Seen or Not to be Seen
An Information Support Affairs (ISA) planner/operator can better communicate effectively if SEEN.
Our ISA activities are directed towards those marginalized people – those who are not reached by the basic services of the government. Following this, education may possibly be not accessible to these people as well. With limited or no access to education, the use of Words ISA and counter-propaganda in influencing their perspectives and behaviors may not be as effective compared to Deeds ISA. Because words and counter-propaganda require comprehension while deeds ISA only needs to be seen or felt. These marginalized people are the target of propagandas and threat groups. It must be emphasized that in these kinds of operations, there is a need for legitimacy and sincerity. And these can only be experienced through physical dialogues with the people.
Threat groups are on an advantage because they establish deep connections with the people. Thus, we should be more connected to the people more than how threat groups try to do the same.
It is also important to note that our common target audience for our ISA activities are the indigenous people or the IPs usually residing in mountainous or inaccessible areas where there are possible threat groups. To resolve this, we need to create legitimate connections with our target audience. As ISA planners/operators, we are to touch the hearts and minds of people. Legitimacy, in terms of physical contact would, in my opinion, win more sympathizers than hiding behind published or printed materials.
This also opens up the challenge for the government to step up on their responsibilities in addressing the root causes of all insurgencies, particularly the priority to deliver basic services in rural areas. However, this cannot be accomplished without the help of the uniformed personnel. With the delivery of basic services and the assurance of security from the military, I assume that there will be a decline on insurgencies. Although there may be risks in doing deeds ISA over words ISA and counter-propaganda, when we weigh the outcomes of both, deeds ISA will have the upper hand when it comes to influencing the hearts and minds of the populace as these activities can be directly witnessed by them.
Despite my leaning towards ISA activities that can be seen, we must not dismiss the effectiveness of activities in ISA which cannot be witnessed by the public eye. The only thing is the latter only serves the purpose of ISA operations only to a certain extent. As what I have always believed in, there is never a standard template for each and every kind of situation that we, in the military, attend to. In conclusion, I still think it all boils down to identifying to whom our activities and efforts are directed to in order to determine which applicable ISA activities are to be performed. We use different mediums in influencing our target audience. We must emphasize that it is not only words and counter-propaganda that are our available mediums; we also have deeds ISA. Hence, I believe, that each of these mediums are equally effective and contributes to the success of our ISA activities; much more if these mediums are used simultaneously.
