Solutions
Solutions
Updated 00:58am (Mla time) Oct 27, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 27, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
WHAT'S astonishing about the sums the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chiefs of staff have been playing around with like marbles is not just their size but their availability. Why this fortune should be theirs for the taking, only they, or those who approve their budget, can say.
I've been writing for all of my life, and I have yet to see a million pesos in one blow. I cannot look forward to retiring with just a million for my pains. I am not a regular employee and do not even get a 13th-month pay or regular bonus. So you will forgive me if my blood is aboil that the chiefs of staff get to retire routinely with P300 million as nest egg. Maybe the sums are an exaggeration. But you halve them, or reduce them by three quarters, and they are still a fortune to most of us.
What in God's name makes the chiefs of staff more important than the rest of us? They risk their lives in doing duty? Well, journalists, particularly the provincial ones, do the same thing, and more of them have been killed in the line of duty over the past months than generals. Some of them did not even have the means for a decent burial. More than this, if the Oakwood mutineers were to be believed, it's not the generals who put their asses on the line in the field, it's the junior officers and their men. The generals may only be found dashing off in helicopters to golf clubs in Zamboanga and elsewhere.
But if the generals have these sums to play around with, you wonder what the civilian officials have in their turn. No wonder the Department of Education, which by law is entitled to the biggest budget (which isn't followed anyway, since the biggest slice goes to debt payments) has earned a reputation not for being the seat of enlightenment but for being the seat of corruption.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her officials have hastened to assure that a court martial of Carlos Garcia (what irony that he should be named after the Filipino president who launched "Filipino First," which Diosdado Macapagal, who came after him, promptly undid) will not wreck the AFP, it will strengthen it. It will strengthen it by cleansing it of its dregs. That presumes the muck ends with Garcia and doesn't flow upstream. Indeed, that presumes the muck ends with the generals and doesn't flow upward to their commander in chief.
As it is, Arroyo's culpability in this is patent, and not just by the principle of command responsibility. Her contribution to the corruption is direct. More immediately, it was her "revolving door" policy that made it possible. It produced four chiefs of staff in the same number of years, each one retiring with a “pabaon” [departure allowance] that could ransom a dozen kidnapped Chinese. Either Arroyo turned a blind eye to the practice or she actively abetted it. The latter is not unthinkable, given that she came to power through extra-constitutional means and has been vulnerable to uprisings, military or not.
On a broader and deeper level -- and this one bears repeating again and again -- it was her "war against terror" that catapulted corruption in the military to breathtaking heights. Especially in the first year after 9/11, when she echoed George W. Bush's line of "you are with me or against me," no one could question what government did, least of all its military operations. To do so was to be held up in derision as a terrorist-coddler or accused of treason. Fighting terrorism justified everything, including the curtailment of due process.
It was the culture of secrecy and paranoia unleashed by the "war against terror" that made the shit hit the fan, or unbridled corruption to hit the barracks. Until the US invasion of Iraq came along to disillusion even Filipinos, the last bastion of George W's imperial ambition, the generals were pretty much untouchable. No, they were pretty much infallible -- what they said was ex-cathedra.
What will strengthen the military today is not just the court martial of Garcia, though I'd be first to applaud if that should happen and is prosecuted with zeal. Who knows? Maybe Garcia would be persuaded to talk then, especially if a verdict of guilty carries with it not just a dozen push-ups but a dozen rifles lined up in a firing squad. But more than this, what will strengthen the military, or indeed the country itself, is Arroyo apologizing to the country for having dragged it down the drain with her military adventurism. A military adventurism that gave new lease on life on the praetorian mentality of the men in uniform and made mutinies, quite apart from runaway corruption, possible.
What will strengthen the military is reducing the size of the AFP to a level that matches national priorities and giving it only the budget it deserves. None of this means overlooking terrorism or neglecting national security. All of this means fighting terrorism in the only way that it can be fought, with the judicious combination of intelligence, diplomacy and force, and by assuring national security in the only way it can be assured, by empowering the people so that they can have the means, opportunity and motive to defend themselves. As this country's experience shows, a huge military never combats terrorism or oppression anyway. It only adds to them.
Of course, we should try the corrupt generals (and civilian officials), and punish them when they are found guilty. Life doesn't go on with justice, a nation doesn't move on without rewarding the just and punishing the guilty. But we want permanent solutions to the corruption in the military, let's cut it down to size, physically and ideologically, to reflect its true place in our lives. Our greatest enemies today are not terrorists and communists, they are hunger and corruption. Hunger terrorizes and corruption subverts.
Everything else is just “moro-moro” [a farcial play]. (My deepest apologies to the Moro.)
