AFP junior officers and ordinary soldiers have legitimate grievances

Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal
Spokesperson
Communist Party of the Philippines
July 20, 2003

The revolutionary movement sympathizes with the grievances recently aired by AFP junior officers against the anomalous practices of highly placed military officials, especially Gen. Angelo Reyes. In fact, so many ordinary soldiers and policemen have approached the revolutionary movement for advice on how to defend their rights and advance their welfare.

These grievances prove how decadent, corrupt, undemocratic and antipeople the AFP organization is. At the top of the military establishment sit the AFP generals and officials of the Department of National Defense. Aside from wallowing in their high salaries, luxuries and special privileges such as mansions, they rake in a lot of money from misappropriating funds intended for ordinary soldiers as well as funds intended for disaster relief, kickbacks from purchase contracts and largesse from criminal syndicates such as those involved in drugs, kidnapping for ransom and bank holdups, among other criminal activities.

The AFP is a mercenary organization that serves as the fascist state's main coercive instrument to defend the corrupt social system and benefit the reactionary ruling classes. The AFP gobbles up a huge chunk of resources, depriving the people of funds for their welfare and other basic needs. The AFP is a huge burden on the Filipino people even as it merely oppresses them. It is trained, funded and armed by US imperialism to uphold and secure its interests and those of its minions within the country.

Rare is the general who does not live in a big mansion and has no flashy luxury vehicles. Most of them were able to acquire their high positions through bribery. It is an open secret that so many millions of pesos are spent by AFP officials for every star on their shoulder. Like bureaucrat politicians, these military officials recoup their "investments" by receiving high salaries, enjoying privileges and engaging in corruption.

AFP and DND officials do not have an iota of sympathy for junior officers and ordinary soldiers. The grievances recently aired by junior officers are no different from those aired in the 1980s by their predecessors, the Reform the Armed Forces Movement or RAM, and the Young Officers Union or YOU. Many of their leaders have since been corrupted as officials in the military and bureaucracy and have turned their backs on the interests of junior officers and the rank-and-file.

In recent months, a manifesto was issued by the Concerned Army Officers in Sulu containing almost the same grievances by thousands of soldiers at the battlefront.

The status of the AFP's junior officers and rank-and-file is far removed from the pampered lifestyle of their highly placed officials. Even more oppressed and neglected by the reactionary government are the far more numerous government rank-and-file who include thousands of ordinary teachers, nurses, clerks and utility personnel, among others. The DND, AFP and PNP's combined budgets as well as the hidden intelligence budgets of various government offices show the overwhelming priority given, and huge funds allotted to, the military compared to those for social welfare, especially health services. But the gargantuan military budget is merely being appropriated by highly placed officials of the DND and AFP.

Within the military organization, it is ordinary soldiers who are most oppressed and used as cannon fodder by DND and AFP officials in suppression campaigns in the countryside and cities. Their officials neglect their welfare and rob them of their humanity to push them into unleashing their brutality against the people and the revolutionary movement. They are relentlessly used to destroy homes, steal farm animals, ruin crops, kill and torture the innocent and trample on the human rights of ordinary citizens. They are transformed into robots that mercilessly inflict cruelty on the masses and torture suspected members or supporters of the revolutionary movement.

They are often blindly pushed into battle. In the face of certain defeat before the far superior force and capacity of the New People's Army and Moro Islamic Liberation Front, they are forcibly ordered to advance even if this redounds to huge casualties among soldiers. This is what happened in the recent firefights in Compostela Vally, Samar, Bataan and Mountain Province.

Their measly salaries are not worth dying for. Their deaths become even more meaningless as they are defending the system that oppresses and exploits workers and peasants, the classes they themselves came from.

The revolutionary movement takes note of the oppressive and cruel treatment of the rank and files, especially the common soldier and conscripted paramilitary element like the CAFGU member. The revolutionary movement therefore calls on them not to allow themselves to be used by their corrupt officials, the fascist state and the reactionary ruling classes that exploit, oppress and deceive them. They have no other recourse but to refuse to gamble their lives merely for the benefit of the reactionary ruling classes and their corrupt and fascist officials. They must rightly refuse to fight their fellow oppressed and exploited, their brethren Filipinos, who have taken up arms to more effectively fight for their legitimate interests and those of the people.

The thorough decadence and inutility of the AFP have been shown in the successive defeats of various AFP units in battles with the NPA and other revolutionary forces. Thus, they have resorted to venting their ire and taking revenge on ordinary unarmed citizens.

The AFP is becoming ever more corrupt with the intensifying crisis of the ruling system and the growing strength of the revolutionary movement. It is but fitting for junior officers and the rank and file to expose the corruption within the DND and AFP.

Aside from advancing their interests against oppression by generals, we call on them to uphold the patriotic and democratic aspirations of the Filipino people. We call on them to spurn completely the reactionary, decadent and losing course of the AFP, uphold the tradition of Lt. Crispin Tagamolila and join and support the revolutionary movement that serves the people and treads the path of people's liberation.