Reflections
This section presents my reflection which is the outcome of my proactive thinking about particular personal practices, experiences, emotions, actions, issues, motivations, processes, and outcomes in determining the benefits and drawbacks of a particular approach, my personal and professional learning that emerged, and the lessons for the future.
Multimedia Production in PNPA
"The more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression; the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit." -Alfred Bougeart
Mobile phones, laptops, personal computers, and other pieces of technology that we frequently use—especially in our generation—allow us to experience multimedia in our daily lives. Whether we like it or not, technology will quickly displace conventional methods of obtaining and disseminating information. We need to keep up with modernization in the uniformed military as well.
In order to contact the public and disseminate information quickly, easily, and reliably, the Armed Forces of the Philippines Civil Relations Service developed a method, the Philippine National Police Academy "MASIDTALAK" class of 2023's cadets attended a multimedia presentation put on by the CRSAFP with special guest MAJ Cenon C. Pancito III PA group commander of the relevant unit. The CRSAFP's positions in the ruling class and the value of civil connections to the military service were explored by MAJ Pancito. Not everyone is familiar with the uniform service.
We gained knowledge on a wide range of subjects throughout the seminar, including the 2007 Broadcaster Code of the Philippines, the Ethics and Morals of Broadcasting, News Writing, Radio Programming, Radio Technical Operations, Practical Application of Multi-Radio Technical Operations through Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), Story Board and Script Writing for News and Radio Broadcasting, Photography, Videography Techniques, Photo Editing, Photo Manipulation using Adobe Photoshop, and Digital Imaging. A trip to the Manila Times headquarters in Intramuros, Manila, marked the session's conclusion. One of the first English-language publications in the nation, The Manila Times was established on October 11, 1898.
The AFP frequently hires multimedia specialists through special enrollment to allow them chances to hone and expand their abilities that may be applied in the Armed Forces of The Philippines. As we can see, the AFP, PNP, and other service bureaus and organizations remain current with modernization in such a way that we also have social media pages and even radio stations to demonstrate and inspire the Filipino people to participate in or support the projects and even the side of the government.
In order to inspire young people or those who desire to join the military or pursue careers in national defense, multimedia is also in charge of promotional videos for certain service branches. Additionally, cooperation and information dissemination are handled via multimedia production. The purpose of the Philippine broadcast code is to maintain the safety and organization of radio stations and other forms of entertainment and communication for the benefit of listeners and other persons. It is crucial to maintain the integrity and dependability of the information on radio stations, online publications, and other platforms for the consumers, such as our underclassmen. This is why broadcasters and other multimedia experts who are a part of the uniformed service play such a crucial role.
In conclusion, we are entrusted with building the PNPA Teleradyo, the first teleradio in the PNPA, as an application of what we have learned. We were split up into three groups, each of which had to come up with a 90-minute program. Only a few of us had any background in this beyond what we had heard in the seminar, so it was a significant task.
Reflection: True North
"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." -Aristotle
The theme of the book True North focuses on becoming genuine leaders, discovering our life stories, and remaining steadfast in our convictions and ideals. Authentic leaders are creative, dependable, and long-lasting. You cannot succeed in someone else's activities or live their life. You can only become a better version of yourself by speaking more completely. In these difficult and uncertain times, genuine human connection is more important than ever. Authentic leadership inspires, empowers, and prepares the next global leaders to accomplish this from a place of integrity, compassion, and connection.
Throughout the book, the author emphasizes embodying genuine and authentic leadership rather than aiming to be the perfect or ideal "leader" for an organization. He imparts the knowledge of more than 125 outstanding leaders in this book. They all discuss their mistakes, personal traumas, and misfortunes, as well as how these setbacks influenced and molded them into the leaders they are today. The book outlines a thorough plan for identifying our True North leadership narrative, struggle, victory, and overall success. Knowing your true north is essential for surviving your "crucible moment." What your true north depends on who you are. While it can seem easy to discover your inner self, George thinks it is challenging. Similar remarks were made by Dr. Jackson while talking about self-direction. George believes that realizing who you are is crucial. There is no ideal sort of leader. George also stressed the need for a leader's network. The true north arrow on a compass is the foundation for a solid relationship. Over their lives, leaders from a range of significant connections. These connections could be with intimate friends, family members, or mentors.
