Philippine Military Called Divided, Corrupt and Inept

Nine months after about 3,000 rebel soldiers nearly overthrew President Corazon Aquino’s government, the 159,000-member Philippine armed forces remains bitterly divided, dangerously politicized and riddled with corruption and ineptitude.

That, at least, is the grim picture painted by scores of witnesses before a presidential fact-finding panel studying the causes of last December’s failed coup. The so-called Davide Commission’s final report and recommendations, based on testimony from 198 military and 130 civilian witnesses, are due this month.

Rebel and loyal soldiers complained of poor leadership, competing loyalties, unjust promotions and uneven military justice. The most dramatic testimony concerned graft and corruption.

Navy Commander Proceso L. Maligalig, a decorated 20-year military veteran now imprisoned for his alleged role in the mutiny, charged in a long deposition that “corruption exists in the procurement system in the personnel administration system, in the (military) mutual aid retirement fund systems, and in equipment maintenance systems.”

Maligalig, former deputy commander of the military’s logistics operation, complained that officers take kickbacks from contractors, or buy substandard uniforms and medical supplies at vastly inflated prices.

One “known gunrunner” in the Department of Defense used his position to illegally import high-powered firearms for sale, Maligalig said. Another senior officer illegally held a second high-paying job at the Bureau of Customs, “drawing pay from both, plus income from customs shenanigans.”

Hospitals suffer from “chronic lack of supplies and medicines, a fact which has caused many a precipitate demise of military patients,” he wrote. “In many AFP (military) hospitals, one has to bring his own intravenous injection kit if one expects to have a transfusion or dextrose feeding.”

Paymasters, personnel clerks, claims officials and other administrative officers routinely insist on “outrageous” bribes to process papers, he added.

“In the case of death claims, the poor widow of a dead soldier may have spent more in following up claims than the eventual benefit paid, or may end up losing her virtue as well . . .” to get her claim approved, he said.

Maligalig conceded that graft and corruption by senior officers probably had decreased under Aquino. Instead, he said, lower-ranking officers now got to share in the “blood money.”

“Volumewise, it may not have changed at all,” he wrote. “Just like in the national government, it appears to have been democratized.”