MANILA, Philippines - President Duterte should create separate agencies out of the Office of Civil Defense and the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO), which are currently under the Department of National Defense (DND), an official said over the weekend.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the DND is burdened with the responsibility of protecting the country’s internal and external security to fully attend to other serious concerns such as disasters and the needs of veterans.
“We want the OCD and PVAO to be segregated from” the DND, he said, adding that the department has asked Duterte to issue executive orders to create two separate agencies.
As the mother unit, the DND’s annual budget is tied up with PVAO and OCD and these two agencies are getting a lion’s share of the funds, Lorenzana said.
The DND’s approved budget for 2017 is P135.04 billion, and Lorenzana said under the present setup most of the money goes to personnel salaries and allowances rather than defense capability upgrades.
In addition, the 1987 Constitution prohibits the government from allocating more funds to the military than for education, he said.