Updated 00:58am (Mla time) Oct 27, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 27, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
WHAT'S astonishing about the sums the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chiefs of staff have been playing around with like marbles is not just their size but their availability. Why this fortune should be theirs for the taking, only they, or those who approve their budget, can say.
I've been writing for all of my life, and I have yet to see a million pesos in one blow. I cannot look forward to retiring with just a million for my pains. I am not a regular employee and do not even get a 13th-month pay or regular bonus. So you will forgive me if my blood is aboil that the chiefs of staff get to retire routinely with P300 million as nest egg. Maybe the sums are an exaggeration. But you halve them, or reduce them by three quarters, and they are still a fortune to most of us.
What in God's name makes the chiefs of staff more important than the rest of us? They risk their lives in doing duty? Well, journalists, particularly the provincial ones, do the same thing, and more of them have been killed in the line of duty over the past months than generals. Some of them did not even have the means for a decent burial. More than this, if the Oakwood mutineers were to be believed, it's not the generals who put their asses on the line in the field, it's the junior officers and their men. The generals may only be found dashing off in helicopters to golf clubs in Zamboanga and elsewhere.
But if the generals have these sums to play around with, you wonder what the civilian officials have in their turn. No wonder the Department of Education, which by law is entitled to the biggest budget (which isn't followed anyway, since the biggest slice goes to debt payments) has earned a reputation not for being the seat of enlightenment but for being the seat of corruption.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her officials have hastened to assure that a court martial of Carlos Garcia (what irony that he should be named after the Filipino president who launched "Filipino First," which Diosdado Macapagal, who came after him, promptly undid) will not wreck the AFP, it will strengthen it. It will strengthen it by cleansing it of its dregs. That presumes the muck ends with Garcia and doesn't flow upstream. Indeed, that presumes the muck ends with the generals and doesn't flow upward to their commander in chief.
As it is, Arroyo's culpability in this is patent, and not just by the principle of command responsibility. Her contribution to the corruption is direct. More immediately, it was her "revolving door" policy that made it possible. It produced four chiefs of staff in the same number of years, each one retiring with a “pabaon” [departure allowance] that could ransom a dozen kidnapped Chinese. Either Arroyo turned a blind eye to the practice or she actively abetted it. The latter is not unthinkable, given that she came to power through extra-constitutional means and has been vulnerable to uprisings, military or not.
On a broader and deeper level -- and this one bears repeating again and again -- it was her "war against terror" that catapulted corruption in the military to breathtaking heights. Especially in the first year after 9/11, when she echoed George W. Bush's line of "you are with me or against me," no one could question what government did, least of all its military operations. To do so was to be held up in derision as a terrorist-coddler or accused of treason. Fighting terrorism justified everything, including the curtailment of due process.
It was the culture of secrecy and paranoia unleashed by the "war against terror" that made the shit hit the fan, or unbridled corruption to hit the barracks. Until the US invasion of Iraq came along to disillusion even Filipinos, the last bastion of George W's imperial ambition, the generals were pretty much untouchable. No, they were pretty much infallible -- what they said was ex-cathedra.
What will strengthen the military today is not just the court martial of Garcia, though I'd be first to applaud if that should happen and is prosecuted with zeal. Who knows? Maybe Garcia would be persuaded to talk then, especially if a verdict of guilty carries with it not just a dozen push-ups but a dozen rifles lined up in a firing squad. But more than this, what will strengthen the military, or indeed the country itself, is Arroyo apologizing to the country for having dragged it down the drain with her military adventurism. A military adventurism that gave new lease on life on the praetorian mentality of the men in uniform and made mutinies, quite apart from runaway corruption, possible.
What will strengthen the military is reducing the size of the AFP to a level that matches national priorities and giving it only the budget it deserves. None of this means overlooking terrorism or neglecting national security. All of this means fighting terrorism in the only way that it can be fought, with the judicious combination of intelligence, diplomacy and force, and by assuring national security in the only way it can be assured, by empowering the people so that they can have the means, opportunity and motive to defend themselves. As this country's experience shows, a huge military never combats terrorism or oppression anyway. It only adds to them.
Of course, we should try the corrupt generals (and civilian officials), and punish them when they are found guilty. Life doesn't go on with justice, a nation doesn't move on without rewarding the just and punishing the guilty. But we want permanent solutions to the corruption in the military, let's cut it down to size, physically and ideologically, to reflect its true place in our lives. Our greatest enemies today are not terrorists and communists, they are hunger and corruption. Hunger terrorizes and corruption subverts.
Everything else is just “moro-moro” [a farcial play]. (My deepest apologies to the Moro.)
posted by Dante at 12:58 AM
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