Military blues
Done right, a promotion is a matter of due course for the women and men of the country’s military.
Bastardized, the promotion process provokes the euphemistically characterized “rumblings” in the military ranks.
Worse, it could escalate into widespread demoralization and unrest.
Unaddressed and unchecked, discontent can morph into the dreaded military adventurism that plagued the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the late 20th century.
As it is, promotions in the hierarchical structure of the AFP organization, particularly in its officer corps, narrow as the rank structure makes the “race to the top keenly competitive.”
Should the process proceed without hitches, wherein “only the most suited and best-qualified officers and enlisted personnel remain in the active service,” unrest will be unheard of.
Presently, that seems not to be the case.
If we are to take credence from persistent rumors, the 227,000-strong AFP has been experiencing unrest in recent weeks, months even.
Unrest is also the sense we’re getting after digesting retired Major General Edgard A. Arevalo’s recent public confiding of promotion issues confronting the AFP.
If we’re reading right, Mr. Arevalo, one of the longest-serving AFP spokesmen, is saying the AFP’s promotion process is somehow intact despite some flaws.
Yet in the same breath, he candidly adds, “until ambitious, weaker candidate resorts to partisan political patronage or until the others who have seen how political backing worked decide to play by the new ‘rules’.”
He did not specifically name names but says such a “malpractice allowed second-rate candidates to rise in the AFP hierarchy not necessarily by merit but by the wheeling and dealing of political accommodations.”
Despite Mr. Arevalo’s manifest discretion, it does seem the AFP is dealing with pronounced politicking in its ranks, compromising in the process the integrity of the promotion system.
Significantly, such pronounced politicking reared its head right after an enacted law.
The law, in this case, is Republic Act
11709, which essentially provides for a three-year fixed term for AFP chiefs and other senior military officers.
While the law effectively ended the “revolving door” policy which gave rise to several military chiefs serving for only a few months before mandatory retirement, it also led to needless opportunities for abuse.
Grumblings about how the law was supposedly being abused surfaced as early as November, with one news report alleging it was “being used by some PMAers to get higher positions and get extended for another three years in the service without due regard to the morale and welfare of their underclassmen that is now causing demoralization in the AFP.”
The same news report also said the law was being used to promote “undeserving” officers, who, despite nearing retirement age, stood to get another three years in active service.
Noticeable enough was the disgruntlement hence, the Lower House in early December quickly approved a bill seeking to amend RA 11709.
Critical observers of military affairs, however, say the House bill doesn’t fix RA 11709. They are also saying many in the military are hoping the Senate appeases their concerns later this month when it tackles the bill.
Interestingly, RA 11709 also serves as the backdrop in Mr. Marcos Jr.’s baffling, though legal, replacement last week of AFP Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Bartolome Vicente Bacarro, the first beneficiary of the three-year fixed term, with former chief of staff General Andres Centino, AFP’s only four-star general.
How long Centino stays on as AFP chief or why he was reappointed in the first place is still an unfinished affair. Though this didn’t prevent political buzz like how a powerful Palace bloc supposedly is asserting itself.
Nonetheless, the interesting circumstances surrounding the AFP’s top post are but a side story to the more crucial issue of promotions.
Satisfactorily resolving the promotion issue will tell us more if the military is moving towards ideals of professionalism or away from them.
“Critical observers of military affairs, however, say the House bill doesn’t fix RA 11709.
“Unaddressed and unchecked, discontent can morph into the dreaded military adventurism that plagued the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the late 20th century.