military (Chambers,
2012; Hernandez, 1985; Montiel, 2010; Hall, 2016).
Leadership in the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Filipino

military leadership in particular has often been the subject of
discussion as the AFP intends to enable its present and future
officers to manage the specific demands that military leaders are
and will be subjected to. In an educational setting, this military
leadership is viewed as essential and may point towards how well
an enlisted personnel or a reservist will perform leadership roles in
the battlefield and other fields of endeavors. In fact early in their
careers, the core purpose of the military leadership to assume
responsibility over life and death makes the officer dependent on
life experience and how one is trained to react in dangerous and
risky conditions. Likewise, in terms of practice in the AFP, other
than peacebuilding, safety and security, military leadership is active
in business partnerships, corporate social responsibility, civil
military operations, climate change disaster risk reduction and
management, as well as other emerging areas that the AFP has been
assigned to. This portrays the field of military leadership in the
Philippines that is characterized by an eclectic and adaptive
leadership practice as the Filipino military leader is expected to
adapt and excel in assigned roles and responsibilities.
Consequently, there exists now a more nuanced and grounded
military leadership amidst a challenging landscape.
Methodology
Studies on leadership employ a wide range of research methods

(Avolio et al., 2009; Bryman, 2014; Schedlitzki and Edwards, 2014;
Easterby-Smith et al., 2015; Rickards, 2015).
This reference guide is based on various types of materials from

either primary or secondary sources. As a preliminary step, a
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scoping study was conducted by the AFPLDC to explore the field.
Using databases like Ebscohost; Google Scholar and Science Direct,
search keys were used to understand the scope of the study. For the
leadership as a search key, around 5,114,760 entries were seen in
Ebscohost, Google Scholar yielded 4,300,000 results; and Science
Direct only 201,874 search results. For military leadership, the
search yielded almost 675,000, 2.9 million and 25,212, for
Ebscohost, Google Scholar and Science Direct respectively. Lastly,
search results became more limited as the scoping yielded only
2,146, 33,900 and 1,643 results for Ebscohost, Google Scholar and
Science Direct respectively. This was useful as the research team
was able to sift through published literature to better understand
the topic to be studied. However, a cursory review of the scholarly
works point toward limited and sometimes unrelated search results,
especially when the scoping study was limited to Fiipino or
Philippine military leadership. In addition, academic literature
focused only on published articles in reputable journals or books
and not in more grounded or targeted studies like thesis and
dissertations done in the field by AFP personnel or those who have
the Philippine military as their focus.
This exploration continued with a review of related literature on

leadership in general, and on leadership in the Philippines, military
leadership, and Filipino military leadership in particular. Seminal
works and newer publications were reviewed due to limited time.
To supplement the secondary data sources, the AFP Leadership

Development Center conducted a series of informal interviews with
leaders in the AFP as well as with subject matter experts from the
academe.
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A Preliminary Review of Popular Leadership
Theories
Admittedly, most of the theories that were discussed in this

Reference Guide are Western Leadership theories but which are
among the most popular ones nowadays. 
Source: Mullins (2010) Aguilar, F. (2018). Peripheries: Histories of

Anti-Marginality. Naga City: Ateneo de Naga University Press.
!181
The Great Man Theory and Trait Theory are early leadership
theories that promote the notion that “leaders are born and not
made (Carrol, Ford, and Tailor, 2018; Northhouse, 2018; Waldman
and O’Reilly, 2019). Aguilar (2018) highlights the notion of
Dakilang Tao in Philippine history which may be a contextual
application of such theoretical perspectives. This considers
approaches to understanding leadership that intend to discover the
leaders’ latent extraordinary abilities. Initially, leadership theories
focused on the individual traits and characteristics of leaders.
Following is a summary of some popular trait-based theories of
leadership.
Source: Northouse (2018)
A drawback of such theories is the failure in predicting “leadership

achievement or that distinguished a leader from a non-
leader” (Dawson and Andriopoulus, 2014: 294). It was a challenge
to differentiate successful leaders from possessing certain traits or
characteristics from leaders who did not posses them (Northouse,
2017, 2018; Schedlitzki, & Edwards, 2018). In the context of the
military, approaches under this perspective, subordinates would
tend to look at personality traits of a Great Military Leader as the
ultimate halimbawa (example) of leadership; this then becomes a
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challenge as not all leaders may possess or demonstrate similar
traits. For leaders, being in the mold of a great leader, sometimes
lead them to look at themselves as “the answer to all.” In addition,
this gives rise to “hubristic leadership” – if not checked or if the
leader is not reflexive - that are sometimes detrimental to an
organization (Sadler-Smith, 2018).
Behavioral theories of
leadership follow the trait
theories line of research. If
for Trait Theory, leaders are
born not made, for
Behaviorists, leadership
traits can be taught.
Behaviorists stress leaders’ actions as indicators of success. For

behaviorist, leadership is confined to the definition of leadership
roles, perceptions of leaders, and contextual factors as contributing
to leadership expectations and behaviors (Dawson & Andriopoulus,
2014; Northouse, 2017, 2018; Schedlitzki, & Edwards, 2018).
Contingency theories, considered as a part of behavioral theories of
leadership in certain literature, said that “there is no single best way
to lead an organization because leading well involves the capacity to
adjust one’s methods and skills to contingent requirements of the
situation and the follower” (Borromeo, 2014: 165).
In this regard, the following leadership behavior can be observed in

certain situations:
• Autocratic Leadership. In the military service, there are

leaders that seem to demonstrate individual responsibility for
all major decisions. There are military leaders who do not
consult with their peers or units. The advantage is that this
makes military units more agile, as the leadership style may be
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effective for quick decision-making needs. But, at its extreme,
it can border towards dictatorial leadership.
• Democratic Leadership. There are military leaders who

