Scorned wife's pa wants senator's aide axed

MANILA, Philippines - A retired Navy officer is asking the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to implement an order to dismiss his son-in-law, a Philippine Air Force (PAF) sergeant currently assigned as a security aide to a senator, for abandoning his daughter and cohabiting with two other women.

Retired chief petty officer Gorgonio Golfo is trying to find out why the AFP has yet to enforce an Aug. 15, 2011 order dismissing Sgt. Gerlan Bergado from the service. The dismissal order was promulgated by AFP Command Provost Marshal Col. Eduardo Erediano.

“The recommendation for his dismissal disappeared twice already,” Golfo said.

Bergado, whose last known assignment was at the general headquarters at Camp Aguinaldo, is now one of the military security personnel of a senator formerly identified with detained former President and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Military records show that Golfo’s daughter, Evangeline, lodged a complaint against Bergado for informing the PAF that he was still single when he entered the service, when he was already married to her.

Evangeline, who described Bergado as a womanizer, said that during their eight years of marriage, she gave birth to a daughter who has not gotten any support from her father.

Bergado, however, went to court to question the legality of his marriage to Evangeline, who works as a supervisor at a drug firm. They were wed by Rev. Alfredo dela Cruz in his office in Tondo, Manila, on Jan. 21, 1999.

Bergado was able to prove that the ceremony was fake and therefore void, justifying his claim that he was still single.

However, the military ruled that Bergado failed to fulfill his financial obligation to his child by Evangeline.

During the course of the military’s investigation into Bergado’s alleged womanizing, probers found that Bergado had an illicit affair with another woman from Tagaytay City, who also sued him for child support.

The case was settled and dropped when Bergado agreed to give P1,500 monthly support for his son. At the time the case was settled, Bergado was living with a third woman, a doctor.

“The respondent… could be held administratively liable for non-support due to his (being) remiss in giving monthly financial support their child who was under the care and custody of the complainant,” Erediano ruled.

The AFP Provost Marshal also said a case also exists against Bergado for violating military Circular 17, or committing acts of immorality for maintaining two women, neither of them his wife.

Erediano stated in his order that he “recommends that Sgt. Gerlan Bergado, Philippine Air Force, be discharged from the military service upon approval for deliberately committing an act of immorality.”