9th in a series on GMA's 9th State of the Nation Address

Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano, former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff, was finally able to don his new hat as ambassador to Brunei last April. The Commission on Appointments initially clipped his chances, perturbed by the thought that the post was handed to him by Malacañang over more qualified civilian candidates.
 
Sen. Richard Gordon said that Yano’s appointment smacked of “political accommodation,” a practice not alien under the Arroyo administration. His predecessor, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, was also given a place in Arroyo’s cabinet as presidential adviser on peace process after he retired on May 9, 2008. He was later designated as head of the Presidential Management Office after the talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front collapsed.
 
Political accommodation for AFP heads does not start after their retirement however, with plum government posts awaiting them. Critics say that under eight years of Arroyo’s revolving-door policy, the AFP chief of staff’s appointment has turned into the president’s thank-you card to the generals.
 
Long list
 
Yano vacated the AFP top post on May 1, 2009, more than a month earlier than his scheduled retirement purportedly because he was slated to be the ambassador for Brunei. Army chief Maj. Gen. Victor Ibrado, who also belonged to class ’76, took over.
 
Ibrado is the tenth military chief in eight years of Arroyo’s rule. This is definitely much more than Ferdinand Marcos’s seven appointments in 20 years in power.
 
Before Ibrado, there were Yano, Angelo Reyes, Diomedio Villanueva, Roy Cimatu, Dionisio Santiago, Narciso Abaya, Efren Abu, Generoso Senga, Benjamin Defensor and Esperon.
 
Ibrado has eight months to go before he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 56 in March.
 
If he finishes his term, he will be one of the longer-serving AFP heads. Among the list of Arroyo-appointed AFP chiefs of staff, some had only served over two months before they retired. Ideally, this should serve as a reason for them to be not considered for the top post.
 
But the appointment history in the AFP under Arroyo spelled a different story. 
 
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon told us that the attrition rule in the AFP prohibits personnel who have less than a year to go before their retirement age from taking on a major command.
 
However, there is no hard and fast rule – or in this case, legislation – which prohibits officers from being appointed as AFP chief of staff even if they are set to retire in a month’s time. In 2005, Biazon sponsored a bill proposing that “no officer shall be appointed as Chief of Staff if said officer has less than one year of service remaining in the active service” but it has yet to gain ground.
 
 Under Arroyo, even generals who have two months to go before retirement are accommodated for the top position. Aside from this, their terms can also be extended.
 
The chiefs of staff under Arroyo served from a period of over two months to two years, the longest being that of Esperon who was appointed in 2006. He was originally scheduled to leave the post last February 2008.
 
However, Arroyo extended his term for three months to reportedly impede the growing threat of communist forces. Esperon was not the only one whose term was extended.
 
Arroyo also extended the term of Cimatu, who was appointed on May 20, 2002. He headed the military up until September of that year, three months longer than his scheduled retirement in July.
 
Abu's term was extended in mid-2005 amid a politically unstable environment caused by the discovery of the president’s wiretapped conversation with then elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. In the conversation, Arroyo seemed to be securing her votes in Mindanao in the 2004 presidential elections.
 
Benjamin Defensor, who was originally scheduled to retire on Nov. 18, 2002, served as AFP chief of staff for ten more days, bringing his term to a total of 69 days.
 
Biazons’ bills
 
Ten AFP chiefs of staff is considerably a big number compared to previous administrations. Presidents Joseph Estrada (two years) and Fidel Ramos (six years) had two each.
 
Under Ramos, there were Gen. Arturo Enrile and Gen. Arnulfo Acedera Jr. On the other hand, Estrada appointed Lt. Gen. Joselino Nazareno and the now Department of Energy secretary, Angelo Reyes, for the top AFP seat.  
 
Article XVI of the 1987 Constitution states that the “the tour of duty of the Chief of Staff of the armed forces shall not exceed three years.  However, in times of war or other national emergency declared by Congress, the President may extend such tour of duty.”
 
While the terms served by military commanders under the time of Arroyo hardly went over three years, critics say that the short period of their authority also shook the stability of the AFP and made the institution more vulnerable to political maneuvering.
Senate bill 1862, sponsored by Biazon in 2005, mandates a fixed term of three years for the AFP chief of staff. Biazon said that a fixed term could “shield the selection process from too frequent political and personal considerations by ensuring that merit and fitness shall prevail.”
 
We spoke to Biazon over the phone and asked him about the bill’s status. He said that while the Senate has passed it in its third reading, the House of Representatives has yet to act on it.
 
His son, Muntinlupa Rep. Ruffino Biazon, is also pushing for the passage of similar bills.  Rep. Biazon stressed that reforms in the defense sector are more than an issue of funds, as it boils down to leadership, one which is affected, if not weakened, by the short term held by AFP chiefs of staff.
 
That’s why among the bills he authored, he hopes that these two would be finally passed: HB00219, which sets a fixed term for the AFP chief of staff and major commanders and HB2338, which prohibits the appointment of AFP officers to the DND secretary post three years after retirement.
 
The Senate has passed its version of the latter bill last year.
 
The younger Biazon said that the loose term of the AFP chief of staff deprives him of a real chance to implement any programs. “The tour of duty alone would eat up his time,” he said.
 
He believes that three years in the position would be enough for an AFP head to establish continuity of programs and more importantly, to prevent the position from being politicized.
 
He expressed a similar reason for the prohibition of AFP authorities from holding the defense secretary post. He said that an AFP officer needs ample time to start thinking as a civilian again, hence this bill.
 
But he expressed optimism that once the two are approved, other improvements will follow.
 
“That’s organizational. It’s urgent to set these into place. All else will follow,” he said.