work within their respective units and divisions and look at
these as their teams to make unanimous decisions. This is a bit
more popular in the corporate world and non-profit sector,
but there are military leaders who behave this way. The
drawback is that there may be instances when a unit may
experience failure when a team is scattered or conflicted from
within; also, being used to the line of command, there is this
tendency that some subordinates could not really decide on
their own.
• Laissez-faire Leadership. There are minor cases where
there are leaders who exhibit a “free-for-all” behavior and
hand more control to the unit or team. Such leadership style
is effective if members are competent, highly evolved, and
works in cohesion, and when there are clearly defined roles
and responsibilities. In this type of situation, military leaders
would just guide or give a gentle nudge to execute the vision.
Culturally, especially in the structure of the Philippine
military, this can fall through very quickly, and sometimes the
leader is perceived to be lazy or too laid back.
For this theoretical standpoint, the predominant theme is that there

is no one best way to lead, and the emphasis is that leadership can
be learned, and people can be trained to be effective leaders. Those
who espouse this perspective tend to focus more on “identifying
patterns of behavior (labelled as ‘leadership styles’) that enabled
effective leadership” (Dawson & Andriopoulus, 2014: 295).
Transactional Theories of leadership focus on the exchanges among

different actors as well as managing specific contexts. Other
contemporary theories have been developed in light of varied
organizational contexts. Borromeo (2014) classifies theories and
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models into “prescriptive leadership theories” and “descriptive
leadership theories.” On one hand, prescriptive leadership theories
“show how to develop leadership qualities from within, the nature
of, and how to handle follower relationships… elements that have
bearing on the leadership styles one may develop consciously or
unconsciously” (Borromeo, 2014: 163). On the other hand,
descriptive leadership theories “show what leaders are and what
they are not” (Borromeo, 2014: 161).
Recently, however, there has been a move towards viewing the

connection of leadership with output and outcome, relationship
with followers/subordinates, as well as synthesis of all these factors.
Literature convey that leadership may be construed as: (1) group
processes; (2) set of personality characteristics; (3) act of inducing
compliance; (4) exercise of influence; (5) act or behavior; (6) form
of persuasion; (7) power relation; and (8) effect of interaction
(Barrow, 1977; Stodgill, 1974; Yukl, 2012; Northhouse, 2018). 
 
Source: Northhouse (2018)
!185
Leadership as a field of study is still growing exponentially with
newer theories evolving. Drawing on Yukl (2012), what may be
needed is to understand that military leadership is social
interaction. With this, leadership is viewed as “the process of
influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be
done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual, and
collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (Yukl, 2012: 7).
The leadership approaches discussed have their benefits and
disadvantages. In the context of military service, it should be
expressed that it should not be dependent on not only the
characteristic of the leader of the subordinates based on different
conditions and contexts. For example, the Chief of Staff and
directors must have strong personal characteristic in order to
inspire and influence every follower and employee. However,
leaders that manage people in different levels across service units
may have to use different approaches to motivate and influence
AFP personnel in order to accomplish goals and tasks effectively.
The risks associated with a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous,
and disruptive environment affect the dynamics of change
surrounding leadership. The reader is encouraged to understand
that complexity and its implications for decision-making in this
context requires an introduction of leadership attuned to different
dimensions at work (Léautier, 2014). At the core of the above
leadership theories is the motivation to examine different facets of
leadership that work, especially in the context of the AFP.
The works that have looked at the Filipino Military Leadership can
hardly be identified as a coherent, clearly identifiable strand of the
literature. Furthermore, attention has fluctuated over time, with
researchers and practitioners reacting to course of events and the
changing dynamics within the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Attention waned after Marcos’ martial law (Hernandez, 1985; Hall,
2006; Montiel, 2010 ) and has risen only in terms of certain issues
encountered in specific regimes as well as disputes like the West
Philippine Sea. Echoing Western (2019), even though the AFP is a
!186
cohesive, unified institution, as mentioned in the previous section,
different leadership discourses exist because they “all co-exist to
different degrees” as the leaders This builds on Hartley’s (2018:
202) assertion that “it is a critical time to be studying and practicing
leadership,” specifically in the context of AFP (Hartley, 2018: 202).
!187
Toward an Initial Exploration of Filipino Military
Leadership: Responses from Leaders in the AFP
Based on the previous sections of this reference guide, the AFP has
adopted a nationally developed military leadership model that has
served as the foundation for explaining both effective and
ineffective military leadership. In addition, the different major
!188
services have their own centers that cater to learning and
development, even leadership development needs.
The study is still ongoing, and the results are discussed in terms of
core themes that have emerged related to conditions that pertain to
Filipino Military Leadership. Each of these themes will be reported
in exploring Filipino Military Leadership that can be summarized
around essential points: (1) How is Filipino Military Leadership
!189
perceived by the military leaders? (2) What are the socio-cultural
dimensions of Filipino military leadership? and, (3) What are the
predominant challenges perceived by these military leaders?
Leadership development in the AFP can benefit from a review and
reexamination based on what military leaders themselves are
currently practicing. It must be noted that the following is a work in
progress and that these are “usually draw on different leadership
approaches in practice” (Western, 2019: 308). This section
discusses the preliminary findings of these studies that present a
glimpse of Filipino military leadership in the current context.
!190
General Concept of Filipino Military Leadership as
defined by Military Leaders
Exploring Filipino military leadership in a way may help improve

an already functional leadership and make it better. No doubt,
military leadership can be a topic of controversy as the different
scholars have different scientific and academic views on the matter.
Defining Filipino Military Leadership. The following

comment captures the general sentiment of those who were
interviewed:
“It is about time that we have this - a localized version -

of Leadership Reference Guide. We have great leaders in
the past not only in the military throughout our history.
This should have been done a long time.”
Borromeo (2014: 166) elucidates that “an important question of

leadership is universality”. A key informant commented “Wherever
you go, leadership would be the same… it just happens that Western
writers came before us”, a key informant commented.
Based on the interviews, similar to the aforementioned theories,

