Salvaging what's left of the AFP

These are trying days for the Armed Forces of the Philippines and particularly for the top brass who are on special mission for their Commander-in-Chief. Faced with charges of graft and corruption within their ranks, the military is assailed from all sides. Except during martial law years, public animosity against the military and police exceeds that in the previous experience of any of those soldiers presently serving. The AFP is operating under an environment of hyperactive inquiry, if not hostile dissent. The public have charged that the AFP leadership not only fails to serve and protect the Filipino people but has conspired to advance the political agenda of the Commander-in-Chief.

As a former Philippine Army officer at the turn of the century, Rene N. Jarque resolved not only to write about corruption in the military from top to bottom, but provided ways and means to cleanse it as well as to bring the AFP closer to the people. The theme of his paper “Combating Corruption in the Armed Forces”, which was presented at the National Study Conference on Corruption last week, was that the “signs of unprofessionalism and corruption are everywhere and they point to fundamental problems in the AFP today.”

Captain Jarque wrote that even the evaluation in the 2001 US-RP Joint Defense Assessment noted these oversights. “The Department of National Defense lacks a systematic process for assessing its program and policies and has no comprehensive long-range plan for the AFP which inhibits the efficient use of defense resources and realistic planning for the future.”

To Captain Jarque what flourished inside the AFP, like orchids in the hothouse, was unprofessionalism, poor leadership, tactical and technical incompetence, favoritism and nepotism, ticket-punching, human rights abuses, palakasan and bata-bata system, criminal activities such as black-marketing, drugs and arms smuggling.

Compounding these evil growths were “misplaced priorities and follies of AFP leaders like building an AFP theater when the AFP Medical Center cannot provide decent health care to sick or wounded soldiers, building a GHQ canopy when soldiers are living in dilapidated barracks. And military mismanagement such as no coherent military strategy, inefficient poor procurement and logistics system, lack of doctrine, etc.”

Indeed practices like exacting commissions, kickbacks, overpricing, padding, substitution, rigged-bidding, under-deliveries, and ghost deliveries have been institutionalized in the AFP. This means that spending more money on defense and intelligence to strengthen our security have been shown to be unwarranted. The monies were channeled into the pockets of most of the top brass in the officer corps.

According to Jarque “The nature and extent of corruption in the military is known among officers, suppliers, dealers, auditors, supply officers, enlisted personnel and everyone involved in the supply and finance chain. The Chief of Staff, the J-staff, the commanding generals of the Army, Air Force, and Navy and all senior unit commanders.” It appears that corruption in the AFP is not merely the use of public office to appropriate wealth for oneself, for one’s immediate superior, family, friends, mistresses, and associates. Since the perpetrators re-channel the funds intended for national security for their own personal gains, they committed treason and treachery. These officers have turned against their country and culture, which nurtured them. People hate them and have feelings of revulsion because the officer and gentlemen instead of protecting the people betray them.

Jarque believes that unless corruption in the AFP is stamped out, it would “weaken the ability of the AFP to defend and protect the nation: It is morally wrong and destroys professionalism and integrity of the Officer Corps and the soldiers”.

Despite the omnipresence of these evils in the AFP, Jarque believes that the institution can be reformed and that there are still many good men and women in the AFP. First, he wants the present leadership from the President, Secretary of Defense, Congress, judiciary, media, NGOs and the public to understand that change is necessary. (More specifically they are the Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary of Defense, the officer corps led by the Chief of Staff, the noncommissioned officers, enlisted personnel and civilian employees.) Second, they should be willing to change. Third, a good management team from within the AFP is needed. Fourth is that it should be sensible and realistic. Fifth, change must take place from bottom-up. And sixth, the people should support them.

No one in his right mind will disagree with Captain Jarque that the AFP should be reformed as soon as possible. But what is puzzling about Jarque’s proposal is the lack of connection between his assumptions and current political realities. With GMA there is no reason to think what she condemns verbally will be acted upon behaviorally.

