RP peacekeepers dealt ‘unkindest cut of all’ Yvonne T. Chua Luz Rimban Inquirer
January 10, 2007
(Last of three parts)
FILIPINO peacekeepers in Haiti know the perils of their mission all too well.
On Dec. 21, four of them came under fire from suspected gang members as they were escorting an official of the United Nations Stabilization Mission through the violent neighborhood of Cite Soleil.
The four Filipinos escaped unhurt in what was already the fourth incident in as many weeks involving the 200-strong Philippine military and police contingent in the capital Port-au-Prince. The scene of the attack was the same place where Army Staff Sgt. Antonio Batomalaque was shot dead in April 2005, the first Filipino peacekeeper to die in combat.
In three separate incidents between Nov. 18 and 22, demonstrators opposing the continued UN presence in Haiti attacked UN personnel, wounding two members of the Philippine contingent.
The Philippine Mission to the UN in New York describes the latest incidents as the “worst outbreak of violence” directed against Filipino peacekeepers—or “Blue Helmets”—since the April 2005 attack that killed Batomalaque.
The security of Filipino peacekeeping contingents and military observers in Haiti and elsewhere has always figured high among the concerns of the Philippine mission. Since early last year, however, the Philippine mission has had to deal with another worry: The low morale and restiveness among many of the 329 military Blue Helmets stationed mainly in Haiti and Liberia.
For the first time since the Philippines began sending contingents abroad, Filipino peacekeepers are complaining. The object of their ire is the decision of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to slash their monthly allowance of $1,000 by as much as 40 percent.
DFA and DOJ not consulted
The AFP directive cutting troop allowances, unprecedented since the country resumed in 1991 the deployment of troops and police officers to UN peacekeeping missions, was issued without consulting the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of National Defense. It took effect in January 2006.
In a statement, the Philippine Mission to the UN said the pay cut covered only the peacekeepers from the AFP assigned to the Force Headquarters Security Units of the UN missions in Liberia and Haiti. Military officers assigned as military observers get their pay in full because the allowance they received are not coursed through the AFP. The Philippine National Police contingent—325 personnel in Liberia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Haiti, Sudan, East Timor and Ivory Coast—also gets full pay.
The Philippine mission said that when it learned of the pay cuts, “we recommended that the reductions be placed on hold and that the peacekeepers be paid in full.” But with the resignation of Avelino Cruz as defense secretary last November, the matter remains hanging. Cruz had repeatedly assured the DFA he would try somehow to help.
The peacekeepers, who signed up for the dangerous UN missions to augment their meager pay, have also appealed to President Macapagal-Arroyo through an open letter to restore their allowances to $1,000.
But the pay cuts are by no means the only issue government needs to urgently address when it comes to UN money it receives in exchange for sending troops to peacekeeping missions. A special team of government auditors found “highly questionable” certain transfers of the UN fund, projects and activities by the AFP done in the name of UN peacekeeping. The team also found signs of fraud in procurement deals, running into hundreds of millions of pesos, supposedly for the UN contingent. All these took place under the Arroyo administration.
These include charging the UN various expenses, such as fuel and helicopter repairs, that had already been charged to other AFP funds and money the government got from the United States for the RP-US Balikatan exercises, according to audit findings.
Audit team chief resigns
The special team, created by the Commission on Audit in October 2004, disbanded early this year after completing its investigation and presenting its findings to the Ombudsman for the military and top COA officials.
Shortly after, the team’s leader, Auditor Heidi Mendoza, left public service in disgust after failing to get the COA’s nod to further investigate the AFP, particularly the funds it obtains from the UN and the United States. Mendoza declined to be interviewed for this report.
The Philippines first participated in UN operations in 1951 when it deployed the Philippine Expeditionary Force to Korea. It did not join UN missions during the Marcos administration because it was focused on internal security concerns. In 1991 the country resumed contributing to UN operations, deploying the Blue Helmets to Iraq.
Second largest
As of Nov. 30, 2006, the Philippines had 672 military and police personnel deployed to seven UN peacekeeping operations worldwide. This makes it the second largest contributing country in Southeast Asia and the 27th in the world. Of the 672 peacekeepers, 329 are from the Army, Air Force, Navy and the Marines, and 325 from the Philippine National Police. The rest are military observers.
