Decisive Engagements

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In our quest for sustainable peace and development, the Philippine Army continues to intensify
its offensive combat operations to destroy local terrorist groups that continue to sow terror throughout
the land which threatens the progress of the country.

To determine a decisive engagement, it follows a certain criteria – 70% damage to the CTG’s
military capabilities: neutralization of at least 16 CTGs and/or seizure of at least 16 high-powered
firearms (“Decisive Engagements 2020-2022”).

BEST.

Amongst those featured in the handbook, the decisive engagement of 402 nd Brigade, 4th Infantry
Division in Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental on May 10, 2020 was a highlight as it has showed notable
characteristics of an effective offensive operation.

The engagement in Gingoog manifested the characteristics of offensive operation (surprise,

concentration, audacity, and tempo).

In terms of surprise, they successfully took the upper hand by forestalling the enemy from
attacking the government forces through reliable intelligence reports despite the enemy’s plans and
preparations. “War is such that supreme consideration is speed. This is to take advantage of what is
beyond the reach of the enemy, to go by the way of routes where he least expects you, and to attack
where he has made no preparations” (Sun Tzu, Fourth Century B.C). They have overwhelmed the enemy
with rapidity, not allowing them to immediately think and decide, made them unbalanced and prone to
error.

Concentration is the ability to mass effects without large formations. Despite the enemy
completing the planning and preparation to conduct hostile actions towards the government forces and
installations, the troops successfully determined the soft flanks of the enemy, targeting their center of
gravity and hitting them where it hurts through conduct of airstrike followed by ground assaults. The
operation was properly segmented in terms of firepower and task-delegated which allowed them to
operate on their own and fulfill their respective tasks.

Audacity will paralyze the enemy’s strategic response and will to resist. “War is a relatively
simple affair: you maneuver your army to defeat your enemy by killing enough of its soldiers, taking
enough of its land, and making yourself secure enough to proclaim victory” (Robert Greene, 2006). The
troops, especially the leaders, exhibited audacious execution of all the phases of the operation, showing
no signs of intimidation by flaunting assets and showing capabilities of the AFP in this operation. This
enabled the troops to dominate, compelling the enemy to settle on the government side’s terms
without compromises.
 Tempo refers to the rate of speed of military actions. The troops offered no gaps. In this
operation, the tempo has always been reliant to information requirements to mitigate the risk of certain
actions. Also, enforcing timely and correct intel to involve units was executed. This disabled the enemies
to conduct further tactical offensive response.

Overall, the engagement in Gingoog is a practical example of a decisive engagement. The result
of the operation basically speaks for itself and successfully aligned to the five (5) key tasks in FRAG-O 04.

LEAST.

In spite of fulfilling the criterion and key measures of a decisive engagement, the operation in 2 nd
Infantry Batallion, 9th Infantry Division in San Fernando, Masbate on April 19, 2020 somehow depicted a
less laudable result compared to the other engagements.

However, despite the careful planning, there are a few aspects that somehow “didn’t go as
planned”. One example was the failure to utilize night vision goggles since the terrain was thickly
vegetated. It will serve as a huge advantage against the enemy should they have utilized the NVGs
during pre-dawn hours as the darkness will help conceal the troops. Also, the enemy was the first to fire
towards the troops’ position, which was a little hiccup in deceiving enemy lookouts that were observing
troop movements. Also, the shot on the nape was a bit sketchy in my opinion. Analyzing the sketch of
encounter, enemy fires should have only be coming from SW to NW. However, the AR carrying the K3
(Cpl Desalisa) was supposed to be the main source of volume of fire and his direction is less likely to be
fired back, sustained a shot from behind; could have been a misfire from friendly forces, we never know.

Enemies will take advantage of any sorts of gaps in the troops’ position and utilize it to fight back.
Therefore, troops must establish pressure on all sides and isolate them to weaken their willpower to
fight back – this is the concept of enveloping the enemy. However, as illustrated in the sketch, there
were several route of withdrawal for the enemy although there must have been a difficulty to position
the troops considering the terrain in SO Diwata.

Another hiccup in this operation is that the possible route of withdrawal is towards the center of
civilian populace in barangay Salvacion, which was part of the enemy’s adjustment in TTPs (camp closer
to communities) which may produce civilian casualties and cause turmoil in the area.

Still, we cannot discount this operations’s success as it has effectively applied doctrines of
ground operation and has perpetrated damage to enemy’s ranks.

References:

1. “Decisive Engagements 2020-2022” , Lessons Learned Handbook, 125 th PA Founding Anniversary

Edition
2. “The Art of War”, Sun Tzu (4th Century B.C)
3. “The 33 Strategies of WAR”, Robert Greene (2006)