For instance, it is difficult to believe that the President, the Secretary of Defense, the top brass in the AFP and Congress want to reform the AFP. The most recent example is the manner the leaders of these agencies handled the Garcia money laundering scandal. Malacanang hemmed and hawed until public sentiment was clearly against its inaction before it finally condemned the scandal. Secretary Reyes charged that further investigation could lead to “large-scale witch-hunting.” Speaker Joe de Venecia wanted to end the investigation because he wanted to save the other AFP top brass from being implicated.

Thus despite the brave words of Paranaque Rep. Roilo Golez that he would continue with his inquiry to get to the bottom of things, the inquiry ended in a whimper. Meantime the committee was not able to make Garcia talk, there was no identification of the general’s cohorts past and present and we have no clear idea of how he and the other top brass bled the AFP financial system dry.

Worse, despite the Garcia scandal, the proponents of the defense budget were not questioned as to whether the amounts appropriated for modernization the past few years were really spent for modernization. Or how much of the amount went to the pockets of the top brass in the AFP. It is easy to speculate on why the investigations on corruption in the AFP get stonewalled.

The main problem is that the leadership in Malacanang and the AFP top brass have collaborated to rule the Republic. The AFP top brass has allowed itself to be used as a political instrument by GMA to perpetuate herself in office. GMA for her part has agreed to share sovereignty with the top brass of the AFP. GMA is afraid of another EDSA. Disillusionment from the A, B, C and D classes pervaded the survey data. Even those Filipinos who supported and elected her are worried about their future, and the core of their worry is the failure of the leadership. No other electorate confronts its established seat of government with so deep a skepticism that goes back over four decades or since martial law years. This is why GMA has allowed the AFP to brass to help themselves with the taxpayers’ money appropriated to modernize our defense system so as to secure the nation.

The collaboration in practice is a mutually beneficial arrangement or in the language of congressional collaborators. It is a “win win solution.” This means that when the president wants something done, the military and the police compete with one another to see to it that the president’s wish come to pass. Under the present dispensation, the president does not have to press, the military and police go out of their way to compete with one another in carrying out the wishes of the president.

The fact is that the primary function of the military in our society is not to protect or secure the nation against external enemies but to enrich themselves by denying our citizens their democratic rights.

This collaboration led to the emergence of military and police intelligence as political weapons to harass or silence political opposition since the martial law days as an almost independent tools of the executive, largely immune from political limitations or legal challenges or legal controls.

Rene may want to know that what the military is afraid of is the fundamental changeability of government itself “drawing its legitimacy from ‘the People’”.

The real challenge today is how to make the AFP officer corps carry their constitutional mandate, which is to protect and secure the Filipino people not only from external harm but domestic abuses, including political subversion from the Commander-in-Chief. There is need for them to strike a balance to carry out just or reasonable commands in the national interests while dissociating themselves from personal agenda of politicians. The concern is not that the AFP should follow civilian authority. The constitution mandates the AFP to do so. The problem is to be able to distinguish those orders that serve personal agenda of the Commander-in-Chief from the core agenda of protecting the Filipino people. We need an intelligent military leadership committed to protect our people and our national interests, not collaborators who seek to profit from their positions due to their possession of firepower. For this reason there must be a restructuring and re-orientation of the AFP. It should be transformed into an institution in which men and women grow – and from which they emerge, having served as proud, competent soldiers guided by the sole concern to contribute to the security, development and improvement of society.

This is not to say that with a new Commander-in-Chief, an honest and committed Secretary of Defense, and with an officer corps dedicated to protecting and serving the Filipino, Jarque’s proposal to reform the AFP will not work. What is heartening about Jarque’s essay about the AFP, and what gave his paper good insights and a great degree of thoroughness is his belief in the inherent ability of the AFP, when properly managed to carry out its constitutional mandate. Jarque may have left the military physically, but his concern remains to be the building of an [AFP] dedicated to securing the Republic and the protection of the Filipino people.

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