Under an agreement, the UN reimburses the AFP what it spends for personnel or troop allowances; contingent-owned equipment such as vehicles and generators; and “sustainment,” including medical equipment and storage.
UN reimbursements
From 2001 to 2004 it released to the AFP a total of P1.47 billion, according to the auditors’ report. In 2005, the military received P227.5 million in troop allowances, plus P23.6 million for equipment used in Liberia from December 2004 to September 2005, data from the Philippine mission in New York show. Reimbursements for equipment used in the Haiti mission are estimated at P28.9 million as of February 2006.
The reimbursements were deposited directly in a Land Bank of the Philippines account until 2002, when the AFP opened a savings account at the United Coconut Planters Bank’s Alfaro branch in Makati. In May 2004 it opened another UN account at the UCPB’s Salcedo branch, also in Makati.
P52-M discrepancy
The bank accounts themselves were problematic. The COA team uncovered transactions between May 20 and Aug. 17, 2004—involving P86.4 million in debit and P34.3 million in credit—“deleted” from the UCPB-Alfaro passbook the AFP had submitted for audit. The deletions, resulting in a P52-million discrepancy in the account balance, were detected when the team obtained a bank statement.
About P22 million of the “deleted” entries covered payments to 11 suppliers. Another entry purged from the Alfaro passbook pertained to P36 million moved on May 20, 2004 to the AFP’s new account at UCPB—Salcedo and ended up as payments to mostly the same suppliers.
By the auditors’ reckoning, a staggering P176.2 million transferred by the AFP to the Air Force, Navy and the Army’s 51st and 54th Engineering Brigades from 2002 to 2005 and charged to releases from UN funds went to “questionable projects and activities.” Of the amount, P94.3 million remained unliquidated at the time of the audit, with the Air Force accounting for P69 million or three-fourths of the sum.
Funds were transferred and disbursement vouchers drawn without documents that would validate the purpose for which fund transfers were being made, the auditors said. Money also went to activities totally unrelated to UN peacekeeping activities.
In a lot of instances, funds were actually used only after one year, sometimes two, following the transfers, “proving that at the time the transfer was made, there was no felt need,” the auditors concluded.
Multiple charging of expenses
The COA team came upon nine checks amounting to P84.2 million issued between January 2002 and May 2004 to the 51st Engineering Brigade, “the purposes of which were unknown at the time of transfer.” Only two other checks totaling P35 million stated the reasons: the phase and land developments of the AFP Peacekeeping Operation Center facilities.
A total of P120 million transferred to the Air Force from 2002 to 2005 for the repairs of at least six C130 helicopters at the 220th Airlift Wing particularly caught the audit team’s attention. Most of these aircraft had either been repaired or were undergoing repair under the Depot Maintenance Program funded by the Joint US Military Assistance Group (Jusmag), it reported.
Records obtained by the auditors show, for example, that the C130 with tail number “4593” was inputted into the Jusmag program in February 2004. From March to September 2004, when the Air Force supposedly spent P5.9 million of UN money to fix it, Lockheed Martin was repairing the aircraft at the hangar of its local supplier—at Jusmag’s expense.
Multiple charging of fuel expenses was also a practice. A separate audit of the Balikatan funds showed that the US had reimbursed the AFP about P9 million in fuel expenses supposedly incurred for the 2002 joint military exercises. The Philippine military, however, reported these very same expenses to the UN that same year and got reimbursed, according to audit findings.
US funds single account
The audit team questioned the AFP practice of depositing in a single bank account reimbursements from the United States and other fund transfers from government agencies such as the National Irrigation Administration and the Department of Public Works and Highways. “The multiple and material amount of funds for different purposes but kept in a single account proved to be a fertile ground for juggling and conversion of funds,” it said.
Purchases of office supplies charged to UN reimbursements also struck auditors as being as “doubtful” as those bought using other funds at the AFP’s disposal. The purchases have long been the objects of “conversion” in the military, which involves transforming allocated funds into cash, most commonly in collusion with suppliers and some of the officers involved in the procurement process in an AFP unit.
Even after the Government Procurement Reform Act or Republic Act No. 9184 came into force in 2003 and measures to reform the military procurement system were adopted, conversion and other questionable buying practices persist.
