What will C-in-C Noy do about flawed choppers?

READERS REACT to the recurring Moro rebellion (Gotcha, 9 Mar. 2015):

Robert Garcia, Bacolod City: “Justice Secretary De Lima should stop warning but just arrest citizens whom she claims to be inciting to sedition in yelling ‘P-Noy resign.’ Let’s watch her look silly going after legitimate dissenters, while treating with kid gloves the massacrers of the SAF-44.”

Albertson S.: “If I remember right, no one went to jail for the Jabidah Massacre. No one went to jail too for the massacres of General Bautista’s contingent and the two Al Barka ‘mis-encounters.’ How can we expect justice for the Mamasapano massacre?”

• To the Mamasapano debacle:

Orlando Ortega: “The tragedy opened our eyes to P-Noy’s brand of governing. That the MILF and BIFF are more disciplined and coordinated than our PNP and AFP. That MILF leaders are more intelligent, concerned about their men, and braver, compared to our indecisive leader who is loyal only to friends.”

Frank Esperilla: “If Malacañang did everything to weaken last Sunday’s non-political rally of SAF-44 families and friends, what more the forthcoming report of the PNP Board of Inquiry. Expect P-Noy to use his powers to whitewash the blunder.”

Billy San Buenaventura: “P-Noy’s movie-like recount Monday pictured SAF Director Napeñas as a bungler and PNP chief Purisima as a liar. They may well be. But it doesn’t change his liability for the deaths of 44 commandos and five civilians, for two reasons. One, he is talking peace with the terrorist-coddling MILF, which even he calls “halang ang bituka” (rogues). Yet he has the gall to call ‘enemies of peace’ those who oppose the MILF’s Bangsamoro. Two, he entrusted a delicate commando raid to the suspended Purisima. That he was lied to by his pal about the unfolding fiasco is but an offshoot of his indiscretion. He even kept other security officials — Secretaries Roxas and Gazmin, General Catapang — out of the loop since 2013, when he hatched the Mamasapano operation with Napeñas and Purisima.”

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The defense department’s purchase of defective combat helicopters is high treason. It not only wastes P1.2 billion. Worse, it castrates the military against security threats like Moro separatists or communist invaders.

The original order was for 21 US-made UH-1H “Huey” choppers, the old Vietnam War reliable. Three biddings failed, giving defense officials an alibi to negotiate with one of the parties. Delivered — late, incomplete, and inoperable — were UH-1D “Dornier,” long stopped-production in Germany.

The UH-1D is of no value to the Armed Forces. Spare parts no longer are available. Certain UH-1H parts can be used as substitute, but only at grave risk during combat. Reportedly the supplier could not give English manuals, as the purchase contract requires; the only materials are in German. Defense officials allegedly bamboozled the Air Force brass to accept the aircraft.

Noynoy Aquino had announced in his 2012 State of the Nation that 21 refurbished Hueys were on the way to the Philippines. What arrived were the Dornier-class, one-and-a-half years late. And there weren’t 21, but only nine. Four were put on display during the Air Force Day, but not flown; the engines wouldn’t start.

In the wake of such crime against national security, expect Commander-in-Chief Noynoy to do ... nothing.

Here’s why. The purchase was by U-Sec. Fernando Manalo. Defense chief Voltaire Gazmin’s favorite, Manalo is his designee for finance, munitions, installations, and materiel. Anything that has to do with big money is, for Gazmin, Manalo’s turf. Gazmin signed the P1.2-billion chopper deal on Manalo’s say-so.

Gazmin is a long-time friend of P-Noy. He was the chief of Presidential Security when P-Noy’s mom Cory was C-in-C, 1987-1992. In that post Gazmin had a trusty comptroller, none other than Manalo.

It was Gazmin who assigned to young Noynoy as personal bodyguard the cop Alan Purisima, later to head P-Noy’s National Police. Gazmin posted in the Aquino household another cop Raul Petrasanta, later to head Firearms & Explosives. There’s just one pesky hitch. Both P-Noy chums Purisima and Petrasanta are under Ombudsman suspension and investigation for graft.

What has friendship got to do with P-Noy’s doing nothing about high crime, not to mention threat to pilots’ lives? A lot. Friendship in fact is the only thing to keep one inside P-Noy’s Cabinet.

Take Agriculture Sec. Proceso Alcala, for one. That friend has erred big — causing rice shortage two years in a row, and price spikes of garlic, onion, ginger, and veggies; overpricing rice imports and cargo handling; and failing in rice self-sufficiency, among others. Orlan Calayag, Dennis Guerrero, and Clarito Barron — Alcala’s versions of Gazmin’s Manalo — were found to have committed the wrongs on his bidding. Yet P-Noy allowed him not only to move them around when things got hot, but also retained him.

There’s also P-Noy’s pal Transport Sec. Joseph Abaya. That Liberal Party president has hired — with U-Sec. Jose Lotilla and then-MRT-3 general manager Al S. Vitangcol — two shoddy maintenance contractors who happened to be party mates. Yet P-Noy ignores the scams that have led to billion-peso theft and injuries to train riders. Only Vitangcol was removed last May when exposed in this column as having an uncle-in-law in one of the two contracting firms. Vitangcol resented Abaya’s sending Lotilla to suspend him, when they were in it together, so he left.

Other pals stain P-Noy’s admin: Budget Sec. Florencio Abad for devising the presidential pork barrel, Disbursement Acceleration Program; and Natural Resources Sec. Ramon Paje for granting mines to Chinese spies. But he doesn’t have the heart or mind to fire them.

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