EDITORIAL - Shameless

This shouldn’t even be a matter of debate. Common sense tells you that a military officer must vacate his government housing upon retirement to allow those in the active service to enjoy the privilege. But this is the Philippines, where common sense rarely prevails.

So we have the sorry spectacle of the Philippine Navy needing to serve eviction notices to its retired officers, who think government housing in military camps is a lifetime entitlement. Other retirees have actually gone to court and managed to obtain injunctions to stop the Navy from evicting them. Filipinos often talk of delicadeza, but where is the sense of propriety among military officers in this case?

Military housing facilities especially in Metro Manila are prized for their prime location. The military reservation where the Navy retirees are being evicted is a stone’s throw away from the commercial district and high-rise residential areas of Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City, and a short drive from Makati’s commercial center.

This is not the first time that retired military officers had to be given eviction notices to vacate their government housing. A few months back, a prominent retired general was also told to vacate his house at Camp Aguinaldo because it was needed for use by officers in the active service. The initial reaction of those being evicted was that they had nowhere to go. That is the typical shameless reaction of people who think they have a permanent claim to housing maintained through taxpayers’ money. And it is a typical shameless reaction of officers who see some of their most prominent retirees also refusing to vacate mansions built on military land.

The government has started implementing defense reforms. These should include a program to rationalize housing privileges so it becomes clear to every military officer that he must vacate government housing facilities immediately upon his retirement. No excuses should be allowed for hanging on to military housing. At the same time, the government must provide assistance to military personnel, through soft loans or low-cost housing programs, so that by the time they retire, they would be private home owners who need not stay one day longer in housing facilities that are needed by officers in the active service.