By Eduardo R. Ermita , Secretary of National Defense

THE conflict between the Philippine State and its armed dissidents has raged—virtually without letup—since the late 1940s. The Huk rebellion in Central Luzon was followed, beginning in the 1970s, by a Maoist insurgency. Meanwhile, beginning in 1969, a separatist rebellion among the Muslim communities of Sulu and western Mindanao took on an increasingly religious color.

After peaking in 1986, the Communist insurgency is dying away—its rural support eroded by agrarian reform and overseas job opportunities; and its leadership divided by ideological disputes. In Mindanao, the secular mnlf made peace with the Ramos Government in 1996. Now the Islamist milf too is seeking reconciliation with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The danger they posed having receded, these rebellions have disappeared from public notice. Yet, every other day, somewhere in the archipelago, a Filipino soldier still dies in these still-unresolved conflicts. And his death is unnoticed, except by his family and his comrades.

Casualties—and heroes—rising in Mindanao

Ominously, AFP casualties have been rising since the year 2000—when 655 soldiers were killed in action, mostly against the milf rebels in Mindanao. Over the first 10 months of 2003, we lost 208 men in combat.

Reviewing the records, I also note the Mindanao fighting has produced a rich harvest of AFP heroes. Since 1994, the President has awarded 14 Medals for Valor—the country’s highest decoration, which is given only for the most conspicuous deed of bravery or self-sacrifice in combat.

One of these young people, 1Lt. Herbert Dilag, of the 1st Scout Ranger Battalion, recalls a desperate assault on an Abu Sayyaf camp on an 898-meter-high hill in Puno Mohaji, Isabela, Basilan. After almost a week of fighting, the soldiers still couldn’t dislodge the enemy. The forests were so thick, and the slopes so steep, he sometimes fought with one hand clasping a tree-root to steady himself and the other hand firing his rifle. Finally, leading a “suicide squad” of volunteers up an 80-degree slope at night, Dilag cleaned up the Abu Sayyafs foothold bunker with its machine-gun nest, enabling his comrades to move up and take the hill.

Even some of our women-soldiers have won medals in Mindanao—one of them being 1Lt. Maria Victoria Blancaflor-Agoncillo, who won a Gold Cross at Pikit, North Cotabato, while commanding a tank crew. Combat does have a way of awakening the heroism inherent in most ordinary people. Until now, this is the spirit the Armed Forces cultivates in its enlisted personnel—itself being the heir of a volunteer army born out of the Filipino struggle for freedom.

Heir to a heroic military tradition

The revolutionary forces from which the AFP traces its origin were called the “Army of Liberation of the Philippines.” The Philippine Army celebrates as its founding day 22 March—the day, in 1897, the revolutionists who had risen against Spain in Central Luzon dissolved their secret society, the Katipunan, and established a “Filipino Republic.”

The very first act of this nation-in-being was to organize an army of liberation. Talk to the foot soldier, as I do, and he will tell you—stoically—of the hunger and fatigue of night marches over the harshest terrain. Master Sergeant Lucia Cu rig, recalls fighting in Isabela, Basilan, against the Abu Sayyaf for five days without stop, so that the rations ran out until there was nothing left except drinking water. “I told myself,” he says, “there’s no sense complaining: this is the kind of work that soldiers do.”

The Filipino soldier as our modern hero

Sgt. Curig won a Medal for Valor, in the same encounter Lt. Dilag, too, did—by leading the second “suicide squad” up Hill 898 in Basilan. But in my opinion his quiet heroism is far from unique. It characterizes the average Filipino soldier—who daily lives his love of country without hope of reward, but as a simple duty.

This is why President Arroyo has made soldier welfare a keystone of her reforms. By January, the base pay rate for soldiers legislated in 1987 will be carried out fully—raising the lowest ranks to the equivalent of salary grade 10 in the civil service. She has sent to Congress proposals for raising both combat and subsistence pay; and instructed the housing authorities to make available some 44,000 off-base units for soldiers and their families.

These, and more, her administration is doing— in partial recompense for the quiet sacrifices our soldiers make every day, so that our people may have safety and peace of mind.