Posts Tagged ‘AFP Modernization’

Nacionalista Party standard-bearer Manny Villar said  that the P5 billion yearly budget for Armed Forces modernization is pitifully inadequate as he vowed to bankroll a weapons upgrade from dividends of an anti-corruption drive.

In typical business fashion, Villar describes how he will fund the program:

• The Philippines loses P250 billion to corruption a year, but he believes “if we can get 10 percent from an anticorruption drive the amount will be enough to fund the modernization program of the military.”
• “If we can curb this purported corruption in the military by at least 50 percent, we can generate savings that could be channeled to the purchase of the basic needs of the soldiers in the field like combat boots, combat rations and ammunition”
• “I am thinking of allocating 10 percent of the annual VAT revenue for a replacement program of military ships, aircraft and other hardware.” This translates to a minimum P15 billion “annual fund to replace flying and floating coffins with modern assets.”
• “we can explore barter arrangements in which Philippine-made products can be exchanged for military hardware”
• streamlining AFP expenditures will result in savings can be re-channeled for its modernization.
• “I have been told that there are ways in which we can cut multi-billion-peso annual POL (petroleum oil and lubricant) budget and send whatever is saved to the men on the field”

If elected, Villar said he would tuck in the annual budget he will send to Congress a “meaty” AFP modernization fund “that will be promptly released and properly spent.”

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