In addition to the planned visit of an entire civic action team, each company-size unit was required to sponsor a hamlet in the Philippine area of interest and to conduct its own civic action program of modest projects on a permanent basis. Consequently, each of these units became intimately acquainted with a hamlet and its residents. The projects carried out were always small, but were well chosen for psychological impact. Requests for projects originated with the hamlet residents who were asked for advice by the unit. Philippine soldiers and the people then worked alongside each other to complete the project.
The major engineering undertaking of the Philippine Civic Action Group; the Thanh Dien Refugee Resettlement Project, provided much valuable experience that could be applied elsewhere in South Vietnam. The actual clearing of the forest was very similar to U.S. Rome Plow operations conducted elsewhere, but the difference lay in the fact that the Philippine engineers then developed the cleared land by constructing a model village.
Although the Philippine mission did not include the destruction of the Viet Cong, this did not prevent the group from implementing an active and productive campaign of psychological warfare designed to support the Chieu Hoi program. When a civic action team moved into an area, Philippine civic action group intelligence tried to identify the families with Viet Cong members. Attempts were then made to win over these families in order to encourage them to rally to the government cause and persuade their relatives to rally.
The security plans for the Philippine group as a noncombatant force were defensive in nature. The engineering projects were protected by Vietnamese Regional Forces or Popular Forces outposts during the hours of darkness and by their own security troops during the day. In addition, when an area had been chosen for a major project, all the neighboring hamlets received extensive civic action attention in order to develop a favorable atmosphere in the vicinity of the project. The idea was to generate good will among the people and thus perhaps to receive early warning of any impending Viet Cong incursion. Philippine units operated only within range of friendly artillery, and liaison officers were situated at the Tây Ninh sector tactical operations center and the tactical operations centers of nearby U.S. forces. These locations were also linked to the headquarters of the Philippine group by several means of communications.
The Philippine civic action efforts won the friendship and appreciation of many people in Tây Ninh Province. As Asians, the members of the Philippine group were well qualified to un[derstand]
