|
With Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano as one of two guests at the Kapihan sa
Sulô Saturday, the question was bound to crop up: How has the
ZTE-NBN controversy affected military morale?
Just a month or so into his latest post as
commanding general of the Philippine Army, Yano said he has detected
no significant restiveness among the officers and enlisted personnel
of the 80,000-strong PA.
“The Armed Forces of the Philippines is a
volunteer organization,” said Yano. “If any soldier feels
conflicted between his sworn duty to safeguard the Republic and his
personal beliefs then he had better get out of the service where he
can damn us to his heart’s content.”
There was no mistaking Yano’s infuriation over
what he called kid-glove treatment of rebellious soldiers, such as
those who instigated the so-called Oakwood mutiny in 2003.
“In the past, it became somewhat fashionable
for soldiers to join destabilization attempts although those who did
so made up a small, albeit aggressive and noisy, minority,” Yano
said. “But if you go by military law, by the Articles of War,
theirs was a ‘kill-able’ offense.”
He added that soldiers contemplating to rise up
in arms using the weapons supplied them by the government “had
better be ready to face the full consequences of their ill-advised
actions.”
Yano said mutinous troops are worse than
communist insurgents. “They are more than traitors compared to the
[communist-led New People’s Army] because the NPA did not swear an
oath to uphold the rule of law and defend the Republic. We soldiers
did.”
Before his appointment as PACG, Yano headed the
Southern Luzon Command, where he was credited with pacifying the
traditionally NPA-infiltrated regions of Southern Tagalog and Bicol.
The battled-tested general—who still looks as
fit and trim as the day he graduated from the Philippine Military
Academy in 1976—stressed that “the majority of our troops
continue to do their duty, and I constantly remind them that the
minority of bellyachers do no have a monopoly on patriotism.”
He said: “We need to put an end to this, which
has become a culture of sorts in the AFP. With the myriad challenges
our nation faces, we cannot afford a military that rises up in arms
every time some soldiers have gripes—like kids going on
tantrums.”
He did acknowledge that his troops do grumble
especially over logistics. However, Yano—who is evidently
well-schooled in corporate governance—said “the best antidote to
grievances is proper management.”
For instance, the PA high command has begun to
strictly require officers of garrison and field units to carefully
manage their resources, especially, funds, weaponry and POL
(petroleum, oil, lubricants), which in the past have given rise to
rackets in the guise of “conversion.”
“We are not a rich army, but outstanding
leadership can fill in the gaps,” Yano said, “which is why we
are now applying stringent standards in our commander selection
process.”
The general, who regularly goes on early-morning
jogs with enlisted personnel, said: “The individual soldiers must
be the centerpiece of the development of the Army. He is our basic
building block whether they are on garrison duty or field
assignments we need to have them undergo constant training and
schooling.” He calls this capability building.
The new PA chief is also concerned with the
“survivability” of his troops. In the past, the joke was that
soldiers wounded in battle were consigned to the Mona Lisa
Hospital—and, as the old ballad went, they just “lie there and
they die there.”
Stepped-up operations against Islamist
terrorists in the Far South have resulted in rising numbers of
military casualties.
“In order to ensure our troops’
survivability, our officers have been authorized to put up a
P500,000 standby fund for the treatment of wounded personnel in the
nearest private hospital if there is no military medical facility
nearby,” Yano said.
In the case of frontline troops engaged in
actual combat operations, Yano said, the fund has been raised to P2
million. He recalled the case of a corporal from the First (Tabak)
Division who was badly wounded in an encounter in Jolo and flown to
a private hospital in Zamboanga City.
“The Army spent over a million pesos just to
make sure that corporal got the best medical attention available in
the area,” Yano recalled. “Unfortunately, he did not survive his
wounds—but I think the message we sent to the rest of the troops
was clear: we will take care of you as best we can.”
With General Yano in command, we have good
reason to feel confident that the Army of the Republic is in good
hands.
|