Filipino Military Leadership is viewed as a set of personal qualities,
position, and a social process.
Leadership as a position is easily understood as the AFP is a highly-

organized, hierarchical structure, with chains of command as well
as corresponding roles, responsibilities, and job functions.
Leadership will always have a specific context. In the AFP, this is
largely based on its core values, the core values of the major
services, as well as of the unit that the leader is responsible for. This
points toward the AFP as an institution structured to meet the goal
or the mission as previously discussed. The context, whether
institutional or on the ground, serves as the distinction between the
!191
manifest and latent functions of the Filipino military leader, as well
as in producing intended and unintended consequences of their
actions.
Generally, Filipino military leadership is defined as the process of

“influencing men and women to have the same objective and vision
in order to accomplish a mission”. This is similar to the Western
definition of leadership which is “a process whereby an individual
!192
influences a group of individuals to achieve a common
goal” (Northhouse, 2018: 3). It was thus expressed:
“Look to the direction where you’re being led and also

look back to where you’ve come from. We are sometimes
overwhelmed by what we have. We need to set direction
and not focus on the current. What does the world need
now? It’s like a journey. We should also look ahead.”
!193
Interviewees for this reference guide were unanimous in defining
Filipino military leadership as one that is focused on the attainment
of AFP’s mission, come hell or high waters, and that it should be
accomplished at all costs. “Without purpose, how can we lead?”
according to one of the interviewees.
Filipino military leadership as the integration of

Competence and Character. The following comment captures
the sentiment of most of the informants:
“Leadership requires character and competence.

Character enables a leader to accomplish the mission in
the right manner; competence to effectively accomplish
it.”
Based on our research, these leaders play an active role in the

institutional building process when it comes to “translating” the
AFP’s vision into action through their competence and character.
Leaders not only influence the internal environment when they
demonstrate both, but also through non-verbal communication,
and experience in their social interactions with internal and
external stakeholders.
Results call attention to the need for military leaders to possess

both competence and character. Generally, those who are put in
leadership roles are expected to demonstrate a certain sense
"knowledgeability” as they are expected to “know about what they
do and why they do it” (Giddens, 1984). However, as military
leaders, their knowledgeability does not end there as they are
expected to reflexively monitor their actions. Giddens (1991)
explains that reflexive monitoring of actions is the leader’s ability to
monitor their actions and those actions' settings and contexts. The
leader’s capabilities should also be supported by values like
integrity, honesty, fairness, and the like. In fact in other military
settings character is an important attribute that is emphasized. All
!194
interviewees and respondents of the focus group discussions
(FGDs) conducted highlighted that trusting their subordinates to
live the AFP’s military identity requires a radically different
understanding of leadership. Coherence in terms of character and
competence is essential especially in motivating subordinates’
commitment to the institution. The following comments point
towards its application.
Along with that authority comes a responsibility for whatever

decisions and actions made notwithstanding if they fail or succeed.
Filipino Military Leadership and the Meaning System. A

meaning system includes “symbolic meanings, ideas, and
aspirations” (Shove, Pantzar & Watson, 2012: 14).
This meaning system is emphasized in terms of core values. A

commandant emphasized the four (4) core values that a Filipino
Military Leader should possess: (1) Sense of purpose as the core
value that guides leaders and subordinates in whatever mission; (2)
Sense of Altruism or having the sensitivity to feel and know what
others feel and need; (3) Sense of Humanity for AFP’s to uphold
!195
human rights and to be cognizant of the needs of the people; and
(4) Sense of Patriotism, which is part of the AFP’s core values of
honor, service, and patriotism and is inherent in all military
leaders. Likewise, another key informant also heralded the
existence of the AFP core values and shared that even the different
services have core values of their own which they uphold and
promote.
These core values are not mere symbols but can be operationalized
as the leader takes on any role. For example, the sense of altruism is
exemplified when the military leader has “connections up and
down, left and right,”showing the vertical and horizontal
relationships that need to be attended to. In another instance, sense
of humanity is demonstrated in the leader’s high regard for human
rights and in looking after the welfare of his people. The military
leaders are unanimous in saying that they “want to improve the
quality of life of a Filipino” even though they are in the profession of
arms. This is reflected in existing AFP programs in humanitarian
and disaster response, education, and health.
Scholars point toward alignment with the values, culture, and

meaning system as essential to successful organizations (Aaker,
1996; Chernatony & Drury, 2005; Giles, 2018). This meaning
system provides vision and values providing answers to the “what”
and the big picture perspective or “how” of leadership; hence, these
provide the leadership foundation to further build the institution
with “specific boundaries and unified direction” (Giles, 2018: 123).
Filipino Military Leadership and Strategic Culture. Data

reveal that Filipino Military Leadership is related to changes within
the AFP as well as to historical changes that the military needs to
respond to. This is ascribed by most of the research subjects to the
AFP’s strategic culture. Chappel (2009: 419) defines strategic
culture as “a set of beliefs, attitudes, and norms toward the use of
military force often molded according to historical experience.” A
!196
military leader shared that discipline has been instilled within the
military across ranks and that this has been shaped by strategic
culture that is sometimes influenced by the State’s historical
tendency to preserve its perceived spheres of influence. He recalled
that, during the Martial Law regime under President Ferdinand
Marcos, military leaders have different comportment; while today,
leaders are more attuned with the times and are more concerned
about others’ well-being.
One leader believed that “strategic culture has developed and

improved already.” With this view, strategic can be seen as intended
to integrate cultural considerations, cumulative historical memory,
and their influences in the analysis of states’ internal security
policies as well as international relations. Responses reveal that the
AFP, its leaders, and even the personnel have evolved a lot. Current
AFP leaders believe that they are agile and adaptive to situations
that they encounter. They feel that the current military leadership is
more “grounded and down-to-earth”,and are not “self-centered and
entitled.” In parallel, the AFP’s strategic culture has changed as
evident in the statement that:
Values are in parallel to warfighting... The AFP is very