This book is a good blueprint for beginning or extending our leadership career. This plan is broken down into three sections: the first chapter is a narrative-heavy section that outlines what it means to be an exceptional leader and examines how various people got there or got lost. The most helpful section of the book is the second one, which focuses on the five crucial elements of a leadership plan. Developing self-awareness or "knowing your actual self" is the first stage. After becoming more self-aware, focus on the principles and ideas that are significant to you. The next phase in developing a leadership strategy is discovering your motivation. This is followed by creating a support system. The last step is attempting to live what George and Sims call "an integrated life," which integrates work with other significant elements of your life, including family, friends, volunteering, fitness, and church. The final chapter of True North discusses giving your people authority. Although True North doesn't provide any simple solutions, it does equip readers with enough knowledge to help them hone their leadership abilities.
Public Affairs: CMO Pillar
"Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility."
Public Affairs, one of the pillars of Civil-Military Operations (CMO), performs information-related operations aimed at the general public to guarantee the timely, accurate, and precise distribution of information.
Public Information and Community Relations are the two parts of Public Affairs. While community relations tries to combat the enemy's plan by informing the public of the adversary and how to defeat them, public information strives to enlighten the public via television, radio, the internet, messaging, print (TRIMP), and other kinds of media.
To guarantee that information is distributed in an understandable, accurate, and timely manner, the Public Affairs pillar of the CMO engages in information-related activities aimed at the general public. It is described as a CMO pillar that carries out information-related tasks aimed at the outside people to guarantee rapid, accurate, and precise information distribution while upholding security and privacy. This is done to build and maintain positive ties with the community in order to further the government's objectives. It is also carried out to build and maintain positive relationships with the communities in order to further the goals of the organization. Public relations initiatives aim to increase public confidence in, and support for, the AFP. Public affairs may be conducted in a variety of ways, including through community relations and public information initiatives. It educates the soldiers on how the availability of information and the support of the public may impact how military operations are carried out. As a result, this outstanding presentation by LCDR Edward Pablico PN informed us PNPA cadets about the operation of the Public Affairs pillar.
Public information and community relations made up the Public Affairs pillar's two components. General information operates under the tenets of increasing public knowledge of the AFP, upholding the right of the public to information, and emphasizing the need for public acknowledgment for the AFP's continued effectiveness and morale. This is significant because the fight against communist terrorist activities relied on the necessity to broadcast knowledge to the public as far as possible in order to counteract enemy propaganda. The public's knowledge helps the government win support for its initiatives. Community relations, on the other hand, concentrate on the development and upkeep of a positive working relationship between the military and the community. This aims to increase public knowledge of the AFP, encourage patriotism, develop positive connections with the populace, and support governmental objectives. Additionally, good community relations can help the government by lowering the possibility of communist recruitment, providing logistical and intelligence support, and enhancing the morale of government soldiers and police officers by showing them that the community supports and values the sacrifices they have made while performing their duties.
Civil Affairs: CMO Pillar
“We will maintain the trust and confidence of our elected leaders…. civilian control of the military remains a core principle of our Republic and we will preserve it. We will remain an apolitical institution and sustain this position at all costs.” -Douglas Stuart
Operations that were planned, backed, carried out, and transitioned by civil affairs operators—either independently or in coordination with civilian units—are referred to as civil affairs. These operations promote public trust through cooperation, collaboration, and the conduct of sociological and developmental activities in order to win the support and cooperation of the general public.
With its two components, civic action and civil connections, this pillar is crucial since it aims to change the public's perception of the government.
The goal of CA is to operate as a bridge for communication, coordination, and collaboration between military personnel and civilian actors; to help establish and maintain the circumstances necessary for mission accomplishment; and to help the military become more successful. included efforts that were intended to win over the public's hearts and minds, obtain their receptive collaboration, support, and trust, and bring about their active involvement in the achievement of military aims and broader societal objectives.
The civil affairs pillar contains community development initiatives that are meant to achieve the goals of the government at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. Activities and programs related to civil relations and civic action are included in the conduct of civil affairs. By offering guidance on how to most effectively meet moral and legal commitments to the populace and lessen the impact of military operations on civilians, Civil Affairs assists in ensuring the legitimacy and credibility of Army operations and activities. It guarantees that people see the Army's presence and activity as helpful to society as a whole. By doing so, it strengthens interagency collaboration, encourages citizens to support the government, and ensures active public engagement in achieving the government's objectives.
