AFP seeks additional P39 billion for this year

MANILA, Philippines – The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is seeking a P39-billion supplemental budget from Congress for the purchase of weapons and equipment to upgrade its capability and better handle security threats.

A source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the AFP submitted to the Senate committee on national defense, through the Department of National Defense, a request for an additional P39 billion.

“It might not necessarily be a supplemental budget for the rest of the year, but rather a wish list for the AFP to be able to increase its tempo of operations, especially against the renegade Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),” the source said.

The amount, if granted, would cover the acquisition of new aircraft, vessels, and weapons as well as maintenance of other military assets.

It would also include funding for petroleum, oil, lubricants and other expenses for operations.

AFP chief Gen. Alexander Yano, in an interview at Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City yesterday, confirmed the request for additional budget, saying that aside from mission essential equipment needed for their operations, the present cost of fuel would affect the volume that would be allowed by the 2009 proposed budget.

He added that the amount included the purchase of ammunition to replenish the supplies spent during the operations against MILF commanders Ameril Umbra Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar alias Commander Bravo.

Yano said that while they are yet to find out how much were already spent during the Mindanao campaign, the figures could already reach billions.

But Yano said delays in the delivery of new military equipment as part of the Capability Upgrade Program (CUP) would not hamper internal security operations, particularly the mission to defeat the communist insurgents by 2010.

He said this is because the hardware they have started to acquire are intended for future operations and those urgently needed by troops in the frontlines have already been delivered.

“These are not planned today and used tomorrow, these were anticipated even years ago, so what we are receiving now have been planned out even one, two years ago, so these are not knee jerk reactions to our requirements,” he said.

He said that while it would be better if the goods would be delivered sooner than usual, there is a legal government procurement process that needs to be complied with, especially since the items are mostly imported from other countries.

Items such as squad automatic weapons, troop carriers and night vision goggles and communication equipment have started coming in batches to keep pace with the deadline set by President Arroyo to end the communist insurgency, he said.

A total of 34 priority items are included in the first phase of the re-prioritized AFP shop list, 62 items in Phase 2, and 39 in Phase 2-B.

These include night fighting equipment, squad automatic weapons, 6,000 units of which are expected to be delivered to the AFP within six months, and bullet-proof vests to improve fighting capability and protection of frontline troops and minimize casualties in the field.

The multi-billion-peso CUP, a component of the Philippine Defense Reform Program, is a comprehensive project aimed at enhancing the equipment of the AFP within a period of five years, starting in 2005 until 2010.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said the minority bloc in the Senate is sympathetic to the request of defense officials to augment the budget of the AFP and beef up its fighting capability.

Pimentel said they would thoroughly look into the proposal submitted by Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. for an additional P10 billion for the AFP budget for 2009, which is l7.7 percent higher than the P56.5 billion already earmarked for the military under the national budget submitted by Malacañang to Congress.

In a statement, Pimentel pointed out that the eight-man Senate minority bloc had earlier urged the executive branch to submit a supplementary budget to enable the military to purchase much-needed firearms and recruit additional troops, following the outbreak of armed hostilities in several areas in Central and Muslim Mindanao as an offshoot of the government’s decision not to sign the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) last month.

Teodoro was quoted as saying that the additional funding will be used to recruit more soldiers, repair ships, and helicopters, and buy ammunition.

Pimentel, however, said that P10 billion is too big an augmentation fund for one department of government.

He said it would be difficult to grant the full amount requested, considering that Congress is not allowed by the Constitution to increase the national budget beyond the level proposed by the President.

He pointed out that whatever extra fund could be infused into the AFP will be derived from the amounts deducted from other agencies or appropriation items in the budget bill. – With Christina Mendez