Revolving door
President Aquino is set to appoint this week a new chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, his third in just a year and a half. The previous two served as AFP chief of staff for less than a year.
Reportedly leading a short list of candidates for the 43rd chief of staff are Lt. Gen. Anthony Alcantara, AFP deputy chief of staff; Lt. Gen. Jessie Dellosa, chief of the Northern Luzon Command; and Vice Adm. Alexander Pama, flag officer in command of the Philippine Navy. The three are all members of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1979 that also counts AFP chief of staff, Gen. Eduardo Oban Jr., and recently retired Army Chief Lt. Gen. Victor Ortiz among its members. Since both Alcantara and Dellosa will reach 56, the mandatory retirement age, in 2013, either of them, if appointed, will serve two years, a slight relief from the revolving-door practice that has been obtaining in the past several years.
In her 10 years as president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had 11 AFP chiefs. Of that number, one served for less than two months, six for less than a year, and four a little over a year. The quick succession of chiefs of staff under the former administration owed to compulsory retirement laws that provide a legal fig leaf to the incumbent power’s self-serving design to ingratiate itself with the military establishment. The officer corps became hostage to the administration and they scrambled for positions and favor; loyalty was fostered in the appointing power, not in the Constitution. The result is the worst politicization of the military since Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law and along with it, the further corruption of the AFP.
It has long been proposed for the AFP chief of staff to have a fixed term of three years, to shield the position from politicking and allow the holder to make reforms work in the military. That proposal nearly became a law in 2006 when a bicameral conference committee approved such a measure which, however, was not signed into law by Arroyo.
It now appears her successor is more open to the proposal. A bill reviving the measure has been filed in the House of Representatives by Rep. Rodolfo Biazon of Muntinlupa, the former senator and himself a retired AFP chief of staff. A counterpart measure has been filed in the Senate by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
Biazon’s bill argues that a fixed term of three years would allow the chief of staff “adequate time to plan, test and execute matters to best achieve a desired end.” In his explanatory note, Biazon laments that while the term of the chief of staff is limited by the Constitution to three years, it “is even shortened by compulsory retirement laws.” “Such a situation,” he adds, “delimits the President’s choices to fill in vacancies (in the AFP) with senior officers whose dates of retirement draw near and provides the perception on the President’s action as being politically driven.” Since the AFP chief of staff is “critical to the country’s interest,” the lawmaker explains, “it is perhaps only proper that the persons chosen to serve in such a capacity be the best qualified and not necessarily among the most senior, and should be able to enjoy a period of service that will allow him/her to implement programs and policies and thus deliver on the objectives of the AFP.”
To be sure, a fixed term for the chief of staff is just one element in making the AFP work as a professional institution. There’s a need, for example, to cultivate a culture of strategic planning in the AFP, especially since it now appears to have also acquired a revolving-door mentality in defense thinking. The AFP modernization plan crafted in the early 1990s is in the doldrums. Back when the Chinese were starting to put up their facilities in the Spratlys, Fort Bonifacio and big camps in Metro Manila were sold to commercial developers to raise money for the modernization plan. Twenty years later, the former camps have become modern commercial and business hubs, the Chinese have strengthened their position in the Spratlys, and all that the AFP can show for its ambitious modernization program is a trail of corruption cases involving logistics and procurement. Meanwhile, all that our defense planners could do about the Chinese encroachment is to rename the South China Sea to the West Philippine Sea.
Come to think of it, the communist insurgency and Muslim Mindanao secessionism are already 40 years old, with no signs of abating. The AFP and the police have always demanded a bigger budget and more resources to defeat the insurgents and the secessionists. But they have nothing to show despite getting what they wanted as internal conflicts continue to scar the nation.