much critical, although we do warfighting, we think a
lot… a lot of clarification, consequences, and results.
The resulting “institutionalized rules for behavior” have a strong

social function that tells AFP personnel about appropriate behavior
along the defined Filipino military identity. Strategic culture gives
the Filipino military leader a lens through which to better view the
continuities underlying military and civilian situations and the
motivations of the AFP’s actions.
Strategic culture within the AFP has helped military leaders and the
organization to develop enough flexibility to adjust in any given
condition. It has helped the AFP to be one of the Top 10
!197
government institutions, according to an interviewee. While
another belabored the strategic culture that is evident in AFP and
how it happens to be extending beyond its duty of warfighting to
include its leading role in other sectors such as in education, health,
and humanitarian responses which all contribute to nation
building. A strong strategic culture in the AFP also contributes to
assimilating different understandings of the organization’s purpose
due to the increasing social and functional diversity of people
responsible within the institution. He further explained that this
“reflects who we are and defines us because it reflects honesty,
respect to other people.” This then helps Filipino military leaders to
establish their enduring legacies in a state’s strategic thinking for
decades.
Filipino Military Leadership as

Public Leadership. BGen Ferdinand
Jose G. Rivera of the Corps of Professors
expressed that the: The Philippine
military today, in 2019, is virtually
omnipresent in many of the
government’s mobilizations such as
providing security during local and
national elections, and particularly
humanitarian action during disasters as
well as search and rescue operations.”
Most of the respondents expressed that the current AFP has gone
beyond traditional warfighting and management of violence; that
the Philippine military is now just as active in every aspect of that
concerns the welfare and well-being of the Filipinos. Some of the
key informants label this as “Mission Grit.” As the AFP moves
toward public leadership, it is alleged to be spreading itself too thin
as there is a tendency to focus on mostly everything and not
prioritizing things as “mission critical”. 
 
!198
When asked about this, Congressman Jericho Jonas Nograles
shared his observation:
Humanitarian effort is a nice campaign but first and

foremost, we are warriors. You are the warriors who we
hoped will not use your force but when push comes to
shove, we need to. Like me, I am terrified to our nation’s
security. But my fear can only be understood by a few. I
think that the AFP must maintain its identity first and
foremost as a war machine when you talk about identity.
But it has its humanitarian side. You are already the
organization. Even though the constitution says that we
renounce war as a policy, war is still your policy for when
it strikes, we can lose everything. So operational
readiness must always be achieved at all times.
Humanitarian efforts can be accommodated to improve
the image but at the end of the day, you’re function is a
war machine.
While the National Defense Act of the Philippines specifies the

traditional role of the AFP as a defender of the State and protector
of national sovereignty and territorial integrity — a role consistent
with the universal role given to the armed forces of any country, the
AFP over the years gradually assumed participation in socio-
economic and occasional political functions and programs, such as
election duties, nationwide civic action programs, extended
involvement in infrastructure development, pursuing place
initiatives, partnering in development, helping victims of crises and
emergencies, and other development tasks (Acop, n.d.)
!199
Socio-Cultural Dimensions of Filipino Military
Leadership
SERBISYO
It was recalled by one of the informants that he has a
subordinate who has spent more than a decade in a
particular position. Even though she has performed well,
sometimes beyond expectations, and is seen as an asset
in the unit, she rarely promotes herself or hindi niya
binubuhat ang kanyang bangko. She focuses on tasks
and responsibilities, letting complete staff work speak for
themselves. That is how military leaders lead, they lead
to serve.
Serbisyo is the the backbone of Filipino Military Leadership. In the

military, service orientation is primary. Those who are in leadership
positions clearly define what the AFP or branch/unit of military
service stands for, then relate their values to the overall values and
purpose of the AFP. They often remind their subordinates and
teams of the AFP goals, strategic direction, and “brand” promise so
they are clear on the path they need to go. They use Serbisyo sa
Bayan as a rallying cry, a common goal for everyone to march
toward, a glue that connects everyone in the AFP.
Leaders also translate serbisyo into understandable and achievable

terms, and any individual or organization – whether public, private
or development sector- must experience this AFP flavor of service
consistently, across different localities, over time, and at every
contact with them. This is why the AFP is praised as one of the Top
10 government institutions as one of the military leaders shared.
This is supported even by management literature where Giles
(2018: 123) explained that: “everyone in the organization must live
and breathe the brand promise, or it never becomes clear enough to
be translated into a salient, consistent brand experience.”
!200
PAMILYA
The essence of the family was emphasized in one form or
the other by almost all of those who were interviewed.
Some expressed that they look at their subordinates and
the team that they belong to as family. In other
instances, Pamilya was mentioned as leaders relate to
their subordinates, where the military leaders always see
to it to ask about the people’s family. Even on the
ground, military leaders look at families and kin-groups
as the major touchpoints when dealing and interacting
with stakeholders.
Belen (2015: 2) explains that “family has certain unique and

important characteristics… as the first social group to which the
individual is exposed, the family is a significant element in an
individual’s social life”. Interviews highlighted that, as leaders, they
see to it that they ask the subordinates about their families and
personal lives. This creates a bond and a certain sense of
paternalistic personalism between the leader and the follower.
They also try to emphasize that their respective units are their
second family or families away from home. One of the military
leaders elucidated:
In the academy, we are trained for four years during the

prime of our lives, and the entire cadet corps become our
family, our upperclassman becomes our older brother,
and in 1993 there were our older sisters. In our family, a
younger sibling may have a better life in the future but
that does not change the call for an older sibling.
This develops a sense of “community broader than kin” (Zialcita,

