LAST JULY 27, a group of young soldiers calling itself the Magdalo
group staged a mutiny in Makati City. Among the reasons it gave for
staging a mutiny is corruption in the military, on which Navy Lt.
Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes IV, one of the mutineers’ leaders,
wrote in a detailed manner in 2001 as a graduate student at the University
of the Philippines.
Friday night, a group of junior officers went on television to denounce
the mutiny. While acknowledging that there are indeed “problems”
within the military establishment, they say there was no reason for
going to the extremes of staging a mutiny since “there are mechanisms
in place” for addressing these problems.
The cases of two other military whistleblowers, Ensign Philip Pestaño
and Rear Adm. Guillermo Wong, may provide insights into the veracity
of claims that issues of corruption in the military are being addressed
reasonably.
Philip Pestaño
In 1997, Navy Ensign Pestaño was found dead after telling
on another Navy man engaged in the drug trade and denouncing corrupt
practices in the Navy: the use of Navy boats to smuggle fuel oil and
ferry illegally cut logs.
Navy officials said it was a suicide. However, the results of a Senate
investigation placed that claim in doubt.
The Senate investigation found that, based on the autopsy report,
Pestaño actually sustained four wounds aside from the bullet
wound in his head. He had two contusions in the right temple and a
lacerated wound in the pinna of his left ear.
Homicide experts testified at the Senate investigations that in suicides
through gunshots, the bullet does not bounce back to hit the deceased
and cause contusions.
The trajectory of the wound itself also became an issue in the investigation.
The autopsy report showed the bullet went downward, not perpendicular
to his head - which is the logical trajectory of a bullet fired in
a suicide.
There was also the issue of tampering of evidence. The .45 pistol
that Pestaño allegedly used to shoot himself in the head was
found to have no fingerprints on it. Investigators theorized these
point to foul play and a cover-up.
Guillermo Wong
In one of his research papers for his MA Public Administration,
Trillanes spoke highly of Rear Admiral Guillermo Wong, citing his
reputation as an incorruptible man. Wong became flag officer-in-command
of the Philippine Navy—Trillanes’ service unit—in 2001.
He immediately went on a quest to institute reforms in the Navy, going
places to clean things up.
In February 2001, the Philippine Marines demanded the relief of the
admiral. He had berated the Marines for irregularities in the procurement
of P3.8 million worth of Kevlar helmets.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who only less than a month before
had been installed into the presidency through a people-power uprising
that raged against corruption in government, among other things, ordered
the case to be investigated by then Armed Forces Chief of Staff Angelo
Reyes. Reyes just tossed the case to the Ombudsman instead.
Meantime, Reyes offered Wong the post of commanding officer of the
then newly formed Northern Command. Realizing that he was being demoted,
Wong resigned from his post and was placed on floating status.
He was replaced by Rear Admiral Victorino Hingco, whose policy, in
the words of Trillanes, “was to disregard all reforms initiated
by his predecessor and to maintain status quo.”
Later on, asked whether she was satisfied with the way Reyes had
dealt with the leadership crisis in the Navy, the president said Reyes
had done “the right thing.”
Beyond Cosmetics
Critics have observed that the military’s top leaders, when
confronted with allegations of corruption in the military, are ever
so quick to appease the public by saying that “there are mechanisms
in place” for addressing these issues—which, interestingly,
is the same line mouthed by the junior officers who “voluntarily”
went on national television days ago to denounce the Magdalo group.
But observers who are aware of the experiences of Pestaño
and Wong say these “mechanisms” are just cosmetic. What
is needed, they say, is substantive action on these issues. (Bulatlat.com)
