Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. —Photo from PAOAFP
MANILA, Philippines — Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. on Wednesday rejected former President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for the military to “correct” what the former leader claimed as the “fractured governance” of President Marcos.
“That is not our job. Our job is to protect the Republic of the Philippines, protect its people, defend our territory, and defend our sovereignty and our sovereign rights,” Brawner said at a leadership summit for military personnel at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.
Brawner said the military would remain professional and competent, reacting to Duterte’s admonition, “until when will you support a drug addict president?”
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According to the AFP chief, “military adventurism” such as what happened in the past would not prosper, adding that “we will not take the law into our hands, we will remain professional.”
He reminded the military to remain apolitical and loyal to the Constitution.
“We recognize that all of us have political opinions, political inclinations, but while we are wearing our uniform, we must follow the Constitution and protect the country,” he pointed out.
“We cannot just air our grievances freely, being members of the (AFP). If we want to do that, better to just resign. We should take off our uniform,” he said.
Speaking to reporters after his speech, Brawner said he reminded brigade and battalion commanders during a video teleconferencing “of the vow that we took, that we will defend the Constitution and the Republic of the Philippines.”
Military’s assurance
Lawmakers also rejected Duterte’s call on the AFP to take action.
The military should not get involved in “purely civilian concerns” that affect Filipinos, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said on Wednesday.
“No military intervention or action can ever improve the politics in this nation, as well as the Filipino people’s quality of life, as these are purely civilian concerns,” Pimentel said in a Viber message. “We should uphold civilian supremacy at all times over the military.”
Pimentel acknowledged that the country was beset with problems involving its political system, lamenting that the “political discourse has significantly deteriorated,” but this must be solved by the Filipino people themselves through the recognized constitutional and legal processes,” such as holding an election.
Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada also reminded the AFP to stay loyal to the Constitution.
Appearing before the Commission on Appointments for his confirmation and that of 21 other ranking military officials, AFP Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Jimmy Larida assured Estrada that there were “no grumblings” in the 160,000-strong force.
“You have to be loyal to the Constitution,” Estrada told Larida, who agreed with the senator.
Gov’t must be on guard
Despite the assurance from the military establishment, former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV on Wednesday cautioned the Marcos administration against being complacent about Duterte’s provocation.
Trillanes, a former Navy officer, said that while there was currently a “small, maybe 5 percent” of military officials sympathetic to Duterte, he advised the government to “make sure that the Dutertes will not get any more (support from the) military because this will be a big problem.”
Those sympathetic officers, he said, were mostly junior officers, “but the senior officers so far, they are solidly behind the President.”
Trillanes, who led a failed 2007 mutiny against former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, also noted the small gathering of pro-Duterte supporters at Edsa Shrine last Tuesday night and urged Marcos “not to dismiss them so easily” and learn from the lessons of their own family’s ouster in 1986.
“Any political crisis that could happen, they can easily take advantage of that. We’ve seen that happen in (the 1986 Edsa Revolution) itself. It started small, nobody was paying attention, the administration was too lax because it was popular—and then within a few months, they (the Marcoses) were ousted.”