In the past decade or so, government auditors have consistently found indications that funds meant for civilian forces helping in the military’s anti-insurgency campaign are being misused.

Recent efforts by the armed forces leadership have not been enough to dismantle the practice, according to Army insiders interviewed by Newsbreak. The practice has become so deeply entrenched, they say, and the very nature of the Citizen’s Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU) discourages accountability among members.

Sought for comment, Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner, Army public information officer, gave assurances that “we have gone a long way in professionalizing the administration of the CAFGU,” and more reforms are being carried out.

In 1999, while examining the books of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division (4th ID), auditors of the Commission on Audit (COA) noticed that the signatures of some CAFGU members that were reflected in the division payroll were different from the signatures that appeared in their community tax certificates.

The auditors included this observation in the commission’s Annual Audit Report and suggested that it created “doubts to the existence of some CAFGU personnel.” They also noted that, for that year, P3.27 million in advances on CAFGU funds were not liquidated on time, in violation of auditing rules.

Double payments

It was not to be the last time that COA auditors would report on possible misuse of the CAFGU funds. The latest annual audit report (for 2007) on the Army again mentioned possible irregularities.

The report disclosed that CAFGU Active Auxiliary personnel (CAAs) in three divisions—5th ID, 7th ID and 9th ID—were paid some P1.95 million in subsistence allowance even after termination from service. It also found:

• CAAs without appointment orders that were included in the payroll,
• CAAs whose names appeared twice in the payroll but with different serial numbers,
• CAA appointment orders with the same serial numbers but with different names per appointment order,
• CAAs who have a different serial numbers per appointment order.

The report noted that it is “highly improbable” that the Army’s G8 would issue different serial numbers for the same person, and that this practice resulted in “double payment” amounting to P165,240.

It also noted some P2.42 million in “overpayments” to CAAs with different names but same serial numbers, and those with same names but different middle initials. “It is most likely that the persons are the very same person,” the report said.

‘Innocent’ start

Brawner told Newsbreak that P1.95 million of the unliquidated cash advances were returned to the national treasury in the early part of 2008.

The other irregularities, he said, are being addressed through the reforms being undertaken by the Army to professionalize CAFGU personnel and, consequently, the handling of CAFGU funds.

However, some officers say the problem will take a while to solve, mainly because the practice is so deeply entrenched.

In many cases, the practice started innocently enough.

Many detachments are very difficult to reach, one Army colonel explains. More often than not, CAFGU members do not receive their allowance personally, and “finance sergeants often have to sign for the CAFGU personnel.”

For a time, records at the general headquarters were not updated to remove the names of those who had either resigned or been relieved. Divisions then continued to get the subsistence allowance of these dismissed or retired CAFGU volunteers.

Unit commanders, some consulting with their division commanders, would then use the excess funds as they saw fit. The practice was tolerated because waiting for the headquarters to process requests for new funds often took a long time. The excess CAFGU funds came in handy as the unit’s slush fund. 

No way to account

The trouble was “there is no way to account for how they used it,” said the Army colonel who spoke on condition that he will not be named. 

Some commanders used it for incidental expenses. “You might need a new CAFGU detachment and have no funds for it. Or, one of the men may have gotten injured.”

There are those, however, who used the funds for personal expenses.

Those seeking to reform the CAFGU at that time traced the problem to the fact that there were no built-in checks and balances in the system. “The field battalions were the ones handling, paying, and administering their own units,” another Army colonel privy to the reform efforts said.

Because of this, the system became prone to abuse. Units either exaggerated the number or did not report those dismissed or retired so they would get the corresponding sums for the CAFGU’s subsistence allowance.

Computerization

In December 2003, attempting to address the issue of funds misuse and mismanagement of the CAFGU, then Army chief General Efren Abu issued an order that transformed 16 Army battalions into CAFGU battalions.

The CAFGU battalions took over the task of administering the CAFGU funds. The field battalions then used the CAFGU “for tactical purposes.”

But reports of fund mismanagement continued. When Lt. Gen. Romeo Tolentino became Army chief, in 2006, he launched a wide-ranging investigation into the CAFGU funds. Officers implicated in the investigation, which covered 10 infantry divisions, included at least one colonel in each division.

