No need for another elite strike force, says lawmaker

MANILA, Philippines - A lawmaker yesterday said there is no need for President Aquino to form an elite strike force to prevent a repeat of the Rizal Park hostage fiasco, as there are already specialized military units capable of handling such crisis situations.

Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles said he welcomed the efforts of the President to learn from the incident but thought the move to create a special strike force was unnecessary.

“This plan to put up an elite strike force is welcome news but I believe the Armed Forces already has a unit that was specially trained for hostage rescue, urban warfare, counter-terrorism and even psychological operations,” Nograles said.

“Instead of creating another unit and retraining them which would entail additional expense, the President can just tap this unit, which is called the Special Reaction Unit (SRU) or Alpha-Two-Zero,” he said.

He said the unit has been specially-trained by the United States Army’s Green Beret and US Air Force Special Operations Command and it is patterned after the United Kingdom’s Special Air Service and US Delta Force.

“This unit which was created to augment the Army’s primary mobile strike force — the Light Reaction Company — is already equipped with modern firearms,” Nograles said, adding that what is needed are additional equipment for the unit, such as night-vision devices.

He said the SRU is composed of select officers and enlisted personnel from the Army’s Scout Rangers and Special Forces units, which are already classified as elite units of the Armed Forces.

Wanted: Crisis negotiator

Another lawmaker, Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., said the country needs highly trained crisis negotiators to successfully resolve critical situations.

“We sorely lack professional crisis negotiators. We’ve seen this not just in the horrible hostage-taking tragedy in Luneta, but also in the kidnapping of foreigners in the South,” Barzaga said.

Barzaga pointed out that what the country needs to resolve critical situations such as hostage-taking are not only crack military and police operatives but highly-trained negotiators.

“We’ve seen how the authorities fumbled the expeditious and safe recovery of foreign hostages in Mindanao. And how officials seeking extra publicity, or worse, trying to take their cut of the ransom, could easily get in on the action, and endanger the lives of hostages,” he said, referring to past kidnappings involving the extremist Abu Sayyaf Group and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

But the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said that the soon-to-be formed elite strike force will also include expert crisis negotiators.

“Our military and police elite forces will only be used as a last option. All their actions would be heavily dependent on the outcome of the negotiations and to the decision of the head negotiator,” said AFP spokesman Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta, adding that military and police commandos are trained to neutralize or kill as well as to negotiate.

“Our military and police commandos were not only trained as experts marksmen but also as negotiators,” he said.

In principle, Mabanta said, it has been agreed that the joint military and police strike force must be working directly under the disposal of a Crisis Management Unit (CMU) to be headed by the highest-ranking government official in an area wherein a developing security situation arises, like governors or city mayors.

Aside from its operation team, the composite military and police strike force will be composed of the negotiation team, media team and support team. – With Jaime Laude