National security focus on people’s protectors

President Benigno Aquino. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / LYN RILLON

The Aquino administration’s security agenda has been focused mainly on strengthening the police and military through the acquisition of better equipment and weapons as well as additional personnel. But it is the government’s elevation to the UN arbitration tribunal in The Hague of its territorial dispute with China in the West Philippine Sea that has been most prominent as the issue gained international attention.

Promise: Provide more housing for policemen (Sona 2011); additional housing for men and women in uniform (Sona 2013)

The Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police Housing Project for uniformed personnel is a five-year flagship project of the National Housing Authority (NHA) that was started in 2011, in accordance with Administrative Order No. 9.

Under the program’s P4.2-billion first phase, more than 20,000 affordable housing units have been earmarked for policemen and soldiers in various sites near Metro Manila. The monthly amortization rate has been set at P200 for the first five years, to increase to P1,307 for the standard model and P1,419 for the loft type for the succeeding years.

A symbolic turnover of 21,800 houses to the AFP and PNP personnel was held in 2012, during which President Aquino announced that 21,400 units had already been completed under the first phase of the project.

The program has since expanded to cover employees of the Bureau of Fire Protection, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and the Bureau of Corrections, and selected areas of the Visayas and Mindanao under a second phase.

In 2013, the NHA started to roll out the second phase of the project across the country, with 20,680 houses built. By early 2014, the NHA reported that 29,810 units were under various stages of completion.

By July 2014, the government said 30,558 units had been completed at 30 sites in 14 regions: Northern and Central Luzon—La Union, Pangasinan, Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Ecija, Bataan, Tarlac, Pampanga and Bulacan; Southern Luzon and Bicol—Batangas, Cavite, Quezon and Camarines Sur; the Visayas—Iloilo, Capiz, Negros Occidental, Cebu and Leyte; Mindanao—Zamboanga del Sur, Bukidnon, Davao del Norte, South Cotabato, Agusan del Norte and Maguindanao.

A month later, the budget department released P5.46 billion in fresh funds for the NHA to provide 20,000 house-and-lot packages for uniformed personnel. Once the new houses are completed, the number of completed units for policemen and soldiers since 2011 would have reached 66,852.

The NHA will also be providing housing assistance to the families of the 44 Special Action Forces troops killed in a January 2015 “encounter” with Muslim rebels from the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

The President had previously announced that the administration’s target was to provide 140,000 housing units before the end of his term in 2016.

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Promise: Bring the West Philippine Sea before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea or Itlos (Sona 2011)

On July 7, oral arguments on whether Itlos had jurisdiction over the arbitration case brought by the Philippines had started in The Hague, the Netherlands. Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told the five-member Permanent Court of Arbitration that China had violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) by invoking “historic rights” in claiming nearly all of the 3.5-million-square-kilometer South China Sea.

Other officials from the Philippine delegation argued other points on the question of the tribunal’s jurisdiction over the Philippines’ complaint against China.

At the conclusion of the weeklong hearing, the tribunal, which was established in 1982 by the Unclos, gave Beijing until Aug. 17 to comment on the proceedings.

China had in a December 2014 position paper refused to participate in the arbitration proceedings and insisted that the UN court had no jurisdiction over the case.

The Philippine government filed a motion for arbitration in January 2013 asking the Itlos to nullify the nine-dash demarcation line that China has used to claim almost the entire South China Sea region, including territories in the West Philippine Sea that fall well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

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Promise: Protect the territory of the republic. “If someone enters your yard and tells you he owns it, will you allow that? It’s not right to give away what is rightfully ours. And so I ask for solidarity from our people regarding this issue. Let us speak with one voice.” (Sona 2012)

Apart from the arbitration case now before the international tribunal at The Hague, the government has fired off several diplomatic protests against Chinese intrusion into and reclamation of waters and areas within the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone. The protests were all filed in the Chinese Embassy in Manila, which routinely immediately rejects all protests from the Philippines concerning the sea dispute.

In June 2014, the Philippines filed a complaint against China’s land reclamation activities on McKennan (Hughes) Reef in the disputed Spratly group of islands.

In February 2014, the Department of Foreign Affairs summoned Chinese Chargé d’affaires Sun Xiangyang and presented him with a note verbale protesting reported incidents of harassment of Filipinos by the Chinese to prevent the former from fishing in Panatag Shoal, also known as Scarborough Shoal and Bajo de Masinloc.

In May 2013, the Philippines protested the presence of a fleet of Chinese fishing boats, accompanied by patrol vessels, at Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Reef).

