CEBU CITY, Cebu (PIA) — The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace and Security (OPAPRU) has emphasized the need for a multi-faceted approach to address the root causes of conflict in the country.
During the recent OPAPRU Media Orientation here, Major Gen. Glen O. Paje (Ret.), regional adviser on Peace and Security (RAPS) of the OPAPRU, said that relying solely on military solutions is not enough.
“We have come to realize that this is not only a military problem but a socio-economic, socio-political, and so many other problems,” he said.
Whole-of-Nation Approach
Paje highlighted the need for a whole-of-nation approach that involves collaboration among government agencies, local communities, civil society organizations, private sectors, and other stakeholders.
“In the analysis of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), the security sector, and a host of other stakeholders, we saw that we need to get together, to make a whole-of-nation approach, a whole-of-government approach, a whole-of-society approach to address the issues that drive insurgency,” he said.
Paje said this approach remains their primary convergence mechanism in confronting security threats.
As the government strengthened its peacebuilding efforts, Paje emphasized unity and shared responsibility to overcome the decade-long conflict.
He called for unity among all sectors by adopting a holistic approach in ending the armed conflict in the country, transitioning from relying primarily on security forces to more comprehensive, community-centered solutions.
In this approach, Paje said local government units should take the lead, supported by national government agencies (NGAs), former rebels, and people’s organizations (POs) as catalysts for peacebuilding and reintegration.
He added that one of the key priorities is preventing the resurgence of communist terrorist groups (CTGs), especially in areas that have already been cleared of their presence.
“We would like to engage everybody, the stakeholders, to synchronize all efforts to deny the CTG from recovering cleared areas to prevent the resurgence and the implementation of the holistic transformation program to make former conflict-affected communities resilient against CTG’s efforts to re-radicalize,” he said. (MSH/PIA7)
