Always a silver lining. I salute Admiral Guillermo Wong. This shows how someone who is a party to corruption can be more damaging. By removing the person who should have been a beacon of hope towards reforms in the Armed Services, he dimmed the light of reform and even showed the younger officers how moral uprightness becomes a cross against keeping the position.
“When I was there..the programmed P40 million every month for PCDA was being controlled by the chief of staff. If we cannot come up with the amount, this is augmented by the major services – Navy, Air Force and the Army – and the key budgetary units, the PMA, the PSG and AFP Medical Center or V. Luna (Hospital) so that we could generate the P40 million a month which is equivalent to about P480 million a year and that is the so-called PCDA that is readily available to the disposal of the chief of staff,” Rabusa said.
For his part, Trillanes said the PCDA was given various names such as incentive pay or core command staff representation.
He added that while a representation allowance for the chief of staff is understandable, a P5 million monthly allowance is “staggering.”
“That’s a systemic form of corruption. The leader loses his moral authority to cleanse the system because [the corruption] is automatic,” he said in Pilipino.
He noted that only one military official, Admiral Guillermo Wong, had the guts to turn down the offer of discretionary funds from the military comptroller. He thus had a free hand to clean up the Philippine Navy.
However, he was later removed from his post by Reyes.
Garcia can still testify
via Send-off money to AFP chiefs ‘staggering’: Trillanes | ABS-CBN News | Latest Philippine Headlines, Breaking News, Video, Analysis, Features.