2005). In addition, like the family, the military personnel’s team
and unit becomes a source of basic motivation, personal ideals and
shared aspirations.
!201
LAGING HANDA
Filipino military leaders are generally agile and flexible
to the changing conditions of the times. It was recalled
that, despite of the “checkered” history of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines especially in the Martial Law
period under the Marcos regime, the military leaders saw
fit that the institution is adaptive to the changes in the
socio-political landscape, and remain steadfast in being
relevant and responsive to Philippine society.
Interviews highlighted that the AFP’s strategic culture

has continuously evolved, and has always been critically
calibrated.
The following passage shows the commitment of the Filipino

military leaders and how it translates to the what is covered in the
ground:
“We are about 160,000 covering 7,641 islands and BIG

tasks. We experienced a lot of “Mission Grit”. In the
provinces, we should only be doing ISO, however we are
extending beyond that. We never complain and very
much positive despite the load being very big. All AFP
can do is manage. We will never say “no” and just devise
ways on how we could achieve the mission.”
Laging Handa form of leadership in the Philippine military

signifies is that leadership exists which synthesizes competencies
and culture to maximize institutional performance and engage the
military personnel (Western, 2019). With this the leaders, even with
the existence of competing and conflicting leadership paradigms,
tend to avoid tensions and discord that are often damaging
organizations. In another vein, Verhoeff, M., Verhagen, W. and
R.Curran. (2015) discussed operational readiness in the context of
!202
military organizations where this is translated into availability,
serviceability and sustainability.
Laging Handa is not only present-oriented but also future-oriented

as military leaders tend to anticipate what are the emerging needs
of their people, too heir superiors, as well as the need of other
stakeholders. Van Der Wal (2017: 257) pointed out that: “demands
and expectations will continue to increase, and no organization is
static, let alone settled and perfected”. This is where action learning
exists where the military leadership accentuates the “exercise
disciplined initiative and critical thinking when faced with
indeterminate zones of practice”(Paparone, 2014: 110) and is
addressed through the demonstrating laging handa.
This speaks highly of a readiness mindset that is expected from the

military. This commitment and readiness to serve is deeply
entrenched in the Filipino military leader and has also been drilled
down to their subordinates.
GALANG
The Dean of the COP elucidated:
In my experience, it is possible that an underclassman
gets promoted ahead of the upperclassman. For those
who have not gone thru the training in the Academy,
they tend to ask : “bakit ganyan, bakit nag sir ka pa
dyan”, then they do not understand. I think there is
nothing wrong with that,… That is why in the PH, we
have terms for that. There is no single term that we use
and it is a matter of showing respect. Even if you get
promoted ahead of your upperclass, you still tend to call
him Sir. I believe being professional, it’s just a show of
respect. But the decision is still with the upperclass
whether you are going to call him a “sir”… In the US and
other Western countries, they would question. I think
that is cultural. That is one thing to describe our culture,
!203
AFP culture, that we are very personal. I remember when
I was a young ensign, but you are with the higher
position. You still show respect. That is our brand of
leadership in the PMA. It does not mean to say that it
would negatively affect the mission. In the PH, there is so
much importance we put to our elders, our seniors.
Galang (Respect) is one of the cornerstones of Filipino Military

Leadership. This is inherent in us Filipinos, and it is embedded in
military consciousness. As leaders understand and act in the
present, they are also reminded of their past. The leaders’ mind is
based on previous encounter or karanasan (experience), and the
respect that one demonstrates – even though they might be in a
higher position of responsibility – will never be unlearned.
With regard to social status, there are different ways of how it is
accepted in different cultural settings. For example, Western
countries like Denmark and Germany do not fully accept natural
status differences, while countries like China and Japan are
considered status-accepting national cultures. Similar to other
military culture, Filipino military leaders belong to a high-status
institution, because the AFP embraces tradition and status quo
(Chamorro-Prezumic, 2019).
BAYANIHAN
Filipino Military Leadership, in the context of the AFP,
shows Bayanihan in spite of and despite of lack of
general readiness to respond to in certain situations.
When faced with tactical decisions in the battlefield, or
faced in a complex, volatile situation in disaster
situations, Filipino Military Leadership tries to rise
above the occasion and constantly adapt to create a
united effort.
“You have to lead from everywhere,” then US Admiral Allen

explained (HBR, 2010: 78). With the chain of command, a unity of
!204
effort is needed. As soon as recruits undergo training as cadets, and
as they grow in the ranks, Bayanihan in the form of unity of
command is developed. The mandate comes from the Commander-
in-Chief and the Will of the People, so no matter what happens –
whether peace keeping, disaster response or other responsibilities,
it is clear at all levels that AFP leadership adds up everyone’s
competencies towards meeting a single purpose, considering that
they there are different armed services with distinct line of
authorities and responsibilities. The unity of the chain of command
becomes a united effort to address any challenge or task.
Bayanihan expresses the shared leadership within the Filipino

military. This is supported by literature that presents everyone
within the chain of command responsible for leadership and where
leadership comes out as a result of interactions of the military
leaders and subordinates as functional part of a system (Lindsay,
Day, & Halpin, 2011). Based on the interviews, if we look closely
this can be found anywhere in an operational unit and at specific
timeframes where everyone is united and in any direction
(vertically or horizontally through the ranks), and can even change
dynamically. Key informants and the authors discuss examples in
specific units like the Philippine Marines, Philippine Air
Force,Philippine Army, and sometimes across service units. Such
shows that Bayanihan is currently present in the military and
embedded in certain situations and it could be possible to expand
the presence to other stakeholders as well.
Bayanihan is also seen when they deal with different stakeholder

