President Benigno Aquino III has approved a plan to recruit 20,000 more soldiers. Most of them will go to the Philippine Army, the largest branch of service under the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
"It’s with DBM (Department of Budget and Management). We’re looking
into the appropriate ways to fund this," said defense department
spokesperson Peter Galvez.
The training requirement will cost P5 billion while the salaries for all
20,000 new posts will cost additional P4 billion annually, based on the approved
budget plan shown to Rappler.
"The important thing is the plan is approved," Galvez added.
Implementation is pending availability of funds but the plan is to
"gradually" fill up the 20,000 posts "within a 3-year
period," Galvez said.
"We are simply addressing what should have been addressed long
before," Galvez added. "The 20,000 will fill up the troop requirement
to achieve a 95% complement of a unit. At present, most of our units are not
filled up."
Aquino in his 2013 State of the Nation Address (SONA) talked about the need
to augment the country's security forces. "In 1986, there were an
estimated 250,000 policemen and soldiers protecting a total of 55 million
Filipinos. Today, we still have an estimated 250,000 policemen and soldiers,
who protect 95 million Filipinos. Our population has almost doubled; while the
number of our protectors has not changed," Aquino said in his SONA.
The last big recruitment in the AFP happened in 2006 when then President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo approved the hiring of 11,000 new troops. Then AFP
chief Gen Hermogenes Esperon Jr justified this by saying the military needed
more soldiers to stop the New People's Army (NPA) from operating in urban
centers.
External threats
The approval of new recruits comes at a time when the Air force and the
Navy are also getting better equipment. "Something that will help our units in the frontline is very important," said Army chief Lt Gen Noel Coballes.
The Army has a current strength of 85,000 men and women fighting the NPA,
the Abu Sayyaf Group, rogue members of the Moro National Liberation Front, and
the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighter (BIFF). The Moro Islamic Liberation
Front is in peace talks with the government.
The additional troops will increase the number of Army troops to about
105,000. It's still far from the ideal troop strength of 150,000, based on
estimates by Coballes. He said his computation is based on the country's
population growth rate.
He said the Army units are undermanned. Troops are very tired because they
are forced to extend their tours of duty, he added. They have to be regularly
taken out of the field for reorientation, Coballes explained.
Coballes said external security threats also made it more urgent for the
military to improve its posture. "There is a shift from internal defense
to external defense. We have to improve our military posture," he said.
The bulk of the new recruits, however, will go to the Army, which is not the
primary force in external defense.
The AFP has highlighted the new challenges posed by the row between Manila and Beijing over the
West Philippine Sea . Commanders have been
instructed to "conclude" these internal security threats by 2016 so
the military can focus on external defense and other tasks.
READ: Finish insurgency, AFP chief tells commanders
Coballes said the additional troops will help achieve this. "The
performance of the organization will be improved," he said. "We now
have a population of 100 million. We have to increase our soldiers to protect
security fo the people."
READ: Retired generals want ROTC back in colleges
Coballes also supports new calls to make the ROTC mandatory in colleges.
http://www.rappler.com/nation/35627-aquino-approves-more-troops-military
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