Part 1
Orlando “Odie” Edralin is the last element, in military speak, in a long line of commanders from Colonel Virgilio Bas, to head the then Third Infantry Brigade activated on 1 July 1986, now known as the 303rd Infantry Brigade.
Since then, the Brigade, nicknamed the “Brown Eagle,” has seen combat action in Mindanao against Muslim separatist groups and, later in its life, campaigns against Communist insurgents in the Visayas until its deployment to Negros island where it clashed with a then formidable rebellion that it has now whittled down to a few armed regulars or remnants of five “dismantled” guerrilla fronts.
The 303rd seems to have been defined, however, by its anti-Communist campaigns in Negros island, particularly in the late 90s when it faced a revitalized insurgent force then headed by Frank Fernandez, a former priest who became a leading force in the Communist movement.
Commanders came and went with the vow of ending this Red scourge, a bane to development efforts, according to government, and a simmering conflict that has led to the death of soldiers, rebels, and civilians alike.
It has also deeply fractured Negros society, dividing the people into polar opposites who see the island and its economic base, the sugar industry, as either a land of promise or a wretched one.
General Odie knows the island quite well since he was first deployed here as a young lieutenant of the elite Special Forces based in La Carlota, a city in the south known then as a heavily-influenced area of the Communists and where the first workers strike under the Marcos I martial law took place in a sugar mill.
It has been a long way since the days when General Odie walked the dusty mountain trails and verdant fields of La Carlota to the day he returned on 31 January at Camp Gerona last year to head the 303rd, vowing a relentless campaign in line with his mission to destroy the Communist insurgency that then had several “severely weakened” fronts.
“It will be long and hard and blood will surely flow but there is no withdrawal,” Edralin said last year in his remarks after assuming command from then Brigade commander, General Michael Samson.
Like Enoch Powell’s speech, Edralin’s remarks drew fire, the Communists pounced on the phrase of” blood will surely flow,” quickly labelling Edralin a “fascist” out for blood and promptly warning, as they have done for decades with previous commanders, of “massive human rights violations.”
“We are just doing our jobs, we have to accomplish our mission,” Edralin would repeatedly point out in subsequent interviews, apparently refusing to be drawn into the narrative frame of the Communists.
Like him, the commanders of his line control battallions – then lieutenant colonels Van Donald Almonte of the 94th, William Pesase of the 62nd, and Arnel Calaoagan of the 79th – buckled down to work, combining combat operations and civil military missions to whittle down the armed and political infrastructure of the Communists in its guerrilla fronts or areas of influence.
