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Speaking at the graduation ceremony of the Philippine Military Academy class of 2008, the Philippine president used the occasion to assail her critics and political foes, whom she accused of engaging in the politics of division and despair.
Arroyo told the fresh graduates of the Philippine military school that the 2008 General Appropriations Act had reserved 12 billion pesos to finance a 10 percent increase in the basic salaries of all civilian, military and uniformed personnel of the government beginning in July this year.
Part of the military package was a 1 billion peso allotment for the Barangay Kalayaan Program, a counter-insurgency plan that would initiate the construction of farm-to-market roads and other projects that would alleviate the plight of poor rural people all over the country.
Another 1 billion pesos, she said, would be allotted to finance mass housing projects for government soldiers. Arroyo said the massive funding for the armed forces was in response to the victories gained by the military in the battlefield, like the reduction in the number of armed communist guerillas to 1,500 from 5,700 in Northern Luzon and the dismantling of 13 to 15 guerilla fronts in the first quarter of 2008.
Arroyo was convincing the graduates to support her all-out war against the New People's Army, as opposed to promoting peace talks in order to find a long-lasting solution to the roots of armed conflict in the country.
It is also one way of keeping the military insulated from the never-ending issues of corruption, betrayal of public interest, election fraud and massive killings of political opponents that have hounded her administration since Arroyo assumed the presidency in 2001 via the People Power II uprising and the highly irregular and questionable victory in the May 2004 presidential elections.
Critics and political opponents of the president criticized her plan to unleash an all-out military offensive against the communist guerillas in the next two-and-a-half years, asserting that the resumption of peace talks between the government and the communist-led National Democratic Front of the Philippines remains the best option to date, rather than spending Filipino taxpayers' money on useless and senseless state action like all-out war.
In a forum held before the Holy Week break, former Anakpawis party list lawmaker Rafael Mariano and Pamalakaya fisherfolk group chairperson Fernando Hicap denounced what they called Arroyo's all-out war for political survival. Both leaders said the government could save over 14 billion pesos in taxpayers' money if it chose peace talks as a path to peace rather than the bankrupt formula of all-out war. They called on Arroyo to pursue the unconditional resumption of peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
"The funds can be rechanneled to other meaningful and reform-oriented activities like free land distribution, creation of jobs, production of support services and availability of social services in depressed communities," Hicap said.
Mariano said the 1 billion pesos in additional funding for the military would be used either to build "farm-to-detachment roads" or "farm-to-pocket roads" to satisfy the president's local allies' demands for kickbacks and commissions.
Citing a study made by the joint research desks of Anakpawis and Pamalakaya, Mariano said the amount that would be used for the all-out military campaign against the rebels this year could provide 140,000 decent mass housing units for 840,000 homeless Filipinos. He said the 14 billion-peso war budget could also be used to fund the construction of 280,000 modest classrooms for elementary and high school students in far-flung and urban areas.
The same study said 14 billion pesos could be used to construct 2,800 new hospitals all over the country that would attend to the medical needs of the people, especially in remote areas. The research also said the fund could be used to procure 466,666 new computers -- enough to address the needs of public schools at the elementary and high school levels, as well as state-ran colleges and universities.
But critics said they hoped the graduates of the military school would not subscribe to the hard-sell counter-insurgency rhetoric of the president and the armed forces Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon Jr.
The morally bankrupt regime is preparing for more senseless killing in the name of political survival and its rabid national security doctrine. But ruthless leaders and repressive governments, as history shows, don't last long. The war budget will not help the president survive; it will merely escalate her regime's downfall.
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(Gerry Albert Corpuz is a correspondent of Bulatlat.com, an alternative Philippine online news site. He is also the head of the information department of Pamalakaya, a national federation of small fisherfolk organizations in the Philippines. His Web site is www.gerryalbertcorpuz.motime.com, and he can be contacted at themanager98@yahoo.com.)
