Senate probes purchases of military equipment

MANILA, Philippines–The first Senate hearing on the allegedly questionable purchase of military equipment, including refurbished helicopters, under the Armed Forces modernization program, ended up being discussed behind closed doors on Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin requested an executive session to brief the Senate blue ribbon committee on the AFP Modernization Program, which committee chair Sen. Teofisto Guingona II granted.

Gazmin invoked national security as the reason for the request, saying defense authorities would be giving the senators a “classified briefing on the attendant facts and circumstances” regarding the “operational readiness and capability gaps” that led to the formulation of the modernization program.

The Senate blue ribbon committee is conducting the inquiry based on three Senate resolutions filed by Senators Francis Escudero and JV Ejercito who wanted to get to the bottom of allegations of corruption in the acquisition of military equipment and weapons systems, including the procurement by the Department of National Defense of 21 allegedly defective UH-1 combat helicopters.

Before the closed-door briefing, Gazmin addressed the committee, assuring the members that there had been a “thorough and deliberate” process of procurement of military armaments and equipment in the DND and the AFP in which senior government and military leaders participated.

“It must be noted in all meetings of the senior leaders, the technical experts of the AFP have also been in attendance in the discussion of certain procurement product. We require the presence of helicopter pilots for procurement of helicopters or the presence of intelligence personnel for procurement of intelligence equipment to ensure that senior leaders obtain the necessary technical advice from prospective end users,” Gazmin said.

Ejercito, who filed the resolution on the helicopters issue, told reporters after the hearing that he was not completely satisfied with the explanation given by military and defense officials.

He said he did not completely buy the reason given for the purchase of refurbished helicopters, which was that the military wanted to fill the gap, as the country needed 96 to 100 helicopters at any given time.

“They [said they] decided to buy refurbished helicopters because the brand-new ones would cost a lot. Maybe from the P1.2-billion fund, they would only [be able to] buy two to four new helicopters,” Ejercito said.

So far, the AFP has received only eight of the 21 helicopters.

Ejercito questioned why the government should be buying old air assets when its aim was to modernize the military.

“We can buy a small number of new ones just as long as they are reliable and safe…It’s the life of our soldiers that are also at stake here,” he said.

Escudero, on the other hand, wanted the military to account for the almost P63 billion it got since 2002 to modernize the military.

“We want to know how it was spent, where it was spent. We want to know what their procurement did to the force, how the military condition has changed,” Escudero said in a statement.

He said he asked Gazmin to make a report on the use of the Modernization Fund. He said Gazmin promised that he would submit a report to the committee before the next hearing, the date of which has yet to be set.