WINNING THE "HEARTS AND MINDS" of a civilian populace is an age-old strategy: Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu preached it in the fifth century b.c.; Mao mastered it; the U.S. tried it in Vietnam and is once again returning to it in Iraq and Afghanistan. But for an occupying force, as the Americans and Filipinos arguably are on Jolo, this strategy is especially tricky.

No one has a defter touch at counterinsurgency than Juancho Sabban. Now 49, the Filipino general has a quick smile and a legendary resolve hidden beneath a soft foam build. He is both a marine's marine and a congenital maverick: a family man (his son just graduated from high school in New Jersey) and decorated combat veteran who also helped overthrow dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and tried to topple his successor, Corazon Aquino, in 1989. Sabban was arrested for rebellion and mutiny, sawed his way out of a maximum-security prison with a smuggled hacksaw, and lived in the rebel underground for two years. He was granted amnesty in 1995.

A key practitioner of what the U.S. military now calls the Basilan model, Sabban first employed his version of hearts-and-minds against Islamic separatists on

The chief slipped a Filipino officer a sheet of paper with a carefully typed list of needs. It was exactly the kind of act Sabban's counterinsurgency doctrine was designed to elicit. He was winning without fighting.

Palawan in 1983 and honed it fighting Abu Sayyaf on the island of Basilan in the late 1990s and again in 2002 as part of a similar U.S.-Philippine initiative. The day he took over on Jolo, he ordered his men into a hut for a PowerPoint presentation. The first slide quoted Sun Tzu: "The acme of skill of the true warrior is to be victorious without fighting." The second showed his standing order: "Behave!"

Under the command of Sabban and his American counterpart, Mindanao Island–based JSOTF-P leader Colonel James Linder, the forces drove the remaining 500 or so Abu Sayyaf fighters into the interior highlands and set about winning over the Tausug populace along the coast. (Outside's request to interview Colonel Linder was denied, and he was rotated out of Mindanao last fall, replaced by U.S. Army Colonel David Maxwell.) One of the Green Berets summed up the efforts: "They were small projects in resources but ones with a big impact on the people's lives. That's the key to this counterinsurgency—not for us to keep going to them with solutions but to somehow get these people to come to the marines for help."

As I learned on Jolo, the campaign was noble in principle and often hilarious in practice. Traveling with a minimum force of 20 Filipino marines and several Green Berets, we would speed back and forth on Jolo's paved road like a platoon of armed elves, delivering chairs to cheering schoolkids and visiting adult learning centers. One particularly sweat-drenched day, we headed out to an isolated hamlet called Sitio Lavnay for the turnover of a new well, one that would bring clean drinking water to 125 desperately poor families. The heavily guarded ceremony featured local VIPs in little plastic chairs, several roaming chickens, and 100 villagers gathered in the stifling heat. It opened with an acoustic version of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing," blasted into the jungle on a boom box, and only got worse.

After the Muzak overture, the speeches started. A lean, clean-shaven Green Beret admonished the villagers to "take ownership of the resource," while the marine-battalion commander thanked the dignitaries for their hard work. Unfortunately the speeches were delivered in English and translated into Tagalog, a language the assembled Tausug couldn't really understand. During the ribbon cutting, a mongrel dog drew the event to a close by taking a leak on the podium.

But for all the ham-fisted production value, the villagers still lined up patiently to thank the soldiers. The most important event that day went little noticed. After the ceremony, the chief, a handsome man in black jeans, slipped a Filipino officer a single sheet of paper with a carefully typed list of needs. It was exactly the kind of act Sabban's counterinsurgency doctrine was designed to elicit.

He was winning without fighting.