AFP gets cut from $1,000 peacekeepers’ allowance

The Armed Forces is getting a cut from the $1,000 allowance of each Filipino soldier deployed as peacekeeper abroad under the United Nations flag.

Some dependents of soldiers deployed abroad have questioned the military’s action of deducting a certain percentage from the Troop Cost Allowance.

Col. Dante Balao, AFP Peace Operations Center chief, did not say how much was being deducted from the allowance being given by the UN.

The deductions are intended to cover the cost incurred by the AFP in deploying the Filipino peacekeepers abroad, he said.

Balao told reporters yesterday the AFP stands to lose P4 million for every six-month foreign mission if it will not take a percent from soldiers’ allowances.

"The TCA is not direct compensation for the troops from the UN," he said. "It’s a compensation for the country for sending troops."

Balao said the AFP has discovered that it has lost millions of pesos in the past deployment of Filipino troops for foreign peacekeeping operations.

"We are correcting our mistake in the past," he said.

Balao said the deductions were explained to Filipino soldiers during pre-deployment briefings.

Balao said beginning last January, the AFP gave soldiers deployed as peacekeepers three times their basic pay plus their regular pay per month, pursuant to a Camp Aguinaldo circular.

Officers, on the other hand, were given 2.5 times their basic pay plus their regular monthly salary, he added.

The AFP had to shoulder additional expenses for the soldiers’ uniforms, helmets, training seminars, signal equipment, and their vaccination worth P15,000 for each person, he added.

The government spends around P65 million for a six-month mission for 165 troops, Balao said.

The UN reimburses governments who send peacekeeping troops abroad for vehicles and heavy equipment brought along with them under the Contingent Owned Equipment scheme.

The UN provides roughly P52 million in Troop Cost Allowance for the same mission, computations showed.

At present, Filipino soldiers are deployed as peacekeeping troops in Liberia, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Sudan and East Timor.

Of the six foreign assignments, there is a 165-strong Philippine military contingent each in Liberia and Haiti.

Filipino peacekeepers are also deployed in East Timor under the European Union flag.