Tolentino sent teams from the division G3s to the field to physically monitor the CAFGU personnel. “The CAFGU were asked to go on formation, and checked one by one,” Brawner recalled.  Tolentino also sent a team from the G3 of the Army general headquarters to do the same thing.

More reforms are being implemented.

At the Army headquarters in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig, there is now a computerized database that helps the military keep tabs of CAFGU personnel. “It’s now a matter of cleaning up the database,” Brawner said. One branch of the Army’s G3 is now assigned to attend to CAFGU personnel concerns.

Commanders, too

Of the officers investigated during the time of Tolentino, three have been recommended for court martial. The rest are undergoing pre-trial investigation. In at least one case, the officers involved were exonerated.

A Newsbreak source in the military said the investigation is being limited to the lower-ranking officers. “No division commanders are being court-martialed or investigated at this point,” only colonels, he explained. And, he pointed out, “this goes up to the division commanders.”

A long-term solution to the mess, the officer says, is to include the CAFGU and other support systems in the military’s personnel management system. An entire unit, not just one branch of the G3, should be in charge of administering the CAFGU in the Army headquarters.

Having one branch of the G3, consisting of three officers and a maximum of 10 enlisted personnel, is “not enough,” an Army colonel said. Comparatively, the unit in charge of personnel management of the 80,000-strong Philippine Army consists of around 40 officers and 120 enlisted men.

The CAFGU is 60,000 strong. The support unit should at least be comparable to the number of those handling regular forces, the officer said.

Problematic role

But some say problems relating to the CAFGU are rooted in its very nature and the role it plays in the government’s fight against insurgency.

The CAFGU were created to hold areas after the military had cleared them of insurgent troops. The Philippine Army is only 80,000 strong, Brawner explained, not enough to cover the entire archipelago.

“That is why we need the CAFGU. They are the geographical forces that will be left behind in the area to protect the villages.”

The CAFGU are supposedly composed of volunteers, each receiving a subsistence allowance of P1,800 a month. Comparatively, a full time soldier receives a base pay of about P12,000 gross on top of subsistence or combat allowance.

“They are allowed 50 percent of their time with their units and another 50 percent of the time attending to their regular jobs, for instance, farming,” according to Brawner. “There is a system of rotating CAFGU personnel so they can also attend to their families and their regular jobs.”

But here the problem lies. When you give “volunteers” guns, you “empower them in the wrong way,” former defense secretary Orlando Mercado said.

Not much to lose

Because they are volunteers providing service only on a “part time” basis, the CAFGU do not receive the same kind of training that the Army gives to regular forces.

The requirements to become CAFGU members are not as stringent as those in regular troops. The CAFGU applicant simply has to be an able-bodied Filipino of legal age, who has no criminal record, and has “unquestionable loyalty to the republic.”

Screening and selection are made by local military group commander in consultation with peace and order councils in the communities. The area commander is the appointing authority.

If the CAFGU members are dishonorably discharged, they don’t have much to lose in terms of benefits, Mercado points out. Regular troops, on the other hand, can lose their retirement pay.

Disciplining “volunteers” tends to be a big problem. The trouble, according to Mercado, is that the CAFGU—as with other paramilitary forces— “tend to attract the thugs, not normally the most pleasant [characters] in the AFP.”

This was the main reason the 1987 Constitution banned paramilitary groups and called for the dismantling of the CAFGU’s precursor, the Civilian Home Defense Forces (CHDF). Organized by President Ferdinand Marcos during martial law, the CHDF was notorious for alleged human rights abuses.

Critics say the CAFGU are no more than an “escape hatch” of the CHDF as well as the re-entry vehicle for their atrocities.

Human rights issues

But legislators’ efforts to demobilize the CAFGU did not prosper as reported rebel strength increased towards the late 1990s.

The criticisms appear to have basis. In a March 2000 statement concerning the revival of the CAFGU, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) reported that about 853 cases of murder, execution, torture, disappearance, illegal arrest, and detention had been filed with the commission against 1,070 CAFGU members.

In another statement in September 2005, where it detailed human rights violations committed by the CAFGU against indigenous peoples, the commission called for “a review of the military operations, especially those conducted in the mountains and by the CAFGU.” It also stressed that “CAFGU activities must be monitored and evaluated.”

Records obtained by Newsbreak from the AFP Human Rights Office show that one CAFGU member is currently charged in court with homicide.

