Under normal conditions, the Philippine Army, Navy and Air Force are to fight external enemy attacks against national territory. The Philippine National Police (PNP), on the other hand, was designed to maintain local peace and order and crush criminality at the community level.

In the post World War II episode (in the absence of an external aggressor like Japan), the security of the State was largely challenged by the armed uprising of the Hukbalahap movement, which is now a close caricature of the current armed dissident group, the New People's Army (NPA). The Philippine Army (military) had waged this fratricidal war against the dissident movement which has resulted in about 60,000 deaths over a long 37-year period and counting.

The Police took care of maintaining law and order at the local level.

Lately, however, there has been a move from top military brass to transfer the arduous task of containing rebellion to the PNP - out of the hands of the military. In a resolution No 2006-2009 made last Friday, the Bohol Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) appealed to National Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz and DILG Secretary Avelino Cruz and DILG Secretary Ronaldo V. Puno to give the motion a serious second thought.

PNP Provincial Director Arturo Evangelista himself has admitted the incapability of the police to handle the insurgency problem at the moment. Why indeed reinvent the wheel - when the military through the 302nd Brigade had successfully caused the rebel group to move out to the Eastern Visayas.

Late last year while the Chronicle visited the San Juanico bridge (Leyte side), we heard sporadic gunfire from the Samar side, confirming the rumor that the rebels had shifted gears from Bohol for somewhere else.

We recall that after former Negros Occidental Governor Bitay Lacson threw fire and brimstone at the NPAs in the 80s, the rebels scrambled to Cebu and Bohol - where indeed various encounters ensued between them and the military. We recall a provincial commander and his troops were ambushed and in 2004 no less than the Governor Erico Aumentado was fired upon near the Capitol building at the height of the electoral campaign by suspected armed partisans. They had gone that bold.

The rebels' partial exit doesn't still justify that the onus of the anti-insurgency fall on the shoulders of the police, simply because the military has "superior experience and capability on internal security concerns" per the PNP.

We couldn't have agreed more.

Over the 37 years of fighting the rebel groups, the military re-assigned from other areas of conflict, are also trained in doing engineering work and social contract chores as part of winning the hearts of the people at large. The PNP is not largely exposed to that. Nor are they trained to fight in rugged, treacherous terrains over mountains, rivers and caves nor are they exposed to that kind of combat preparedness associated with semi full-scale battle.

The PNP is prepared to take on common and petty criminals but may be fazed by the ferocity of armed and dangerous enemies who will die for an ideology as soon as they wake up in the morning.

They are not trained in the kind of psychological warfare that is necessary to fight dissidents with a cause. They need the warrior psychology of the military that sometimes sleeps and wakes up to the sound of gunfire from near their hiding place.

The PNP has to be trained and experienced in real war to be at par with the aggressive forms of fighting that the rebels are used to. They are not yet there - and it will take years of experience - hands on, to arrive at the level.

There is a need for a transition period where the convergence strategy is of the PNP and the local officials supporting the military acting as lead agent. The allocation of the P1-Billion "Crush the Insurgency" where P300-Million goes to the PNP and P400-Million to the Military, undercores the fact that perhaps that direction we are recommending is now being taken.

Be that as it may - superior arms and training do not a winner of the rebel war make. The United States in all its power and might could not conquer Vietnam guerillas who frustrated the Americans' bid to subdue the Asian state.

The war of attrition against the violent enemies of the State is not won by guns and bullets alone. It is won by livelihood and providing food on the table, equal justice for all and a kind of governance that is pro-people and not corrupted to enrich those in power and their private sector collaborators.

Be that as it may, it seems ill-advised to us at this point to change horses, so to speak, when the river is raging fast and furious, midstream.

In the meantime, the military must tackle the insurgency and the police handle criminal matters and ensure public order and safety of communities. To do otherwise is an experiment of folly and risk.