Moreover, Key leader engagement (KLE) and Stakeholder engagement, two main points that should be engaged in relation to this pillar. The governor is one of the key community leaders, thus this is significant. By collaborating with or refusing to support programs that were being undertaken by the police or the military, the mayor, barangay captains, and local government officials may prove to have a significant impact on the outcomes of the CMO operation. Their acceptance or rejection can have a significant impact on how well operations or their jobs are done. The same is true for stakeholder engagement, since they must first be won over before committing their support. Due to their prior unfavorable experiences with law enforcement, several stakeholders, including corporations, industries, and non-governmental groups, choose to shun police participation. To achieve the objectives of CMO, we thus need to be able to capture the attention of important executives and stakeholders. I noticed this because during an exercise, we acted out a negotiation with a stakeholder and a senior leader. In this, I understood that it is difficult to persuade others of a topic unless they stand to gain in some way. Therefore, it is imperative that police officers develop their persuasive, interactive, and communication abilities in order to better prepare us for the challenges we will encounter.
Information Support Affairs: CMO Pillar
“The demon's target is not the possessed; it is us the observers..everyone in this house. I think the point is to make us despair..to reject our humanity: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy.”
― William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist
Information Support Affairs, a Civil-Military Operations pillar, is defined as planned actions taken to sway the beliefs, emotions, behaviors, attitudes, and opinions of the target audience in order to shift negative attitudes to positive ones, reinforce positive attitudes, and change passive opinions into positive ones. Our aim to eliminate the CPP-NPA-NDF Operations is accomplished in large part by the Information Support Affairs, or IS. The IS contributes to the fight against false information and black propaganda generated by the enemies by supplying the public with genuine information. To influence a target group's attitudes, ideas, emotions, and actions toward a certain purpose, it requires utilizing activities and other measurements, whether they are military, political, economic, ethical, or social. When used against an opponent, it may foster public dissatisfaction with the opposition's leadership and weaken an enemy's capacity to launch or maintain military operations by fusing persuasion with a realistic threat. Additionally, they can impede command and control by confusing, delaying, and disrupting the adversary's decision-making process. This pillar is essential because its failure might affect how the civil affairs and public affairs pillars of the CMO function.
It was renamed from Psychological Operations, which strive to influence the beliefs, feelings, behavior, opinions, and attitudes of the target audience by carrying out acts consistent with their objectives. The several primary and secondary challenges that our country is currently facing call on the ISA to intensify and expand its efforts in battling enemy propaganda.
Three elements make up the ISA pillar: words, acts, and counter-propaganda. These elements make it possible to change people's minds from backing communism to supporting the government. Words, acts, and counterpropaganda come together as information to help the settlement of the internal strife in the country.
In this regard, we need to win the public's support while thwarting communist recruiting. We have an opportunity to make these things happen by using the information support affairs pillar to do this. The knowledge learned from this lecture can aid by molding people's attitudes and behaviors to support the government and by changing how they think about the government. Additionally, this is a setback for the communists, whose influence over public opinion has allowed them to resist the government for such a long time. This can be disabled to reduce communist recruitment, restrict their resources, and constrict their range of alternatives.
The CMO Triad
“In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten; then he who continues the attack wins.”
– General Ulysses S. Grant
CMO has a long history that dates back to Lapu-Lapu and persisted throughout the Spanish-American and Spanish-American-Latino-American regimes. When Ramon Magsaysay created the Economic Development Corps in 1950, it became an official AFP concept for military operations. The government's New Society initiative was heavily promoted in the 1970s through the employment of CMO.
CMO is a strategy that seeks to defeat the insurgency through non-combatant techniques carried out by the military either independently or in conjunction with civilian groups. The support of military missions is the main objective of CMO. CMO is a strategy that aims to put an end to the insurgency using non-combatant military actions, either alone or in cooperation with civilian organizations. The "out of the box" Civil Affairs CMO idea used by the military.
The CMO triangle, which consists of three pillars—Information Support Affairs, Civil Affairs, and Public Affairs—is the most effective way to explain how CMO functions. It operates on the interfaces of action, information, and relation as a means to successfully achieve the goals of garnering public support, preventing communist recruitment, and influencing the behavior of the public toward the government.
Moreover, Prior military actions are carried out by the CMO through the gathering and analysis of crucial intelligence information. CMO concentrates on the movement of combat or assaulting units during military operations. The CMO is in charge of controlling the effects on friendly forces and civilians following military actions.
Public Affairs (PA), Civil Affairs (CA), and Information Support Affairs make up the three pillars of the CMO (ISA).
Public affairs (PA) aims to win over the general public in order to support the organization. Gaining the public's trust through actions like timely and accurate information release on social media platforms can assist the organization further its objective.
Through cooperation, coordination, and the execution of sociological and developmental efforts to win over the public, Civil Affairs (CA) aims to foster public confidence.
