Retired members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) may lose their monthly pensions if found guilty of spreading false information against the military or making statements that incite sedition.
During a news forum on Saturday, AFP spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla revealed that the military is reviewing its pension system and studying the possibility of subjecting retirees to court-martial proceedings.
“Civilian is their category, but this is what we say. Since they are receiving a pension, we will study how this will fall into play,” Padilla said in a mix of English and Filipino.
Asked if retired officials could be at risk of losing their monthly pension, the AFP spokesperson responded: “If the legal channel determines that this is so, then we will follow.”
She said that seditious statements and spreading fake news have corresponding legal consequences.
“The AFP is not gonna take this sitting down,” Padilla said.
AFP chief-of-staff General Romeo Brawner Jr. earlier admitted that some retired officers had called for the military’s withdrawal of support against Marcos amid public protests over the flood control anomalies revealed last month.
For his part, Philippine Navy Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad said the highest-ranking military officer monitored by the AFP as spreading fake news was a two-star general, with a retired one receiving a monthly pension of about P160,000.
“If you receive a pension from the government, it follows that you have accountability for what you receive, so this is among what legal officers of the AFP are studying,” Trinidad said.
“The problem is, even those who are retired are trying to distort the truth. Mixing it with wrong, fake news to confuse the mindset of the military ranks. If the problem is corruption, the answer is to double down on project management, not for the military to break away,” he added.
