Lawmakers hit, defend militarization of bureaucracy

MANILA, Philippines — Leftist and opposition congressmen yesterday denounced what they described as “expanding militarization” of the bureaucracy.

They made the denunciation a day after President Duterte transferred Bureau of Customs chief Isidro Lapeña to the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and named Leonardo Guerrero as his replacement.

Lapeña is a former ranking police officer whose rank was equivalent to a general in the military. Guerrero is a retired general.

While her colleagues in the House of Representatives criticize the appointment of police and military retirees, Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said these appointees have an advantage over others.

“They are literally good soldiers,” she said.

Arroyo said the President knows what he is doing in shuffling retired police and military appointees.

“Let me just say that I’ve been president and I know more or less that the President has to consider so many things when he makes his decision, so I’m not going to be a part of the peanut gallery making comments on his actions,” she added.

Rep. Carlos Zarate of Bayan Muna said Guerrero “is the 61st military appointee of President Duterte to the civil government and strengthens the de facto military junta now in place in the country.”

“This militarization of the bureaucracy is dangerous to civil servants and the general populace because the appointees are trained to just follow orders, without question. This style of pampering the military is also prone to incompetence and waste of the people’s money because they are not suited for the jobs they are rewarded with,” he said.

Rep. Antonio Tinio of Alliance of Concerned Teachers said Duterte, by shuffling his police and military loyalists, “is engaging in theatrics rather than in actually rooting out corruption and stemming the flow of illegal drugs from abroad.”

In the face of continued smuggling of illegal drugs, Tinio said the President reassigns his appointees “while refusing to hold anyone accountable.”?“It’s becoming clear that Duterte’s vaunted war on drugs is a scam meant to protect the drug smugglers at the cost of the lives of thousands of drug users,” he said.