Two headlines caught my eye this week: first was the defective choppers bought for P1.2 billion and second, that of China constructing military bases in six different reef areas inside the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) at the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
Both items struck me because as one of the principal authors of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Law (AFPML), I am very uncomfortable with the fact that we are losing out on our efforts to communicate credible deterrence to support our territorial defense objectives against would be aggressors because our AFPML is apparently being mismanaged. If this is true, our “new” platforms, equipment and weapons systems are being procured without due diligence resulting in defective or sub-standard assets making their way into the programmed acquisitions of the AFP Modernization Program.
This is made more relevant when viewed in the current context that Philippine-occupied islands in the WPS remain poorly fortified, and our territorial defense capabilities are expected to remain low in the near to medium term. And as the second news item mentioned implies, countries who are aggressively pursuing their territorial claims in the WPS, like China, will in all probability continue to exploit the resources in the EEZ. Worse, they may even eventually fully deny us use of the sea in these areas by using it as a staging area for military operations against the country.
It is also not unlikely that both the occupied and remaining un-occupied island/ islets in the KIG/WPS are in serious risk of being taken over if the Philippines does not do anything about it. For this reason, it disheartens me that the spirit of the AFPML is not being followed as we have originally conceived it. I distinctly remember that during the drafting of the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) for the AFPML, I openly declared that this law should not be politicized. If you politicize the modernization of the AFP, you not only endanger national security, you also needlessly waste taxpayer’s money. This point was very clear to all of us then and when congress was finalizing the law and IRR on the AFPML, we made it a point that the procurement of military hardware will not fall under an Oversight Committee in order to depoliticize the procurement and for our uniformed personnel to select the best hardware for our troops to support our national security objectives.
Yet instead, we continue to have news reports of our troops suffering losses and being outgunned due to malfunctioning or sub-standard equipment that have been acquired as part of the modernization program of the AFP. And while we waste hard-earned taxpayers’ money due to opportunists and profiteers and further burden limited defense funds by buying overused hardware at inflated prices, our national security and territory are desecrated, our troops needlessly gambling their lives in the line of fire.
We as a nation should put aside personal profit to push our national agenda. These two latest news items coming out at the same time should be enough to make heads roll. I hope our leadership makes a strong statement against profiteering in our AFP. Those who use hostilities as an excuse to raid our national coffers are downright unpatriotic and should be tagged as enemies of state. While hundreds of our soldiers are killed or wounded, these profiteers maybe quietly setting themselves up to rake in tens of millions in profits through the AFP modernization program.
To quote Franklin Roosevelt referring to similar circumstances during America’s fight in the Second World War: “I don’t want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster”. Well, neither do we here in the Philippines. If these allegations are true and if our boys are dying, or their missions fail because of defective and sub-standard equipment, then this is tantamount to treason and those accountable should be charged accordingly.