Navy Whistleblowers’ Lost Cause

One whistleblower who took the lid off reports of corruption in the Philippine Navy died. The commander of the Philippine Navy himself, who had exposed corruption in the Philippine Marines, was sacked. Who says that mechanisms are in place to act on allegations of corruption in the military?

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

Last July 27, a group of young soldiers calling itself the Magdalo group staged a mutiny in Makati City. Among the reasons it gave for staging a mutiny is corruption in the military, on which Navy Lt. Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes IV, one of the mutineers’ leaders, wrote in a detailed manner in 2001 as a graduate student at the University of the Philippines.

Friday night, a group of junior officers went on television to denounce the mutiny. While acknowledging that there are indeed “problems” within the military establishment, they say there was no reason for going to the extremes of staging a mutiny since “there are mechanisms in place” for addressing these problems.

The cases of two other military whistleblowers, Ensign Philip Pestaño and Rear Adm. Guillermo Wong, may provide insights into the veracity of claims that issues of corruption in the military are being addressed reasonably.

Philip Pestaño

In 1997, Navy Ensign Pestaño was found dead after telling on another Navy man engaged in the drug trade and denouncing corrupt practices in the Navy: the use of Navy boats to smuggle fuel oil and ferry illegally cut logs.

Navy officials said it was a suicide. However, the results of a Senate investigation placed that claim in doubt.

The Senate investigation found that, based on the autopsy report, Pestaño actually sustained four wounds aside from the bullet wound in his head. He had two contusions in the right temple and a lacerated wound in the pinna of his left ear.

Homicide experts testified at the Senate investigations that in suicides through gunshots, the bullet does not bounce back to hit the deceased and cause contusions.

The trajectory of the wound itself also became an issue in the investigation. The autopsy report showed the bullet went downward, not perpendicular to his head - which is the logical trajectory of a bullet fired in a suicide.

There was also the issue of tampering of evidence. The .45 pistol that Pestaño allegedly used to shoot himself in the head was found to have no fingerprints on it. Investigators theorized these point to foul play and a cover-up.

Guillermo Wong

In one of his research papers for his MA Public Administration, Trillanes spoke highly of Rear Admiral Guillermo Wong, citing his reputation as an incorruptible man. Wong became flag officer-in-command of the Philippine Navy – Trillanes’ service unit - in 2001. He immediately went on a quest to institute reforms in the Navy, going places to clean things up.

In February 2001, the Philippine Marines demanded the relief of the admiral. He had berated the Marines for irregularities in the procurement of P3.8 million worth of Kevlar helmets.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who only less than a month before had been installed into the presidency through a people-power uprising that raged against corruption in government, among other things, ordered the case to be investigated by then Armed Forces Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes. Reyes just tossed the case to the Ombudsman instead.

Meantime, Reyes offered Wong the post of commanding officer of the then newly formed Northern Command. Realizing that he was being demoted, Wong resigned from his post and was placed on floating status.

He was replaced by Rear Admiral Victorino Hingco, whose policy, in the words of Trillanes, “was to disregard all reforms initiated by his predecessor and to maintain status quo.”

Later on, asked whether she was satisfied with the way Reyes had dealt with the leadership crisis in the
Navy, the president said Reyes had done “the right thing.”

Beyond cosmetics

Critics have observed that the military’s top leaders, when confronted with allegations of corruption in the military, are ever so quick to appease the public by saying that “there are mechanisms in place” for addressing these issues - which, interestingly, is the same line mouthed by the junior officers who “voluntarily” went on national television days ago to denounce the Magdalo group.

But observers who are aware of the experiences of Pestaño and Wong say these “mechanisms” are just cosmetic. What is needed, they say, is substantive action on these issues. Bulatlat.com

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