Civil-Military Cooperation and its Accountability:Military in Search of NGOs’ Understanding in the Philippines

• In Event: Development of Accountability Systems and Their Impact on Democratization in Southeast Asian Countries

Abstract

Civil-military cooperation is not a new idea for Southeast Asian countries. Since the Cold War, it has been a psychological strategy of the military to gain the hearts and minds of rural residents who might be mobilized by communist movements. However, it has changed its character by a number of features after democratization. Though no specific laws regulating civil-military cooperation have been created, military’s cooperation with civilian organizations, particularly NGOs, has started in some instances in many Southeast Asian countries.
This paper explains that those unique practices, whatever the purpose is, may entail accountability of both military and NGOs through interaction or even conflicts of interest with other stakeholders, including the central governments, local governments, local beneficiaries, and international humanitarian agencies. Examining case studies in the Philippines, it will further discuss that the military should acknowledge that it opens opportunities and thus its ability to communicate with various stakeholders.
However, vice versa, should it fail, it may hinder accountability and transparency. This paper also analyses the fact that, because the commanding officers expects the civil-military cooperation activities to produce concrete results, non-commissioned officers operating in the missions have been under heavy pressure to excavate and implement projects. This trend is dangerous as the means and goals of the military’s assistance have been confused, leading it to overlook the fact that they need to be accountable as development assistance is to be formulated on a needs and request basis, and allowing its projects to mismatch the needs of the local communities.

Author

• Saya Kiba, Kobe University