New Defense chief vows to expedite AFP modernization

Fast-tracking the long delayed modernization of the Philippine military will be among the priorities of new Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin. “I would look at the modernization program. Why it is taking so much time. We will speed it up and make sure that all the equipment necessary to modernize our Armed Forces will be delivered soonest," Gazmin said on Wednesday. Gazmin, a retired Army chief, said he is going to look into the problems regarding the implementation of the 15-year-old program, which started in 1995 with the passage of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Modernization Act. The P350-billion modernization program, funded mainly through government appropriations, was divided into three stages: the procurement of equipment needed to address internal security threats, the procurement of armaments as the military transition to external defense, and the external defense proper. The first stage was to be implemented from 2004 up to this year, the second from 2010 to 2016, and the third from 2016 to 2022. “We really have to sit down with the planners of this [modernization program] and see what we can do. I guess we should go beyond the program itself and involve other sectors so that we can get the resources much needed to modernize our Armed Forces," Gazmin said. Gazmin said President Benigno “Noynoy" Aquino III, who took his oath of office Wednesday, has instructed him to “put things in order" at the department within his first 100 days in office. “We will have to sit down and assess our problems and get into the bottom of all the problems so we can find solutions to all the problems," he said. Gazmin also said he is supporting peace negotiations with communist and secessionist rebels. “First thing is to sit down and talk, thresh out the problems see what we can do, what are doable so that there will be peaceful negotiations and peaceful solutions...Everything will be based on our law and our Constitution," he said. - KBK, GMANews.TV