The Philippines is facing a "crisis of insurgency," Army chief Lt. Gen. Jaime delos Santos admitted yesterday as he called on the government and Congress to approve an increase in the armed forces manpower to face security threats.

"We are having a crisis of insurgency. We need additional men," Delos Santos told reporters yesterday during an interview. Col. Jose Mabanta, Army spokesman echoed the same concerns.

"We are faced with various threats at present, there are about 25,000 insurgents currently 1,000 from the Abu Sayyaf, another thousand from the group led by Nur Misuari and the rest are made up of communist New People's Army and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas," he said.

"If we really like to finish this insurgency problem, we should be given more troops, our current strength is only 68,000, we don't want this problem to drag on," Mabanta added.

The army's fresh concerns over its lack of personnel came in the face of an upsurge in activities by various anti-government groups. These include the continued activities of the extremist Abu Sayyaf, which is still holding three hostages in southern Basilan, the rebellion in Sulu and Zamboanga City led by Moro leader Nur Misuari and the continued insurgent operations of the NPA.

The government currently is engaged with peace negotiations with the MILF. Although a truce with the Islamic separatist group is holding, there are still incidence of clashes between its forces and the Army coupled with the fact that the group could revert to open conflict if efforts to find a negotiated settlement to the Moro conflict fail.

Mabanta said the Army right now needs at least 20,000 men to face the various insurgent groups.

Although the burden of containing the insurgents is shared with the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the other military branches, the Navy and the Air Force, the Army bears the brunt of conducting counter-insurgency operations.

"The 20,000 men will mean an addition 40 battalions. This could go a long way since peace talks with the MILF and the NPA are ongoing but are nevertheless shaky," Mabanta said.

He also noted that the fact that top rebel officials have little control on their field commanders make the task of maintaining peace during truce conditions difficult.

"We need 20,000 more troops, in case it will not be given, we will just request for additional Cafgus," Mabanta noted as he referred to the Army-led militia, the Civilian Armed Force Geographical Units (Cafgus).

The introduction of more Cafgus have been regarded with caution by the legislature due to the militia group's poor human rights violation record.

The request for more troops also follow a commitment from the United States to provide more military aid in the form of hardware and training to the Philippines.