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PHILIPPINE GROUP CLEARS DEBRIS AFTER VIET CONG MORTAR HIT

civic action teams in the rural areas continually stressed their role: to build and not to fight. As a result the people were more receptive to the Philippine efforts than they would have been toward similar activities carried out by a combat unit.

The Philippine civic action teams were efficiently organized and adequately staffed to carry on numerous activities in any one hamlet on a given day. Typically, a Philippine civic action team would arrive in a hamlet and set up a bathing station and clothing distribution point for children; distribute school kits to children and teachers' kits to instructors; distribute food to the poor; and deliver kits to be used for prefabricated schools, or perhaps for a new hamlet office or a maternity dispensary. Subsequently, with the help of the hamlet residents, the Philippine team would erect the strictures. The medical members of the civic action team then would set up a clinic which included instruments for minor surgery and special examining chairs. Simple dentistry work was then routinely provided and could be greatly appreciated by the inhabitants because of its rarity. Many times, modest engineering projects such as the repair of a hamlet road would be carried out.