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3ID soldiers train for foreign peacekeeping operations

A contingent of the 3rd Infantry Division recently completed the Peace Support Operations Training conducted by a mobile training team from the AFP Peacekeeping Operations Center at Camp Peralta, Jamindan, Capiz.

Eleven officers and 49 enlisted personnel completed the two-week training and will form part of the pool of soldiers earmarked by the Armed Forces for deployment in United Nations Mission Areas in Haiti, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Philippines has been an active member of the UN and fully supports its mandate of maintaining international peace and security and to take collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats. Support from the Philippines usually comes in the form of well-trained and ready deployable military or police contingent sent in peace support and humanitarian missions.

Peace Support Operation is the response to the new nature of conflicts. When collective interests are threatened, response cannot be restricted to affected state/states. Its force has to be multilateral organized by combined elements of several international organizations along with more robust use of force albeit to organize such response with UN alone.

In such operations, military activities should be viewed as only one of several modes of operations within the overall strategy of aimed end state. PSOs is now used more widely to embrace not only peacekeeping and peace enforcement but other related operations such as conflict prevention, peacekeeping, peace building, and humanitarian operations which are principally prerogative of civilian agencies.

The training team headed by Navy Lt. Commdr. Jorge Luzon with Army S/Sgt Simforiano Fudalan and S/Sgt Nestor Labiang were able to impart through lecture and practical exercises important knowledge on the rules of engagement and conduct of a soldier once deployed in foreign country for peace support missions.