SAN FERNANDO CITY (PIA) – The Situational Awareness and Knowledge Management (SAKM) Cluster of the Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (RTF ELCAC) of the Ilocos Region strengthens its drive against insurgency and terrorism.
 
Regional Director Mildred Abordo of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency Ilocos, during the joint meeting of the Regional Intelligence Committee and the SAKM Cluster held at the Ariana Hotel in Bauang, La Union on Thursday, said the SAKM will expand its membership and establish a more “whole-of-nation” approach to deliver its operating principles.
 
“We will employ a more whole-of-nation approach to provide and disseminate timely and accurate information and assessment on situations regarding communist-terrorist groups in order to totally end the local communist armed conflict in the region,” Abordo said.
 
Currently, the support agencies are the Philippine National Police, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine Information Agency, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and the National Bureau of Investigation.
 
In its expanded composition, it targets to add 11 more regional line agencies namely the Department of Agriculture, Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, Department of Health, Department of Labor and Employment, and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.
 
Also, it plans to include the National Youth Commission and the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos in the cluster.
 
Abordo said that this is to reach a wider array of audience from across different sectors through the help of said agencies and offices.
 
Further, the SAKM Cluster will stage a Speakers-Messengers Training (SMT) to equip representatives from member-agencies to properly conduct orientation on Executive Order No. 70 and assist former rebels in sharing their stories and testimonies to communities.
 
“Member agencies will identify two to three representatives to attend the SMT so that after the training, they can initiate their own SAKM-based information awareness activities,” Abordo said.
 
Meanwhile, the SAKM Cluster was able to conduct some 156 National Task Force Call to Action Orientations wherein a total of 22,756 participants were accommodated from November 2021 to September 2022.
 
Also, an SMT was hosted by the cluster on April 2022 among the personnel of the Ilocos Norte Police Provincial Office in Laoag City. (JCR/AMB/CGRC, PIA Region 1)