by LTSG ANTONIO F TRILLANES IV

EFFECTS ON NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The direct effects of corruption in the Navy on national development are staggering. It affects the economy through the systemic rape of the funds entrusted to it. These include losses from the ghost payroll, ghost repairs, ghost deliveries/conversion, pilferage of fuel, overpriced purchases, etc.

Indirectly, the effects are much, much worse. "Smugglers, poachers and pirates rob the economy of billions in lost revenue and taxes, ultimately sapping the strength of local industries and commerce and often times inflicting serious damage on the natural environment."(Tangco and Sarmenta 1998, 177)

Then "Senator Orlando Mercado, who chairs the Senate Committee on national defense and security, estimates that around 600,000.00 metric tons of fish worth an astounding P50 billion are lost annually due to poaching by foreign fishing vessels." (Tangco and Sarmenta 1998, 177)

Even more alarming is its indirect effect on national security. The government had been spending billions trying to contain Muslim secessionists and bandits on the ground. Not to mention the thousands of lives lost. When they could have been greatly diminished by a sustained naval presence. The existence of the MILF is hinged on its unimpeded supply lines from sympathetic countries that pass through sea lanes wittingly provided by the Navy primarily because of corruption.

As for the Abu Sayyaf, while it may be true that they have fast kumpits, these boats are still detectable by radar and would not last long in a hot pursuit. Besides, they are not known to go island hopping if they knew that there were Navy boats patrolling the seas that were not in their pockets.

PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE
The prospects for the future of the Navy have been defined by two recent events: The success story that happened at the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC) in 2000 and the PN leadership crisis on February 2001 which involved RAdm Guillermo G Wong AFP and the Philippine Marines.

The NETC is the training arm of the Navy. It is responsible for the conduct of basic, advanced and specialization courses for officers and enlisted personnel. Since NETC is technically a school, bulk of its purchases are for uniforms and accessories, school/office supplies and training materials. With an annual budget of P169 million (P121M for salaries and P48 M for supplies) (NETC OPB for CY - 2000), the NETC had become the object of larceny by previous Commanders, which resulted in the deterioration of the whole training system of the Navy.

On December 1999, Commodore Ruben G Domingo AFP assumed as Commander of NETC. Knowing the dark history of his unit and the tasks at hand, he immediately set into motion a reform program centered into the "cleansing" of the procurement system. And the result was astounding. In one year, the NETC, not only accomplished its mission of conducting all programmed courses, it had also accumulated P5 million worth of savings. These savings were then used to improve other training facilities and equipment. The complete eradication of corruption was achieved. He did this, first, by removing suspected scalawags from staff positions then replacing them with officers whom he perceived to be still unstained by the grime of corruption. Then, Commo Domingo simply instructed everyone to do things "by the book". Particularly, the religious implementation of canvassing and bidding procedures of procurement set forth by existing laws and guidelines. No "conversion" or "substitution" was allowed. As a safety net, he involved the Intelligence division to monitor the process and set up entrapment operations whenever necessary.

Surprisingly, Commo Domingo's reform program did not resemble the "radical redesigning" concept of Reengineering (Hammer and Champy 1993), the "entrepreneurial government" spirit espoused by the Reinventing Government concept (Osborne and Gaebler 1990) nor was it a form of "Neo-Taylorism" (Reyes 1998, 189). Its only main components were his technical competence, moral integrity and political will as a Commander. Specifically, the technical competence to formulate reforms and the moral integrity and political will to enforce them.

On December 2000, when RAdm Guillermo G Wong AFP assumed as Flag-Officer-In-Command (FOIC) of the Philippine Navy everybody in the Navy expected radical changes. RAdm Wong, who had a reputation of being incorruptible, had envisioned a totally corrupt-free Navy. Upon assumption, he went on a "crusading mode" by "going to several places trying to clean up the Navy" (Golez 2001). On February 2001, the Navy (and the AFP) was rocked by a leadership crisis when the Philippine Marines demanded the relief of the RAdm Wong (Pazzibugan 2001). The crisis was triggered by the berating of the Marines by RAdm Wong for alleged irregularities in the procurement of P3.8 million worth of Kevlar Helmets (Pablo 2001). In the events that followed, President Arroyo left the crisis to be resolved by then Chief of Staff Gen Angelo Reyes (Pablo 2001), who offered Wong the command of the newly formed Northern Command as a concession to the Marines. RAdm Wong, realizing that this was a demotion, opted to resign (Pazzibugan 2001). Later on Pres Arroyo was "asked if she was satisfied with the way Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen Angelo Reyes had handled the conflict between Wong and the Marine Corps, The President said Reyes had done the right thing." (Pablo 2001). RAdm Wong was eventually replaced by RAdm Hingco, whose policy was to disregard all reforms initiated by his predecessor and to maintain status quo.

For a President and Commander-in-Chief, whose government was supposed to be founded on such slogans as "New Politics", moral regeneration and good governance, to say that what Gen Reyes did was "the right thing" was truly demoralizing to say the least. This was the first indication of the type of leadership the AFP would expect from its Commander-in-Chief. RAdm Wong should have been fully backed by his Chief of Staff and his Commander-in-Chief as he was on the right and principled side. More importantly, he was "the" advocate of good governance and, certainly, someone who has both the moral ascendancy and political will to effect change in the Navy. Unfortunately, according to the "New Politics" philosophy of Pres. Arroyo, this is not so.

The two events narrated symbolize both hope and despair. Hope in that there is still a chance for the Navy to get out of the hole its officers and former officers had created. And despair at the thought that this chance is reliant on a politics-administration dichotomy (Wilson 1887), which was best described by Dr Danilo R Reyes in one of his lectures as a "pretender" paradigm.

CONCLUSION
The corruption problem in the Philippine Navy is grave. The direct and indirect damages to our economy, national security and peace and order in terms of costs and lives lost have been devastating. Thus, impeding our national development efforts. Even as the MILF, Abu Sayyaf, smugglers, pirates, and poachers continue to spread havoc as each day passes that they are not apprehended.

The obsolescence and shortage of operating assets of the Navy's fleet are not the reasons for its ineffectiveness but they are the results of years of malversation of funds. Ill-equipped as it is, the Navy is still very capable of ISO and MARLEN operations if only there are CO's and officers who have enough moral decency to be faithful to their mandated tasks. More so, if the people in the headquarters would properly appropriate funds then this capability would be further enhanced.

The corruption had become systemic and had eaten through the very core of the organization and had infected, practically, all levels of the bureaucracy and all areas of operations.

The future of the Navy is clouded by mixed insights. On one hand, the success of the NETC model was a ray of light amidst the darkness of moral decadence. It proved that total eradication of corruption in a major unit in the Navy is possible. The next step is magnifying this accomplishment to a higher plane, the Philippine Navy Command itself. More importantly, it showed how it could be done simply through the Commander's political will with moral integrity and technical competence as primary requisites.

However, this will only be possible if the next crusading Flag-Officer-In-Command will be fully supported by a Commander-in-Chief who possesses strong leadership qualities and who will not allow political concessions and political indebtedness to be the bases of his/her decision-making as regards AFP matters. This way the whole AFP Officer Corps will not get the impression that they are being treated as an organization of untouchables who can easily get away with anything.

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