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LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS
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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.
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 apparatus
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.
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;
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;
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.
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