segments with different interests and sometimes competing needs.
Filipino Military Leadership is exploring the macro challenge and
looking at micro (the individuals and groups) concerns at the same
time. For example, in peace building situations, military leaders
should start engaging different groups and mobilize them to achieve
the outcomes that are needed. This requires not only explaining the
problem to everyone else concerned, but helping them find the
!205
appropriate solution and further tapping the Bayanihan spirit so
that what is needed can be sustained. Leadership represents much
more than the behavior or the position of the military leader but it
is “a dynamic, cocreational process between leaders, followers, and
environments, the product of which contributes to group and
organizational outcomes (Thoroughgood et al., 2018: 627).
PAGTITIWALA
Tiwala (trust) is a widely discussed concept. In this
context, most military subordinates put their complete
trust in the military leader, while the military leader tries
to prove that he/she is worthy of their trust.
Pagtitiwala was highlighted in the data collected for this reference

guide. In the context of AFP work, risks and dangers take account
for most of the responsibilities as military leaders and their
subordinates are exposed to certain vulnerabilities and risks as they
engage in military operations. Obeying orders is expected in the
military profession, and refusal not only puts the individual soldier
at risk but also his or her peers and leaders. Earlier literature
emphasized this trust-interaction as critical in the military context
since subordinates are expected to give up their right to self-
determination and sometimes blindly follow orders (Collins &
Jacobs, 2002).
Pagtitiwala, in the context of military leadership, affects a

subordinate’s willingness to accept the leader’s control and
influence to become a better part of the unit (Sweeney, Thompson,
& Blanton, 2009), their willingness to follow directives and take on
risks (Collins & Jacobs, 2002), even their overall morale in combat
(Belenky et al., 1985). The risk of getting injured or killed, even in
periods of peacetime when training still requires the use of
weapons, is a risk that is less tangible in most civilian organizations.
Complete trust and dependence on military leaders sometimes
!206
involve considerable risk to the individual, as any mistakes made by
the leader may result in serious injury or death. Here tiwala works
both ways and may be considered a process of military leadership
practice. However, pagtititwala is not entirely blind. This is what is
labelled as “military leaders who identify with their
troops” (Hamby, 2002).
KUMPIYANSA AT KAKAYAHAN
Other dimensions that were prominent in the interviews
were Kumpiyansa (confidence) and Kakayahan
(competence). In the AFP, as culled in the interviews,
they try to be juggle being appointed/chosen as the
Leader of a unit and leading effectively. On the other
hand, the Filipino military leader gives the leeway to the
subordinates to grow and adapt to the situation, then
later on develop competence. With this, leaders focus
more on trusting their people and allowing them to gain
confidence in order for them to thrive in the military
service.
In his more than 30 years in the military service the AFP Chief of
Staff, General NOEL S. CLEMENT, explained that “the most
important thing is for them to be given the opportunity to excel”.
He recalled his experience with a Logistics officer when he was a
Division Commander, whom people considered as a non-performer.
He said he talked with the officer, and gave him more responsibility
and tasks as a display of confidence and competence. Delighted, the
officer was able to exceed his performance and was retained to the
position. He further explained that “if you will be able to discover
the potential of a person, then the person becomes more
productive.”
!207
Challenges
Education and the Filipino Military Leader. When asked what is

the most neglected aspect of Filipino Military Leadership, one of the
AFP leaders interviewed emphasized Education. He clarified:
“Education. We have to give premium since it will be

addressed by it. It is not a fiction that education is the
answer for everything. Although it is not neglected, that
is not being given priority… education as the
fundamental value to better improve system,
organization. If we do not do that, we will fail. Whatever
we have here should be able to cascade to pre entry level.
There must be an appreciation of education in
leadership, thus Education + Leadership + Skills = Very
Effective AFP”.
Education and learning is the “pinnacle of leadership competencies

(Gilles, 2018: 137). Competency development through capacity
building, formal training, mentoring and coaching, as well as formal
studies is important for military leaders to thrive in this volatile,
uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and disruptive environment. In
another military leader’s response, it was discussed that not only
current leaders but future pool of leaders as well as those who teach
and train in the AFP, should focus on education in order for them to
be more relevant and responsive to the learning needs of the AFP.
Another research participant explained that the AFP is handling not

only peace-keeping, safety and security, but also diverse workload
and tasks covering fields like Disaster Risk and Reduction
Management, Education, Health, Public-Private Partnerships, and
other areas that are not within the original scope of the military
tasks, roles, and responsibilities. Paparone (2014: 10) clarified:
!208
Though our institution expects military practitioners and
their organizations to routinely face novel situations
vested in highly complex environments, our traditional
military institutional approaches to training and
education lean too heavily on the logico-scientific
paradigm. Training and education should spur reflective
practice with the outcome of learning to learn more
effectively while acting.
It would be a welcome development for those who are involved in

these different fields to be equipped, trained, and capacitated to
respond to such requirements. In fact, it was suggested that these
areas should be part of the AFP professionalization process where
military leaders are educated in a state-of-the-art body of
knowledge in these identified areas in order for them to lead their
respective subordinates and units effectively. Later, specialized
training and courses can be designed for both military leaders and
subordinates for them to function appropriately after possessing
adequate competencies needed to perform such roles. Likewise, it
was explained by another informant that education should be
“purposive” and it should focus on the needs and requirements that
are needed to do a particular work or job effectively.
While a contrary response drew attention to the difficulty of

requiring military leaders to attend such programs especially those
who are in the upper echelon of the AFP structure, it was pointed
out that with their workload and assignments, designing and
implementing a learning and development plan for such busy
leaders is generally difficult.
Exercising Leadership in the Civilian Sector. In the previous

section’s entry on public leadership, prioritization of AFP mission
and tasks is highlighted as generally not too beneficial for the
institution. It was explained that the “biggest challenge is how to
get them (other government agencies) at the same level or how to
!209
get them on board toward a particular objective. There is a need to
look at the impact of the project, to link its the output to the social
outcome, and to see how it contributes and impacts the
community.” Consistent good performance in these areas
demanded by the civilian sector, in turn, provides the legitimacy for
the military leaders in any kind of system and regime (Van Der Wal,
2017).
Next Steps
Although the study findings cannot be generalized due to the nature

