Military most corrupt gov’t agency–Pulse Asia

MANILA, Philippines—Call it the George Rabusa and Heidi Mendoza effect.

Their allegations of massive corruption in the Armed Forces of the Philippines at congressional hearings covered live by the broadcast media have turned the military into the most corrupt government agency in the eyes of the public, results of the latest survey by Pulse Asia show.

The Philippine National Police ranked second to the AFP among the agencies considered the most corrupt.

The AFP dislodged the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), long considered the flagship of corruption, Pulse Asia said Monday.

Pulse Asia said 49 percent of adult Filipinos considered the military the most corrupt government agency, up from just 8 percent in February 2009.

The survey, conducted from Feb. 24 to March 6, covered 1,200 representative adults. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Gen. Eduardo Oban Jr., the AFP chief of staff, said he saw the survey results as a challenge for him to work more to press reforms in the military and to tell the public about them.

“It would seem that the perception of the public is that the AFP is corrupt. But we’d like to look at this more of a challenge, a motivation for the entire institution to have an aggressive step toward reforming the Armed Forces particularly in the area of financial management and procurement,” said Oban, who assumed office on March 7 amid the “pabaon” (send-off gift) scandal.

High public awareness

The survey found that eight in every 10 Filipinos (81 percent) said they were aware of military corruption, particularly the revelations made by Rabusa, military budget officer from 2000 to 2002, about “welcome and send-off” gifts to high-ranking military officials.

“Considerable to overwhelming majorities” across geographic areas (63 percent to 96 percent) and socioeconomic groupings (71 percent to 95 percent) were aware of these allegations, Pulse Asia said in a statement.

Testifying several times before the Senate blue ribbon committee starting Jan. 27, Rabusa said he raised money for a military slush fund and gave three AFP chiefs of staff during his stint as budget officer tens of millions of pesos in the form of “pasalubong” (welcome gift) and “pabaon.”

Rabusa said he also set aside P5 million monthly for the AFP chief of staff.

He claimed that former AFP Chiefs of Staff Angelo Reyes, Diomedio Villanueva and Roy Cimatu—who all appeared before the blue ribbon committee—were allocated P50 million, P160 million and P80 million in send-off gifts, respectively.

Accused of pocketing some P150 million, Reyes committed suicide on Feb. 8.

Slush fund source

Rabusa said the main source of the slush fund was the pay meant for non-existent soldiers, who account for 20 percent of the troop ceiling the military submits to Congress yearly.

Mendoza, a former Commission on Audit auditor, testified before the blue ribbon committee and the House justice committee on the trail of corruption involving Rabusa’s former boss, ex-AFP comptroller Carlos Garcia, who is accused of plunder.

Malacañang and lawmakers have assailed Garcia’s plea bargain deal with the Ombudsman that allowed him to plead to a lesser offense and to step out of jail.

Pulse Asia said high levels of public awareness of military corruption were recorded in Metro Manila (96 percent) and among Classes ABC (95 percent).

Continue investigations

Six in 10 Filipinos (60 percent) preferred that the Senate and the House of Representatives pursue their investigations of military corruption.

This option was favored by 55 to 65 percent across geographic areas and 55 to 70 percent across socioeconomic classes.

But some 33 percent thought the matter was best left to the courts, while 7 percent believed that there was nothing that ought to be done since “nothing will come out anyway of any congressional investigation or case in court.”

BIR and LTO

A total of 26.6 percent of Filipinos considered the PNP the most corrupt government agency (up by more than 5 points from 21.2 percent in 2009).

The DPWH came in third with 18.2 percent, down from 32 percent in 2009 when it was rated the most corrupt agency.

In fourth place was the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) at 7.8 percent, followed by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) at 7.2 percent, and the Commission of Audit and Bureau of Customs, both at 6.9 percent.

Sixteen percent of Filipinos did not identify any agency as most corrupt, while 10 percent either refused to respond or said they did not know which agency was most corrupt.

At the same time, a “sizeable majority” of Filipinos (64 percent) did not name any agency as least corrupt—higher than the February 2009 figure (33 percent).

Least corrupt

The leading government agencies that were considered least corrupt were the Department of Social Welfare and Development (10.5 percent), Department of Health (9.2 percent) and Department of Education (9 percent).

Forty-seven percent of Filipinos said the six people who figured in the congressional probe of military corruption, whether accuser or accused, were “all equally not believable.”

Twenty-two percent, however, saw Mendoza as more credible than the others. Nineteen percent said the same thing of Rabusa.

Recovering credibility

About 41 percent to 52 percent across geographic areas and 44 to 52 percent across socioeconomic classes said all the six were equally not believable.

Oban said he was confident that the AFP would eventually recover from its bad image.

“Let us all be inspired and motivated by this to work harder in order to regain the credibility of the Armed Forces and good perception of the people,” he said.

Oban said the AFP started its fiscal reforms in 2005 after the discovery of the ill-gotten wealth of Garcia.

J6 disbanded

As a result, the once powerful AFP comptroller’s office (J6) was disbanded and broken down into four offices.

Oban said that when he assumed office his first order was to put a stop to the practice of conversion, which has been abused by greedy officials to divert funds meant for operations to line their pockets.

The AFP has also strengthened institutional checks and balances through the offices of the inspector general, provost marshal and internal audit, he said.

Oban said he also wanted “closure” to individual cases of corruption in the military.

“Part of that was revisiting past cases. I want to review those. I told them I want to put closure to these cases,” he said. Reports from Inquirer Research and Dona Z. Pazzibugan