Despite public pronouncements from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)  and the Philippine National Police (PNP), that their institutions are not corrupt, reality bites. According to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), “The stench of the padrino system, corruption and criminality pervades in the Armed Forces the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP).”

Generals and their cliques are openly elbowing each other for control of billions of funds reserved for the AFP’s modernization and counterinsurgency campaign.

On January 6, 2023 Lt. Gen. Bartolome Vicente Bacarro has been removed as AFP chief and Gen. Andres Centino who once served as chief from November 12, 2021 to August 8, 2022, has been reappointed. This is a circumvention of the reactionary law passed in 2021stipulating that AFP chiefs should serve a fixed term of 3 consecutive years, which was set to avoid the “revolving door” policy of AFP chiefs that has been used by various regimes to reward their most loyal generals. Bacarro should have served a 3-year term. Again, the current AFP chief Gen. Brawner was appointed to the post on July 21, 2023, just several months after Gen. Centino was appointed.

The 2011 Armed Forces of the Philippines corruption scandal, also known as the “pabaon scandal”, was a political scandal involving the misuse of military funds by high-ranking members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The pabaon system referred to the traditional practice of giving millions of pesos to chiefs of staff when they retire.

An estimated PHP1.5 billion (€22,099,410) in AFP funds for operations and salaries were placed anomalously in an unaudited pool of discretionary resources. Under the system, AFP general Carlos Garcia plundered PHP303 million (€4,464,040) as head of the comptroller’s office while former AFP chief of staff Angelo Reyes received PHP50 million (€736,647) as send-off money.

The progressive Makabayan bloc lawmakers questioned the controversial Barangay Development Program (BDP) funds of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) as a form of pork barrel.

They said that the BDP is a form of lump sum pork barrel, which is prone to misuse and abuse. The Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) identified 1,400 barangays as recipients of P20 million (€294,658) each for “development projects.”

Bigger still is the maneuvering in the PNP among those in power for control of the big drug syndicates and other criminal operations that are under the protection or directly operated by top police officials. On January 4, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) ordered all generals and colonels in the AFP to submit their “courtesy resignation,” including its chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin. The resignation can be accepted or rejected depending on the “review” of a committee. This purportedly aims to rid the PNP of officers involved in drugs. Benjamin Abalos, secretary of the DILG, admitted that criminality was a deep problem among the police.

The CPP declared that, “It is preposterous that the state is serious about purging the PNP of syndicates involved in illegal drugs and other crimes. In fact, Abalos admitted that this was a ‘shortcut’ to avoid the ‘long’ judicial process of putting to trial corrupt police officers…”

The total number of arrests reached more than 216, with over 100 still detained. They were charged with multiple cases.