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Promise: Provide policemen with guns: “Pacquiao does not fight every day, and so we can’t rely on him to bring down the crime rate. Which is why we’re strengthening our police force.” (Sona 2012)

The first batch of Glock 17, Generation 4 9-mm pistols were distributed in July 2013, out of a total of 74,879 units of the firearms model that will be distributed to police forces.

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Promise: Pass the AFP modernization bill to be able to allocate P75 billion for the AFP modernization program within the next five years. Better equipment for naval defense, Air Force protection (Sona 2012)

In 2012, Republic Act No. 10349 amended the AFP Modernization Act to include at least P75 billion in funds for the revised military modernization program for the first five years. However, a number of controversies over the manner of acquiring military equipment and aircraft under the program have marred the Aquino administration.

In July, defense officials took members of the media on a demonstration flight aboard a UH-1D helicopter, following a Senate inquiry into corruption allegations in the acquisition of military equipment and weapons systems, including the allegedly defective chopper. As of July 2015, seven of the 21 helicopters have been delivered and received by the AFP. The remaining units, which have been assembled and delivered, have not been accepted, pending the resolution of an arbitration case after the P1.26-billion contract was partially terminated in March.

In December 2014, President Aquino inspected a model of the FA-50 fighter jets at Gimhae Air Base in Busan, South Korea, where he attended the Asean-Republic of Korea Commemorative Summit. The deal involves the purchase of 12 of the FA-50s, the first two of which are expected to arrive in December 2015. The rest will be delivered in 2017.

On July 7, the Inquirer reported that Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, former AFP Chief Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. and then Army chief Lt. Gen. Hernando Iriberri had shelved the contract, signed in December 2014, for a shore-based missile system, an Israeli weapons system, for territorial defense.

The defense department said the project had been “merely a proposal” and that there had been a reprioritization of the modernization program in favor of protective equipment. During his recent turnover ceremony, newly appointed AFP Chief Iriberri explained that it was he who had proposed the reprioritization of the military budget for “mission-essential equipment” for the troops to protect them as they go into battle and carry out their duties.

The new shopping list of military equipment include 832 marksmen rifles worth P149.76 million, two lots of chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear protective gear worth P103.402 million and 32 long-range sniper weapons systems worth P17.28 million.

The House of Representatives will begin an inquiry on July 29 into the progress of the military modernization program since the President has still not signed the final national defense strategy amid the controversies over military equipment purchases.

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Promise: Review of Presidential Decree No. 1638 and Republic Act No. 8551 to ensure that the pensions of PNP and AFP personnel are timely, and balanced against national needs. (Sona 2013)

In the current 16th Congress, six bills (two in the Senate, four in the House) have been filed to amend RA 8551, or the Philippine National Police Reform and Reorganization Act of 1998, while seven bills (four in the Senate, three in the House) have been lodged for the review of PD 1638, or the AFP Retirement Law.

The Commission on Audit (COA) in April directed the Department of National Defense and the AFP to pay the accumulated arrears of the retired soldiers and pensioners amounting to P17,891,468,975 over the past 12 years. The COA ruling was in response to the petition of the Conference-Assembly for Unity and Solidarity of Associations in the Armed Forces and Police Retirees, Veterans Pensioners Inc., an organization representing some 120,000 police and military retirees and pensioners.

The COA noted that while the retired soldiers’ payrolls reflected the increases in their pensions, these “were not paid due to lack of funds and thus have accumulated over the years.”

Under the AFP Retirement Law, a retiree’s pension increases as the active personnel’s salary increases. President Aquino said that the system has been a burden since the funding would most likely come from the government’s budget and not from the contribution of the uniformed personnel.

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Promise: Hiring civilian personnel to focus on administrative work in the PNP (Sona 2013)

According to the 2014 accomplishment report of the PNP, a proposal to fill up the remaining 7,561 nonuniformed personnel posts, out of the 15,000 additional vacancies for civilian members, had been submitted for approval. Administrative work undertaken by civilian personnel includes gathering of statistical data, delivering accurate and credible crime reporting, efficient case monitoring, tracking of serving of warrants and precise crime mapping and analysis.

In August 2014, about 100 policemen were transferred out of administrative duties to areas in Metro Manila with high crime rates to address the shortage of street patrollers.

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Promise: Distribute more firearms to police force to achieve a one-is-to-one police-to-pistol ratio (Sona 2013)

Even as the government continues to acquire and distribute firearms under the PNP’s capability-enhancing program, the PNP has been able to rationalize the distribution of guns to policemen. In August 2014, an internal audit by the Police Regional Office in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao found that 228 personnel had more than one firearm to them. This resulted in a recall of firearms and redistribution to other units and policemen.

Sources: president.gov.ph, pnp.gov.ph, PNP 2014 accomplishment report, Inquirer Archives

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