Setting his sights on the palace

MANILA, Philippines – Faced with a wide range of problems – from peace and order to the global financial crisis to a looming pandemic – the next president of the Philippines will certainly face a mountain of challenges.

The government has also set 2010 as the deadline for defeating the decades-old Communist insurgency, the terror threat posed by the Abu Sayyaf, and achieving just and lasting peace in Mindanao. The University of the Philippines and Harvard University-educated defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro lets STARweek in on how he intends to meet these targets, as well as his agenda for the country, if he is elected president next year.

A year and seven months have passed since the 43-year-old former Tarlac congressman was named defense secretary by President Arroyo, making him the youngest to hold the position.

Since the start of his tenure at the Department of National Defense, Teodoro, a reserve colonel in the Air Force, has been calling for reforms in the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

“I think the bigger problem, and the lesson learned, is the hold aspect. Assuming we neutralize, how will we hold these threats, how will we prevent them from recurring and then finally consolidate newly gained grounds?” he says.

“We need a force build-up and a restructuring and rethinking of our ground operating procedures and strategies. We have expertise in protecting communities and we have been occupying fixed areas, however, in more surgical and more precise operational theaters, or in target-specific matters, we lack the capability.”

He says this is the gap that still needs to filled, especially in the operations against Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebel commanders Ameril Umbra Kato, Abdurahman Macapaar alias Commander Bravo and Aleem Sulaiman alias Commander Pangalian, who in August last year, led their men in murderous rampages in North Cotabato, Lanao del Norte and Saranggani.

Teodoro is looking forward to the simultaneous build up of police forces who can take charge of the country’s internal security threats, giving the military a renewed focus on its mandate of ensuring the nation’s protection from external security threats.

This build up, according to him, should be complemented by the implementation of development projects, which would be ineffective without a hard-line tack of addressing the armed component of rebel and terrorist groups.

“It’s very encouraging that the executive department requested for more troops and Congress has answered by giving us an additional three new infantry battalions, aside from budgets for the recruitment of three other battalions, for the fill up of units and we hope we can ask for more next year. It should be a continuing thing. Off the cuff, we need at least 12,” he says.

These methods, Teodoro says, should be supported by a good social integration package for former rebels who wish to return to the fold. By so doing, the defense chief believes that the military can now focus on strengthening its external defense posture, as the AFP’s modernization program could take larger steps toward realization.

Challenges have been part of Teodoro’s life since he was young. After graduating from college, he was determined to run for governor of his home province Tarlac.

“One Christmas, we had a family meeting and my grandmother urged me to take up law. I told her I don’t want to go to school anymore because I want to run for governor because I held a seat in the provincial board when I was with the Kabataang Barangay,” he reveals.

But his grandmother continued that if he chose not to become a lawyer, he should not return to the province.

So the reluctant Teodoro found himself at the doorsteps of UP, applying late for law school.

“I was accommodated by Sen. Edgardo Angara, who was then UP president. He told me to do well so I won’t embarrass him. Then when we had our first exam, a classmate told me that my results don’t matter because I was only accommodated by Angara, so I was challenged. I studied well and did good in class.”

After the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship, Teodoro found himself with the same reluctance to continue studying. His father, the late Gilberto Sr., resigned as administrator of the Social Security System, while the Batasang Pambansa, where his mother Mercedes Cojuangco was a member, was abolished.

“My classmates looked for me and my professors called me up to convince me to go back to school,” he shares.

In 1989, Teodoro graduated from UP and topped the bar exams in the same year. He worked for seven years at the law firm of former Supreme Court justice Estelito Mendoza. He then went to the Harvard Law School in Cambridge for his Master of Laws, which he completed in 1997. He was also admitted to the State Bar of New York in the same year.

Recently, there has been talk that he would run as vice president, if Vice President Noli de Castro would be picked by the administration coalition as its standard bearer. But Teodoro, fondly called “Gibo” by close friends, tells STARweek that he has never flinched on setting his sights on Malacañang. This is because there are a considerable number of administration allies who are pushing for his candidacy.

“I will not dare present myself for selection as the administration coalition’s presidential candidate if there is no sufficient number of administration members who are telling me to join the race.”

This, he says, includes Cabinet members, congressmen, governors, mayors and other officials, who believe he has what it takes to run the country as its president, despite faring poorly in the surveys for presidentiables.

His credentials, according to his wife, Tarlac Rep. Nikki Prieto-Teodoro, make him qualified to run for president in 2010.

“His integrity, his honesty, his loyalty, his intelligence, his experience and his background in the military service, plus the integrity of his parents. His father has the best record at the SSS. My mother-in-law was in the Constitutional Convention. He was really brought up in politics,” she says.

She also believes her husband, who is on the bottom of the list of surveyed candidates, is not unpopular. “He’s just unknown. And if people could know him, I think he has a good fighting chance.”

For the Teodoro couple, blessed with an equally intelligent son Jaime Gilberto, gunning for the presidency is their way of giving back all that God has blessed them with, in the form of service to the people.

“Actually, the presidency is not a want. It is a way to serve the people, because we are so fortunate and the way to give back is to help the less fortunate. This country has no other way to go but up, with the right person leading it,” Nikki says. “It is our way of saying thank you because we have less to gain with all this headache of going through the presidency, but if SND (referring to Gilbert, Secretary of National Defense) wins, he has a lot to give, so that is his way to say thank you to God for everything that He has given us.”