of the methodology, this has provided an initial documentation of
how leadership is practiced in the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
As the current research invovled mostly Metro Manila-based
military leaders, a study in other schools and regions is also
recommended.
This study did a qualitative research methodology. It is therefore

recommended that the study be replicated to produce an in-depth
study of Filipino Military Leadership. Research using quantitative
and mixed method approaches can also be considered in order
delve deeply into this topic.
Case studies of major services may also be considered as it would be

good to explore how Filipino military leadership is being practiced
in this context.
In addition, evaluation and impact of leadership development

programs in the AFP could be conducted to document good
practices and further improve the leadership curriculum. A
cross-comparison of leadership development programs in different
centers may bring a thorough understanding of how these translate
into developmental outcomes as well as potential impact to the
students and participants.
 
!210
AFTERWORD
T his Reference Guide is an initial attempt to document what
Filipino Military Leadership is. In certain military contexts,

traditional, and hierarchical characteristics of some military leaders
are more appreciated – and harder to change – than in others. In
certain cases, a more innovative and adaptive leadership is
manifested to address the challenges and to be more responsive for
public value creation.
Most of the roles, competencies, and socio-cultural dimensions

highlighted in this reference guide have been contextualized and
contrasted in the preceding sections. However, it must be noted
that what is discussed in this guide is not generalizable and may not
be observable especially in more localized conditions.
Filipino Military Leaders do not exist and operate in isolation from

the general condition of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. As
such, areas of leadership practice that influence, enable and direct
them emphasize the need for a more empowering environment to
help them grow, thrive, and flourish.
Of course, nobody knows exactly what the future holds for Filipino
Military Leadership. Like with any other written attempts that
intend to look ahead, it is hoped that what were presented here are
relevant and responsive to everyone. Most importantly, though, the
authors envision that the rich reservoir of narratives and examples,
and the critical, sometimes innovative, view of the Filipino military
leaders’ roles, competencies, and practices featured in this guide
will prove helpful to the them and would-be leaders trying to make
sense of the VUCAD world, and will help them attain readiness and
prepare for an unknown future.
!211
The reader is encouraged to acquire from this guide what they
consider useful and helpful, as well as to experience the eagerness
and discomfort of viewing existing conditions differently, or even of
encountering new perspectives and contrasting viewpoints. It is
fervently hoped that this guide would be the first step to so many
next steps. The journey of the Filipino military leader starts here.
 
!212
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AFP STRUCTURE
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AUTHORS & CONTRIBUTORS
P2LT MA MELISSA B BO PROF
Prior to joining the Corps of Professors, she was a University

Lecturer at the Far Eastern University teaching various subjects in
the field of International Studies. She is a Summa Cum Laude
graduate and later earned her master’s degree from the University
of the Philippines-Diliman specializing in international relations.
Currently, she is the Chief of Leadership Development Integration
Division of the AFP Leadership Development Center.
PROF. JOSEPHINE JARON CODILLA
Prof. Josephine Jaron Codilla has been teaching public

administration subjects since 2008 mostly to government
employees enrolled at Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM).
She maintains two columns in two national dailies and is currently
the Assistant Service Chief (Director II) of the Legislative Journal
Service of the Senate of the Philippines where she recently
celebrated her 30th year in the government service. Aside from
producing the daily Journal of the Senate, she considers her passion
to work for the country’s armed forces as her most cherished
contribution to the nation.
PROF. MARIA TERESA ROMELYN G. FABUGAIS
Prof. Maria Teresa Romelyn G. Fabugais is a sought-after coach and

facilitator who has conducted several leadership trainings in both
government and private institutions. She has a master’s degree in
Public Management from Ateneo de Manila University and is a
!225
certified Bridging Leadership trainer. Prof. Fabugais is an active
supporter of AFPLDC where she is a member of the Center’s Core
Group. She has shared her expertise in crafting the 9-year Plan of
AFPLDC and has been the facilitator for two CGSC classes in a row.
She was instrumental in the conduct of focus group discussions in
the Mindanao area for this reference guide.
MAJ MARK C ESPIRITU (FA) PA
A member of PMA Class 2003, MAJ MARK C ESPIRITU (FA) PA

greatly contributed in the initial conception of the Filipino Military
Leadership Reference Guide. He was the Executive Officer of the
the 3rd Field Artillery Battalion based in Camp Macario B Peralta
Jr, Jamindan, Capiz which honed his leadership potentials as a
credible Army Officer before joining AFPLDC. Currently, he is the
Chief of the Capacity-Building Division of the AFP Leadership
Development Center.
MS. GARI A. ACOLOLA
Angelina Gabrielle Aguilar Acolola is a Magna Cum Laude graduate

of Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at the University of the Philippines.
Currently, Gari is a researcher and graphic designer at UP Center
for Women’s and Gender Studies and at Ateneo School of Medicine
and Public Health (ASMPH). She is also a freelance graphic
designer and an art director at ASMPH, as well as a former
Research and Investigative writer at Rappler. Gari serves as the
layout artist of the Filipino Military Leadership Reference Guide.
!226
DR. JACINTO C. GAVINO JR.
Jacinto C. Gavino Jr., DPA, is the President and a member of the