Rigged selection of suppliers
“Selection and award to suppliers (were) rigged, with participating suppliers owned by one and the same individual or group of individuals,” the auditors said. “These are the same contractors who cornered transactions from (the AFP’s) regular accounts, interest account, Balikatan and even Modernization funds,” the audit team said.
The team found many suppliers lacking a specific product line: They would peddle office supplies at one time and render catering services at another. The AFP also bought medicines from suppliers without license from the Bureau of Food and Drugs.
The auditors disclosed that splitting of purchase orders, which enables officials to keep contracts within their signing authority, and awarding of contracts to suppliers even before any canvassing was made remained rampant practices in the military.
Account of same person
Curiously, checks paid to a minimum of four to six companies sometimes ended up being deposited in only one account. For example, those issued to Alvenru Enterprises, PHU Enterprises, Cherub Equipment Rental Services, ETHC Builders, CURM Enterprises and ILAMU Sales were deposited in the same bank account by the same person, Pacita H. Umali.
In the case of the Balikatan funds, the audit team said reimbursements of at least P31 million amounted to fund conversion. A number of transactions were “fictitious,” with suppliers allowing the AFP use of their documents such as official receipts and delivery receipts for these, auditors said. Undated, antedated or postdated documents “lend to the bogus nature of these transactions,” they added.
DFA officials in Manila and New York have yet to be apprised of the audit findings, but their attention has been drawn to alleged corruption in the military by Philippine troops in Haiti and Liberia complaining about the cuts in their monthly allowance of $1,000.
AFP justification
The AFP justified the reduction, citing the need to upgrade the country’s peacekeeping capabilities by acquiring new equipment and funding the construction of the proposed training center in Capas, Tarlac. It said the uniform rates violated the principle of commensurate pay.
The AFP further said that the amount withheld from troop allowances would also help offset what it had spent to train peacekeepers. The AFP Peacekeeping Operations Center reported losses of as much as P4 million in sending a 145-member peacekeeping contingent overseas.
Under the directive approved by then Chief of Staff Gen. Generoso Senga, officers serving in UN peacekeeping missions will receive allowances equivalent to 2.5 times their base pay while enlisted personnel will be entitled to allowances equivalent to three times their base pay. This means a full colonel with a monthly base pay of P19,499 will receive P48,747.50, and a corporal with a base pay of P9,668 will get P29,004.
Carton boxes as beds
Filipino peacekeepers said, however, they are skeptical that the proceeds of the new revenue-generating scheme will go to their intended purpose.
The Philippines has been reimbursed nearly $7 million or P357.8 million from the UN since 2000 for equipment used and “sustainment” of troops posted in East Timor and Liberia. But some reports said the AFP was unable to provide spare parts for some equipment, which were described as “aging.”
Although they have night-vision capability, some of the heavy equipment deployed were Vietnam-vintage surplus trucks turned over by the United States, according to peacekeepers.
Some of those deployed to Liberia recalled what it was like when they first arrived at the post: They turned carton boxes into beddings and bought their own blankets.
The Blue Helmets also said the AFP at first issued them duffel bags originally intended for trainees, and not the extendable deployment bags suited for their mission. The deployment bags were later sent to them but these, they said, were the same supplies the Army Support Command had allegedly rejected because they were below standard.
Eat-all-you-can sardines
In January 2005, peacekeepers in Haiti nearly staged a mutiny after being made to subsist on sardines for two straight months. “It was eat-all-you-can sardines—tomato sauce, or olive oil, spicy, not too spicy,” a member of the contingent said.
Data from the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations show that troop contributing countries like the Philippines are actually paid $1,028 for every peacekeeper. Even before Senga issued his directive, the AFP had been automatically withholding $28 to offset the cost of vaccination and other deployment-related administrative expenses, leaving only $1,000 for each soldier.
Baja: Stop pay cuts
In a memorandum to Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo, Ambassador Lauro Baja, head of the Philippine Mission to the UN, sought the suspension of the pay cuts. Romulo, in turn, relayed Baja’s recommendation to then Defense Secretary Cruz through a confidential memorandum.
“Our peacekeepers have brought pride and honor to our country. The controversy generated by the recent pay cuts may create the misimpression that the Philippines is exploiting the troops it sends on peacekeeping assignments,” Baja said. “It erodes some of [the] respect and goodwill we were able to establish in the United Nations.”
