18/09/2025
Soldiers wrongly expected
to protect gov’t plunderers
by Jarius Bondoc - Sep. 19, 2025
Our soldiers are victims as well of the plundering political elite.
They’re deprived of critical facilities and basic gear. Politicos divert AFP modernization funds to pork barrels.
Floods wreck soldiers’ homes like civilians’. Their children are as poor in Math, Sciences, and Reading Comprehension. Their Philhealth benefits are stolen along with other contributors’. Off-base, their families buy the same costly food. All due to the greedy political class.
These have been happening for the past five years under two Presidents. Malacañang has allowed supermajority allies in Congress to re-align AFP modernization budgets to fake or faulty flood works.
“Corrupt politicians have denied the Armed Forces the modern defense equipment, aircraft, ships, and communication they urgently need to face our adversary now on our doorstep,” retired Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan told this writer.
Politicos have withheld even “sustainment resources like fuel, for more patrol hours on the seas and in the air especially in the West Philippine Sea,” lamented the former AFP deputy chief of staff.
Delayed are “much-needed infrastructure for Navy ships to dock and Air Force planes to hangar -- leaving our equipment exposed,” Adan said.
“Delayed too are procurements of surveillance radars and sensors -- leaving our country naked to aggression,” Adan added.
Point Horizon-3 of the AFP Modernization has been pushed back more than a decade, he said. “Ridiculous when seen in the light of horrendous corruption by greedy politicians and their cohorts. How will our soldiers prevail?”
Communist China has built up its military to 3,733 combat planes, 787 naval warships, 164 coastguard cutters, 4,600 maritime militia steel trawlers, 6,900 tanks, 1,400 short range ballistic missiles, and 2,035,000 soldiers. Bulk are concentrated in the South China Sea.
In contrast, AFP modernization is being defunded for useless flood works. Contractor-politicos have stolen nearly a trillion pesos since 2016 from the AFP, DepEd, and Philhealth.
Following are the yearly National Expenditure Programs submitted by Presidents Rodrigo Duterte and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Also the reduced General Appropriations Acts of Congress, signed by the two Presidents, in billion pesos:
Year NEP GAA
2016 P25B P25B
2017 P25B P25B
2018 P25B P25B
2019 P25B P25B
2020 P25B P27B
2021 P33B P27B
2022 P35B P29.05B
2023 P40B P27.5B
2024 P50B P40B
2025 P50B P35B
2026 P40B --
Note: the 2016 NEP and GAA were the last prepared and signed by President Noynoy Aquino. Duterte prepared and signed the NEPs and GAAs for 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Marcos Jr. prepared and signed those for 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026.
Duterte shamelessly was pro-China. He publicly professed love for President Xi Jin Ping and asked him to make the Philippines a province. He said his campaign promise to plant the Philippine flag in the Spratlys was just a joke, and anyone who believed him was stupid.
He belittled as an ordinary sea accident a Chinese maritime militia trawler’s ramming of an anchored Filipino wooden boat in June 2019. The China trawler fled, abandoning 22 Filipino fishermen in the cold night sea.
He forbade the Navy from joint patrols and exercises with allies in the West Philippine Sea. He even downgraded the Navy to mere 12-nautical mile territorial sea patrols, reducing it to the level of the PNP Maritime Command.
Marcos Jr. denounces China’s bullying. Yet he has not replaced with a permanent naval station the decrepit BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal. Neither has he secured the er****on of oil and gas rigs in Sampaguita Fields, Recto (Reed) Bank.
Politicos make the AFP protect their plundering. As tens of thousands of disgruntled citizens plan protest actions at Luneta and EDSA starting Sunday, Sep. 21st, politicos caution the AFP “to abide by Constitutional duty”.
Yet it is not the soldiers’ mission to defend a corrupt government.
The Constitution is clear. Article II, Declaration of Principles and State Policies, Section 3 mandates:
"...The Armed Forces of the Philippines is the protector of the people and the State. Its goal is to secure the sovereignty of the State and the integrity of the national territory."
*A former PMA superintendent and Visiting Forces Agreement commissioner, Adan is the founding chairman of Advocates for National Interest. Among ANI members are AFP generals who served in civilian offices: Defense Sec. and AFP chief Gen. Renato de Villa, former AFP chiefs Gens. Alexander Yano and Victor Ibrado, former PMA superintendent Gen. Melchor Rosales, Adm. Emil Marayag, ex-congressman Gen. Plaridel Abaya, Gen. Guillermo Cunanan, Col. Mariano Santiago, and ex-SSS head Maj. Rene Valencia.
ANI also recruited dozens of retired generals and colonels into the Alyansa ng Nagkaka-Isang Mamamayan. Led by Catholic Bishops Colin Bagaforo, Gerry Alminaza, Roberto Gaa, and Antonio Tobias, and Evangelical Bishops Efraim Tendero and Noel Pantoja, ANIM brings together hundreds of professionals, women and youth groups, and civil society leaders.
Also with ANIM are former COA commissioner Heidi Mendoza, ex-Comelec commissioner Gus Lagman, ex-Finex presidents Franklin Isaac and Edwin Fernandez, Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, Mayors for Good Governance founding convenors Felipe Remollo and Rommel Arnado, clerics Msgr. Jerry Bitoon, Tony Labiao, Robert Reyes, and Wilmer Tria, and election reform lawyers Melchor Magdamo and Alex Lacson.
Prominent among the retired servicemen are former AFP chief Gen. Generoso Senga, Army Gen. and ex-DICT Sec. Eliseo Rio, PNP Brig. Gen. Noel delos Reyes, Air Force Col. Hector Tarrazona, Navy Col. Leysander Ordenes, and Army Capt. Roberto Yap.
As AFP chief in 2005-2006, Senga refused to join mutinous troops against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s “Hello, Garci” scandal. He also rejected Malacañang’s martial law plot.
ANIM is among three-dozen organizers of the Sep. 21st, 2 p.m. demonstration at EDSA People Power Monument.
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**gbongMarcos
