Review of Entire Defense Apparatus

March 11, 1976

LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS NO. 382

TO : Secretary of National Defense

I am gratified to note the high level of efficiency and effectiveness that has been attained by the Defense Department and the Armed Forces of the Philippines particularly since the issuance of PD No. 1081. Our country has been able to hurdle extreme difficulties in the face of world-wide economic recession and inflationary pressures better than many developed countries. This, of course, is attributable to the continued favorable climate for economic development ushered in and sustained by substantial gains in the preservation of national stability principally through a considerably improved peace and order. casia

As we seek and find new horizons in our relationships with our neighbors in the region, we are, on the one hand, making new friends and establishing fresh bases for economic, social and cultural cooperation, while on the other, reinvigorating old ties and reinstructing existing relationships, under the aegis of national dignity, mutual respect, and benefit. We are therefore, confronted with new formidable challenges never before faced by our national leaders in our history as an independent nation. And crucial to our survival and progress as a nation is the formulation of well-thought-out plans, executed with firmness and determination.

The Defense establishment, now more than ever, will play a pivotal role in meeting the new and more difficult challenges. Thus, I foresee the need not only to acquire modern weapons systems to insure our security, but also and, more importantly, to use modern methods of managing our limited resources in order to maximize the benefits that can be derived therefrom.

I would like you, therefore, to reassess on a total systems approach the capabilities, deficiencies and overall efficiency of the military and law enforcement forces, as well as their roles and responsiveness to stimuli in the face of the new domestic and international milieu. In this context, I would like you to review the entire defense apparatue with the end in view of strengthening the machinery, in its structural and behavioral aspects.

Specifically, I would like you to do the following:

1. Systematize the programming of manpower needs, raise the quality of personnel entering career military and police service, provide adequate training in all levels of the officer corps and enlisted/police ranks, and utilize available manpower in the most effective manner. As a matter of policy, there shall be a periodic rotation of personnel, particularly those in very sensitive positions which are vulnerable to corruption and, as well, those in the field whose protracted stay may result in a morale problem or adversely affect the proper discharge of their official functions.

2. The doctrine of command responsibility must be applied with resolve, not only as a safeguard against coddling misfits, but as an essential element of effective leadership. Further, I would like you to adopt measures designed to eradicate unwholesome attitudes ranging from simple complacency and indifference in the performance of their jobs to arrogance and abuse of power. You shall moreover call upon all personnel of the Defense Establishment to caution members of their families to desist from doing any act prejudicial to the good name of the organization.

3. While we demand very high standards of discipline, morality and integrity from our personnel, let us also provide adequate welfare programs for those in the active military and police services, even as we must prepare those who must retire from long and honorable service, for a meaningful life as a civilian.

4. In the field of logistics, I urge you to devise new approaches to solve the problems of procurement, distribution and disposal of supplies and materials and adopt measures to ensure their efficient utilization. In particular, re-design your procurement system so as to insure against procedural infirmities that may conduce opportunities for corrupt practices.

5. To insure a more efficient allocation of resources, consider the establishment of a producer logistics system, to include research and development, at Department level, with consumer logistics system being left at the Bureau level. aisa dc

6. For economic reasons, subject SRDP and like projects of the AFP to exhaustive cost-benefit analysis.

7. Formulate new approaches for the economical use of allocated funds, whereby cases of misapplication, technical malversation and, generally, injudicious use of funds through overpricing, ghost deliveries of material, and such other causes shall be eradicated, in which connection proper coordination with appropriate agencies of the government to implement fully this objective shall made.

8. Assess the system of administration of justice by the military, in all its stages, from police/investigative action through arrest and detention of final review of the Military Tribunal's decision, with a view to not only expediting dispositive action in any of the stages, but more importantly insuring the full protection of individual rights, for in the final analysis, the entire government, most particularly the Defense Department, is dedicated to the protection of human rights especially those of the common man.

Foremost in this massive effort to further enhance the responsiveness and effectiveness of the entire Defense Establishment, I now order the immediate implementation of the following:

1. Retirement of as many of those on extended tour of duty and those recalled from the retired list as would not unduly impair the continuity of leadership at the highest level, seeing to it that henceforth appropriate personnel management reforms are installed to provide orderly transfer of leadership in the AFP as to preclude service extension of any officer upon date of compulsory retirement or the recall of any officer from the retired list, unless otherwise dictated by the highest national interest; casia

2. Institution of more effective lateral attrition measures whereby those among the military and police services who do not meet rigid standards of efficiency, morality and discipline are separated from the service; acd

3. Streamlining the AFP organization with particular emphasis on (a) the discontinuance of the protracted existence of task forces and provisional units either by dissolving them when the reasons for their creation have ceased to exist or by institutionalizing them into regular units of the AFP if the continued need for them is determined to be of long standing; and (b) the abolition, creation, or rotation of AFP regular units as would be needful for the effective and efficient attainment of the AFP's mission even as concurrent studies should be made that would rationalize the Integrated Civilian Home Defense Forces and like units.

In carrying out the implementation of the foregoing guidelines and instructions, I deem it imperative as I hereby urge that there be strict adherence to the time-honored principle of civilian supremacy over the military. I am highly confident that the Defense Department will execute its complex tasks in close cooperation with the other departments of government in the common cause for national development, with no other purpose in mind but the highest interests of the Filipino people.