SHARIFF AGUAK, Philippines, December 9, 2009 (AFP) - Filipino soldier Sergeant Hermie Quinlat had just been sent to fight communist rebels after a long campaign against Muslim separatists when he was given unexpected new orders: search and destroy your former militia allies.

So Quinlat turned around and joined thousands of soldiers in the southern province of Maguindanao tasked with disarming the private army of a powerful Muslim clan which until a few days earlier they had been fighting alongside.

The grey-haired father-of-six was almost blase about his new mission, saying he understood there are no permanent allies in the Philippines, only unending wars.

In any case, things had turned out relatively well for him.

"It is not so bad," Quinlat, 48, told AFP this week while back on duty in Maguindanao, four days after martial law was imposed in the province following a massacre blamed on the Muslim clan that had ruled since 2001.

"Here you only have to carry your gun. When fighting the communists you have to carry all your stuff in a pack and take it to the mountains."

Being a foot soldier in a country with some of the world's longest-running insurgencies is hard graft.

Sergeants earn only about P24,000 (about $522) a month; brushes with death are frequent and contact with family less so, according to the men of the 46th Infantry Battalion, who call their unit the "Peacemakers".

"I get to see my wife and four children maybe once every four or five months," said Staff Sergeant Carlito Navales, 44.

The "Peacemaker" battalion had just left this region after a 15-month campaign against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), whose fight for an independent homeland in the southern Philippines has claimed 150,000 lives since the 1970s.

They had flown to the central island of Samar, a hotbed of the communist New People's Army (NPA) which has been waging a rebellion for even longer, but their plane was ordered to fly back the following day.

Quinlat and Navales were detailed to guard the main gate of Maguindanao's padlocked government house in Shariff Aguak, the provincial capital, manning a tripod-mounted .30-calibre machine gun on the driveway.

They were on guard for attacks by any of the 3,000 gunmen loyal to Andal Ampatuan Snr, who had been governor of the province since 2001.

Ampatuan Sr. had been allowed to build up his own private army so his troops could help the government's overstretched security forces contain the 12,000-strong MILF.

However the strategy backfired spectacularly when the Ampatuan clan allegedly organised the massacre of 57 people to stop a rival politician from running for provincial governor in next year's elections.

All clan leaders have since been arrested and will be charged with rebellion.

"Here in Maguindanao it used to be that the enemy could not get close to us because there were armed civilian volunteers all around," Navales said, referring to Ampatuan Sr.'s militia force.

However the MILF were fierce opponents when the army sought to hunt the rebels down.

"Sometimes our campaigns would last up to 15 days. We would march behind a light tank into a village, one or two companies (40-80 soldiers) at a time," Navales said.

Navales said fighting the communist rebels required different tactics.

"In Samar you would enter a village and you would never know who is NPA and who is not," he said.

"Against the communists it's small-unit warfare. You operate with maybe a squad of seven against a unit of four guerrillas. That won't do here. They (the MILF) would eat your squad for breakfast."

Quinlat said the 5,000-member NPA specialised in ambushes with firefights lasting just five to 10 minutes where they tried to overwhelm isolated military or police units to get their weapons.

"If they can't subdue the enemy they tend to withdraw immediately," he said.

While both agree that the Muslim rebels -- and even the Ampatuan militia -- are better armed, they said the communists posed the greater threat.

"The NPA is more dangerous because they can attack you from just about anywhere," said Quinlat.

Both soldiers are pessimistic that the Philippine government will be able to end either of the nation's long-running armed insurgencies.

"We will defeat the NPA only when we are able to prevent them from recruiting young members," Navales said.

Despite the pessimism, neither is in a hurry to leave the service.

"I have nowhere else to go. I just have to be careful and hope to reach retirement age still in one piece," Quinlat said.