Former Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz’s warning of an emergency rule

Mistreating the military

By Ninez Cacho Olivares; The Daily Tribune; 09/16/2008

Former Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz disclosed a mouthful during his ANC TV interview, apart from issuing a warning to citizens to be vigilant over a probable imposition by Gloria Arroyo of emergency rule, justifying this as the fierce fighting in Mindanano.

From Cruz’s disclosure, money, which is already in the budget, and which has already been approved by Gloria, has never been released all these years, for the upgrading of the military essentials in fighting a war, such as one needed in Mindanao.

As he said, under the Capability Upgrade Plans, already approved by Gloria, “money was not being released” even when this was already in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) budget. “I pity the soldiers. We assign them a big task, run after the rogue MILF commanders, protect the community in Mindanao. This is the irony of it. The negotiating panel (GRP)…gave this territory (to the MILF) and then they will ask officers and soldiers to retake it, but they don’t release the funds to buy mission-essential equipment.”

From the interview, it was also found that up till now, no funding of some P10 billion has been released either by the Budget department.

And this Cruz found strange, as he intimated that there should be funds for this AFP’s mission-essential equipment, since sources of revenue were supposed to have come from the eVAT, among other tax measures.

Everyone knows that the price of oil zooming, a profit windfall was had by the Arroyo government, but it appears that not a single centavo of this windfall went into the military upgade.

So where did these funds go? True, Gloria came up with her one-time Katas ng VAT program, where, it was claimed, some P4 billion was handed out to the poor, by way of cash dole-outs, but to this day, there has been no accounting of just how much, and to how many “poor people” the billions went to — which is not surprising, given the corruption in the Arroyo administration.

Obviously, with such a huge budget, plus the eVAT windfall which amounted to hundreds of billions, considering the fact that when the eVAT was imposed, the price of oil was on the $35 per barrel range, there was money for the AFP. So why was there no release?

Then, too, Gloria’s government has had nothing to show for the past years by way of projects and programs.

Almost everyone also knows just how rich the Gloria generals have become, despite the fact that their pay is measly yet they certainly live like kings today. But not their soldiers, who, among the wounded even have to die, because helicopters with blood bags for transfusion come in much too late.

As Cruz pointed out, Gloria and her peace negotiators give away Philippine territory in Mindanao to the Moro secessionists, which is highly unconstitutional and treasonous, as the grant to the MILF establishes a state within a state, and then she orders the military to retake the territory, ill-equipped as the AFP is.

But precisely, this is what Gloria wants to do, for the body bags from the military to keep coming, for her to be able to justify the imposition of emergency rule, which will be in effect a Palace coup, after which, no doubt, she will be abolishing everything and ordering the drafting of a new Constitution, which will allow her to have lifetime immunity as well as her ruling the country beyond 2010.

The question is, can she effectively stage a Palace coup d’ etat and impose emergency rule given the fact that the military is not quite controlled by her, or many of her generals for that matter, and that there are no guarantees that she will find herself ousted?

There are manifestations that while she may control some generals, she does not control the military. Take the time the AFP chief held a press conference stating that the military will go all-out against the MILF, while she rushed belatedly to Malacañang to tape a message ordering the AFP to “defend every inch of Philippine territory.”

Or the time when she reportedly told the Mindanao “do gooders” that airstrikes by the AFP will stop, where the AFP chiefs said they wont. Don’t these conflicting statements say a mouthful?

Emergency rule, which was earlier planned but denied by the Palace in 2006, didn’t work out for her. There was not only fierce domestic opposition to her and her unconstitutional emergency rule, but also international pressure for her to lift the emergency rule.

Chances are high that if she tries it again, she won’t live through it.

Would they, who have been denied that which was supposed to go to them for the military upgrade, die for her?