Hydrophobic AFP brass gets 2nd star

The Air Force general who elicited snickers during the "Balikatan" military exercises earlier this year got his second star on his shoulder board yesterday — this time without riding piggyback on a porter.

The Commission on Appointments (CA) confirmed the promotion to major general of Marciano Ilagan, the controversial general Also approved were the promotion of 20 other military officers.

"I will have to charge that to experience," Ilagan told The STAR, referring to the incident when he was caught by a news agency photographer being carried ashore to a seaside memorial service for 10 US soldiers killed in a helicopter crash off Negros Oriental last February.

Newspapers, which carried the picture, sarcastically described Ilagan as "hydrophobic" and caused greater embarrassment to the defense and military establishment as it also showed a US army major unmindfully wading to shore beside the general.

"I was in the news for eight straight days," Ilagan recalled.

But he said "unfortunate incident" was "just a case of bad publicity" and simply ignored the newspaper and television reports about the embarrassing incident.

"It was just a case of bad publicity," Ilagan said. "Perhaps, I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. That is all behind me now."

He said he just pressed on with his job as commander of the Air Force Tactical Operation Center in Visayas and Mindanao to ensure that he would get his promotion.

Unrepentant about the incident, Ilagan explained that he was not the only official who was carried ashore by local porters. He said a military chaplain and ranking police official were also carried ashore for the memorial service.

"I learned later on that they (local boatmen) deliberately kept a distance between our boat and the shore so that the porters could make a little money carrying people (from the boat to the shore)," Ilagan said.

Although he was required to do so, Ilagan said he wrote a letter to members of the CA explaining the "piggybacking incident" and no one raised the issue during the CA hearings.

The incident occurred during the memorial for the eight US army and two US air force personnel who died when the MH-47E "Chinook" helicopter they were riding crashed off Negros Oriental.

"That incident is not a disqualification to promotion. General Ilagan has a distinguished military career. He is a Gold Cross awardee and is strongly endorsed by former AFP chief of staff, Gen. Diomedio Villanueva, his classmate at PMA," Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano said.

The promotion of Ilagan was not originally included in the confirmation hearing yesterday of the CA committee on national defense, but he got included reportedly upon strong push of Senate President Franklin Drilon, the ex officio chairman of the CA, in the executive session of the bicameral body.

"We all supported the inclusion of Ilagan in the list of officers to be confirmed," Iloilo Rep. Narciso Monfort said after the executive session.

Camiguin Rep. Jurdin Jesus Romualdo, chairman of the CA committee on national defense, said that with Ilagan’s promotion, he is now a strong contender to lead the Philippine Air Force, vice Lt. Gen. Benjamin Defensor who has just been appointed AFP chief of staff. — With Efren Danao