In Maguindanao, many clashes between rebel troops and the military reportedly originated from clan conflicts between relatives of CAFGU members and relatives of the members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Special CAFGUs

The situation is made worse by the military’s practice of creating special units out of the CAFGU.

Unlike regular CAFGU whose subsistence allowance and firearms are funded through the Army’s budget, the subsistence allowance and the budget for firearms by the special units are usually shouldered by the entities that requested to have them established, such as a local government unit (LGU) or a business entity.

The common reason cited in requests for the establishment of Special CAFGU is to protect police stations from rebel attacks or to protect businesses from revolutionary taxation.

For the army, the number one reason for the Special CAFGU companies is not really to protect the business enterprise but to prevent their getting taxed by insurgents, an Army colonel said. “It is also to deny the rebels the location.”

Some years back, Butuan City requested that Special CAFGU be organized within its premises because rebels were attacking the city’s police stations. Davao City also has its own Special CAFGU under Task Force Davao.

Aside from the regular CAA companies, CAFGU battalions reported that they are administering 49 Special CAFGU companies with some 3,200 men.

The fact that their allowances are not funded by the military, however, makes the loyalty of the Special CAFGU suspect. In some cases, the Special CAFGU have reportedly been transformed into private armies of local politicians.

In the case of Maguindanao province, for instance, a military source privy to the operations of the CAFGU told Newsbreak that there are two Special CAFGU companies that receive orders from the governor.

Each of the companies, the military source said, has at least 88 personnel. The CAFGU were originally deployed to provide security for a Philippine-Malaysian venture that was supposed to establish a tapioca and cassava plantation in Talayan town, but they were never disbanded when the project didn’t push through.

Reforms

The Army is trying to institute reforms in the way the CAFGU is managed. Prior to undertaking basic military training, applicants now take written exams and then medical and mental exams, according to Brawner. “There are standard tests that we give them which are conducted by Army psychiatrists.”

Brawner said the Army also has a pending request for more funding for regular CAFGU companies, sponsored by Sen. Rodolfo Biazon. “If we can get this funding, we can do away with the Special CAFGU.”

Meantime, to shield the CAFGU from partisan politics, the Army is subjecting the auxiliary troops to constant training. “We always tell them that even though they are being paid by other sources, it is only government that can authorize them to carry weapons or bear firearms,” a colonel said.

Temporary solution

The problem goes beyond the military, critics say.

“The CAFGU are only the temporary solution to the problem. The real way to address the insurgency problem is by providing social services in the areas,” Mercado points out. Unfortunately, in this country, “temporary sometimes become permanent,” Mercado said. 

There are areas in the country, Mercado concedes, where—due largely to government neglect—the rebels have become the government. In such areas, the CAFGU may be posted “in order to let the teachers, health workers, and other service providers come in.”

But it is development, Mercado said, that eventually brings peace to an area. “If people feel that there is livelihood to protect, they themselves will go against the rebels.”

Brawner agrees. A case in point, he said, is the province of Bohol. In the past, he explained, there were plenty of CAFGU detachments there. In addition, the Army used to have a brigade and two battalions in Bohol. “But because of the development, we only have one battalion in the area now.”

“When development, particularly tourism, entered the area, we dismantled many CAFGUs because we didn’t need them anymore.” Development, he said, has rendered the rebels forces insignificant in the province, rendering the old CAFGU companies unnecessary.

This also addresses the issue of abuses. After the services and livelihood sources have been put up, Mercado said, “[the CAFGUs] should go already because if they stay too long in an area, that is when they begin to commit abuses.”

But bringing in development requires inter-agency cooperation, Brawner points out. “You have to have the other local government agencies coming in during the third phase. You should see the Department of Health, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, public works [department] coming in to develop infrastructure, develop the social systems, health systems.”

Unfortunately, this is yet to be seen in many areas of the country. And this is why the CAFGUs stay, despite all the problems it brings.  —With research assistance by Purple Romero (Newsbreak)

This story is part of Newsbreak’s series on security sector reform funded by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung-Manila.

RELATED STORIES
• CAFGU Statistics
• Fast Facts About the CAFGU and Paramilitary Forces
• Commission on Human Right's report on CAFGU revival (pdf file)

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