Target audiences' beliefs, emotions, attitudes, views, and behavior are the main goals of information support affairs (ISA). The ISA is divided into two categories: WORDS, which uses the media to distribute information and influence the target audience, and DEEDS, which entails deception operations, patrols, raids, and checkpoints.
By weakening their morale and removing their desire to oppose the government, the CMO seeks to neutralize the opponent.
Utilizing psychological tactics to further avoid battlefield killings, the CMO also seeks to lower or completely eliminate the number of casualties in combat operations. In order to establish peace and order in our nation, we must count on the backing of the populace. In order to gather information about the adversary and simultaneously cut the rebel off from his base of support, the military would need to acquire the trust and support of the populace.
This lesson is crucial because it examines the strategies used by our AFP colleagues to combat the enemy and may be used to inspire similar actions by the PNP. This can also improve interservice capabilities because I now have a better understanding of the common CMO phrases. By doing this, we are preparing to raise the stakes in our conflict with the adversary.
Reflection: 44 Days of Faith and Valor
Discover Your Best
44 days of Faith and Valor, written by PLTGEN CESAR HAWTHORNE RIVERA BINAG (Ret), begins with the sentence:
"The greatest story ever told is God's love story for humankind and the Salvation mission he rolled out to make this happen. This message is repeated in various ways throughout this devotional because the Bible and the Gospel are always read better when interwoven into our lives."
It is a book of a personal adventure intended for the reader, both active and retired in the armed services, men and women in uniform, particularly those who are part of the Special Action Force (SAF). A mixture of illustrations, Bible verses, and personal experiences made lessons that the readers may come to their life. It differs from the typical daily Bible devotionals that many people are already accustomed to, which fit a day's observations on a single page. Instead, it's more like a running novel with some long and some small parts. Similar to how some days are lengthy and challenging while others are brief yet full of joy. Some days are filled with happy moments, while others are filled with dire circumstances. Each chapter would be viewed as a task by readers.
It has a clear goal in mind. It goes at certain foes in our spiritual lives. Missions are always different, as every SAF Trooper is aware. Some can take a painful two weeks, while others may take three hours for an in-and-out infiltration. Some may involve a peaceful stroll across the fields, while others involve violent encounters.
As the author of this book achieved his goal since, as a reader, I am embarked on a journey with the help of this book. Posed the task is also mine. I alone am capable of achieving the goal for myself. Each chapter ends with a reflection question that helped me apply the lesson to myself and my particular circumstances.
We are realizing that God has seized control of our lives and is penning the narrative of our personal and professional histories. We have many tales to share about how God guided us through the highs and lows of our duty, even when we almost lost our life or limb.
God's love for humanity and the salvation mission He launched to make it happen is the most powerful narrative ever. This message is reiterated throughout the devotional because it is always easier to read the Bible and the Gospel when particular sections are intertwined in our daily lives.
Indeed, this devotional seeks to show us how the Word of God, taken from the closed leather-bound book we often refer to as the Bible, may alter course when applied in daily life.
Civil Military Operations Overview for the Police Cadets
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The 43 members of the MASIDTALAK Class of 2023 were blessed as they unveil the conduct of the Civil Military Operations sponsored by the Philippine Navy from January 13-20, 2023. Since during their cadetship they were only the selected cadets who will able to have an overview on the functions and role of the Civil Military Operations of the AFP, whereas the other members of the class were deployed to local police stations in their respective provinces to observe the day-to-day work of a police stations in the field.
The Civil Military Operations Seminar kicked off on Friday, January 13, 2023 at the Academics Hall of the Academics Group, PNPA as a part of the Cadet Attachment Program for the graduating members of PNPA MASIDTALAK Class of 2023. The Philippine Navy CMO Team, led by CMDR Besa, PN and Staff from CMO School, were cordially welcomed by the Acting Dean.
The Philippine Navy's extensive operational experience has strengthened its CMO initiatives through engagements and through fostering a sense of patriotism among the local population. The people's support and our capacity to reduce the opponents' resolve to resist are two key factors that have proven crucial to success in this type of battle such as the Marawi Crisis happened on March 2017.
Although it is not simple, winning the public's support is crucial to the success of military operations. With the help of the populace, they were able to obtain sort of intelligence that greatly aids our troops in containing and destroying an extremely maneuverable adversary.
As such, the conduct of this activity will improve the cadets’ community relations skills, which are crucial for performing their tasks as officers in the Philippine National Police, forty-three police cadets—soon to be Warrior Diplomats—would take part in the seminar as advocated by the Director, PNPA.