Board of Trustees of the Center for Family Ministries, a Jesuit
apostolate at the Ateneo de Manila University. Dr. Gavino is a
retired professor of the Asian Institute of Management and
formerly served as the Associate Dean of the Master in
Management Program. He is also a member of the AFP Leadership
Development Center’s Advisory Council and takes the lead in the
conceptualization of this reference guide on Filipino Military
Leadership. His efforts were crucial in enhancing the Leadership
Module of CGSC and AFP’s Professional Military Education.
PROF. DONN DAVID P. RAMOS
Prof. Donn David C. Ramos is a writer by profession who has a

background in Sociology. He did researches on leadership and
prepared the conceptual note that paved way for the series of
interviews conducted to support the methodology of this reference
guide. More importantly, he has written pertinent parts of this
guide which paved way for its realization.
MS. MARIA LOUELLA C. DUARTE
Leng is a career diplomat of the Department of Foreign Affairs,

joining the Corps of Foreign Service Officers after passing the
examination series and its subsequent Diplomatic Cadetship
conducted by the Foreign Service Institute. Her tours of duty in the
Philippines’ Foreign Service were spent in Abu Dhabi, the UAE and
in Oslo, Norway. In the Home Office, she has served her home
tours in the offices of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’
Affairs, the Undersecretary for International Economic Relations,
the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs and as Officer-in-
!227
Charge of the Consular Office in Zamboanga City. Concurrently,
Leng is part of the AFP-LDC’s Core Group.
COL ROMULO D QUEMADO II PN (M) (GSC)
COL ROMULO D QUEMADO II PN (M) (GSC) is currently the

Director of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Leadership
Development Center (AFP-LDC). Prior to this position, he was the
Chief-of-Staff of the Northern Luzon Command (NOLCOM) and a
notable recipient of the Distinguished Conduct Star, the second
highest military award for gallantry in action. In 2012, he was
bestowed as a Fellow at the Asian Institute of Management under
the Mindanao Bridging Leaders Program sponsored by the World
Bank. Under his leadership, the effort in the writing and launching
of the Filipino Military Leadership Reference Guide was realized
through the active support of both internal and external
stakeholders that support the Center.
!228
ABOUT THE COVER
I n between the laurel leaves is the Filipino bolo with the word
“Kalayaan” on the handle in Baybayin script.
The are 110 laurel leaves represent the 110 ethnolinguistic groups in
the country. In ancient times, particularly in Greece and Rome, the
laurel wreath symbolized both victory and peace. It was a symbol of
martial victory when a successful commander was crowned with a
laurel wreath. The holding out of a laurel branch between armies
was also a token of cessation of hostilities. Thus, the leaves on the
book cover symbolize the Filipino leaders’ efforts to preserve peace.
While the military is an instrument of peace, the bolo represents
how ready it is to take up arms to defend and protect the State and
its people. The bolo is a weapon that is recognized to be of Filipino
in origin, a crucial weapon for Filipinos during the Spanish
revolution and the Filipino-American war.
The laurel wreath and "Kalayaan" in Baybayin script are inspired by

the AFP Coat of Arms.
!229

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FILIPINO MILITARY LEADERSHIP

Published December 2019 by the Armed Forces of the Philippines

The contents of this reference guide were based on literature

Reproduction of this document is permitted provided due

The opinions expressed in this reference guide are those of the

Armed Forces of the Philippines Leadership Development

Telephone Nos.: (+639)153-431-559

Cover Design: Ms. Gari A. Acolola

Our deep gratitude goes to The Asia Foundation, represented by

The assistance provided by Ms. Maria Teresa Romelyn G. Fabugais

We are equally thankful to these individuals who dedicated their

Prof. Josephine Codilla patiently copy-edited the manuscript, and

The AFPLDC personnel have provided all the needed

To all the people who contributed by all means to this Center’s

AFP Vision 2028:

On behalf of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the

Written by contributors from various fields of expertise who are

Mabuhay kayong lahat!

NOEL S CLEMENT AFP

AFP Vision 2028:

On November 26, 2018, the birth of the AFP Leadership

The Filipino Military Leadership Reference Guide fosters a

The laudable contributions made by the seasoned retired professor,

This thought-provoking work carries with it a deeper sense of

As the Commander of the AFP Education, Training, and Doctrine

RADM ADELUIS S BORDADO AFP

AETDC Air Education, Training, and Doctrine

W elcome to the Filipino Military Leadership Reference Guide!

This Reference Guide aims to provide an overview of leadership

The content of this guide carries the indelible mark of being a

Dealing with Leadership Development in the Armed Forces

The AFP Leadership Frameworks are illustrative of the

Filipino Military Leadership focuses on how this is practiced

This is an initial attempt to contribute to military leadership

“Ang pagsusumikap at pagpipilit na kumita ng ikakabuhay ay

AFP Leadership Development

O ur Defense Force is like no other. Tasked to quash three major

internal threat groups, it must also help in speeding up the

Ours, too, is a vast archipelagic space. Of 7,641 islands, only about

The AFP puts premium both on its manpower and leadership. It

Leadership Development must, therefore, be our core

To accomplish this, each member navigates through the AFP

As inculcated in the AFP Transformation Roadmap (AFPTR), the

Our desired outcome is for the AFP leadership core to be exemplars

The most effective organizations have been in the practice of

When we imagine our truly world-class leaders—those consistently

In as much as we want to have our own homegrown Filipino

1. Filipino Military Leadership and Warrior Ethos. The

2. Inclusivity. Core Leadership in this sense involves all the

3. Ethical Leadership and Climate. Premium is

4. Educational Philosophy. New emphasis is given to self-

6. Eclectic Approach. The overall prescription is towards an

7. Commitment to Lifelong Learning. Renewed emphasis

9. Multi-Stakeholder Approach (Bayanihan). This

10. Public Service and Public Leadership. Filipino leaders

11. Multi-Disciplinary Solutions. Leadership Development

12. Self-Mastery (Loob). It is a discipline of gaining a special

13. Dialogue. It is the discipline of recognizing the patterns of

14. Appreciative Inquiry (Kagandahang-Loob) (Reyes,

"My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to the country

T he AFP wants its Core Leaders to have the character,

competence, and capacity to successfully accomplish their mandate

Central to this strategy is that leaders at all levels understand their

AFP Vision 2028:  

AFP Vision 2028:  