Senate mulls hike in AFP budget

The Senate is eyeing an increase in the budget of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to improve its capability in defending the country against both domestic and external threats.

Sens. Juan Ponce Enrile and Grace Poe called for an increase in the AFP’s budget, which is under the P116.2- billion proposed allocation of the Department of National Defense.

The DND noted the original budget it proposed was in the amount of P202.3 billion but the Department of Budget and Management only approved P115.8 billion.

Enrile said the budget of the DND must be augmented in order “to ensure the safety and security of the Filipino people given the security environment they find themselves in at this time.”

“The strategic situation in the world and in this region is not very encouraging for the country. There is no perceptible threat now but it is possible, probable that we will be – as part of the planet – involved in the problems that are now occurring in Europe and in other parts of the world,” Enrile said.

“These things you cannot just plan tomorrow. You have to plan it within a certain frame of time,” he added.

Poe, for her part, lamented the lack of a national security strategy to combat terrorism, adding the National Security Council (NSC) has not yet convened since 2010.

“The fact that terrorism thrives in situations of poverty and exclusion makes the issue of security more challenging for the Philippines,” Poe said. “And yet, in the face of this, we don’t even have a concrete security strategy.”

Poe called on the NSC to draft a new national security policy and a national security strategy. The policy, with focus on national interests, “must be immediate to the freedom from fear and protecting territory and sovereignty” while the strategy will determine how the state will enact such interests, Poe said.

While there is no specific threat in the country at present, Enrile said the Philippines could not turn a blind eye on the developments pertaining to security around the world.

Enrile said he is looking at a minimum of P10 billion to P20 billion in additional funds for the AFP, specifically for the Philippine Air Force to train pilots and purchase new planes.

Senate committee on finance chair Sen. Loren Legarda said the budget of the DND was already augmented in the Senate version of the 2016 national budget in the amount of P400,000.

Legarda said that P250,000 went to the DND Office of the Secretary as its quick response fund. The other P150,000 went to the Philippine Army.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said the DND would submit a proposal for the additional funding to the Senate committee on finance, the exact amount of which is still being studied.

“The present budget would be augmented because of the deficiencies, especially on modernization,” Gazmin said.

During yesterday’s deliberation on the DND’s budget, Legarda also noted another P4 billion would be added to the agency’s 2016 budget for the payment of the benefits of war veterans.

Legarda said this was the first time that Congress has included this item in the national budget, which would go to the surviving war veterans and the spouses of those who have passed away.

Philippine Veterans Affairs Office administrator Ernesto Carolina said the P4 billion represents arrears accumulated since 1994.

He sa id t he requ i red amounts to pay the surviving spouses were included in the proposed budgets of the DND in the past but was not approved by Congress.

Last mont h, Ca rol i na noted the amount of unsettled total administrative disability pension has reached P17.53 billion as of August this year.

A total of 83,346 World War II and post-war veterans and their spouses are entitled to the pension.