AFP to provide legal assistance to active officers facing plunder raps

MANILA, Philippines - The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is willing to hire the best legal minds to provide legal assistance to active officers facing plunder charges filed by former military budget officer George Rabusa.

AFP spokesman and newly installed AFP deputy chief of staff for operations (J3) Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. said that as active members of the organization, the officers are presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

“We are determined to provide them the best legal assistance, if we need to outsource this, we will outsource this,” Mabanta said in reference to the plunder raps filed by Rabusa against Maj. Emerson Angulo, Colonels Cirilo Donato, Roy Devesa, Gilbert Gapay, Robert Arevalo, Capt. Kenneth Paglinawan and Brig. Gen. Benito de Leon.

The officers who are still in the active military service were included in the plunder case filed by Rabusa before the Department of Justice (DOJ) against former AFP chiefs Diomedio Villanueva, Roy Cimatu and Efren Abu, former AFP comptrollers Carlos Garcia and Jacinto Ligot, retired Maj. Ernesto Paranis, retired Maj. Gen. Epineto Logico and military civilian auditors Generoso del Castillo and Divina Cabrera of the Commission on Audit (COA).

But Mabanta also told reporters that the AFP is conducting a parallel probe on the supposed involvement of the active officers in the highly criticized pasalubong and pabaon systems in the AFP.

Mabanta said this investigation intends to determine if Rabusa’s allegations merit administrative sanctions against the active officers who, at one time or another, had served under or had direct links with the so-called “comptroller family” in the AFP.

Pabaon are converted funds given to retiring AFP chiefs, while pasalubong are also converted funds handed out as goodwill money for incoming military chiefs.