Manila, Philippines (AP). The Philippines Defense and Military Leaders rejected the call for the country’s armed forces to withdraw the support of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., responding to public resentment due to huge corruption in flood control projects, which included several congress and public works and street protest pockets.
Defense Secretary Gilbert Theodore, Junior and Military Chief of Staff General Romeo Brawner Jr.
They did not go deep, but stressed that the 160,000 members were non -partisan, professional and “followed by the Constitution through the team chain”.
The House of Representatives, the Senate and Marcos administration, investigates alleged non -standard and non -existent flood control projects in separate television research. Dozens of lawmakers, senators, construction companies and public works engineers were found to have been identified and accused of huge attacks that funded a generous way of lifestyle and major stakes casino gambling.
The corruption scandal was particularly sensitive to poverty in the affected southeastern country, prone to deadly typhoons and floods that have been devastating entire cities and villages for several years for several years.
Unlike the latest violent protests in Nepal and Indonesia, streets rallies against alleged abuse in the Philippines were smaller and relatively peaceful. Response is mainly released online, including Catholic Church leaders, business leaders and pensioners.
During the recent rally, the rapporteur invited the army to withdraw his loyalty from Marca and urged the Philippines to hold a non -violent rebellion of “human power” similar to the army -backed uprising. Published Ferdinand Marcos, the present father of the President and his name and in 2001. Joseph Stage.
“In this critical area of our national security, threatening our peace and regional stability, politically motivated attempts to distract the Philippine Armed Forces from its mission to focus not only meaningless but irresponsible,” said Theodore and Brawner, who supported anticorruption.
“The strength of our Republic depends on the rule of law and the unity of our people,” they said. “At this crucial time, we encourage every Filipino’s confidence in our democratic institutions, to respect our processes.”
Two high -ranking National Security and Defense Officials told Associated Press that the threat of separation in the military and police forces is currently not observed. They talked to the condition of anonymity because there is a lack of authority to publicly discuss the subtle issue.
The confidential assessment of government security, which AP saw, said the groups were politically opposed to Marcos to join public resentment due to flood control, but added that the high “human power” uprising was very unlikely without main groups led by troops.
“Movements of military and other uniformed services are very unlikely due to strong loyalty and patriotism … Constitution, flag and president,” the intelligence assessment states.
The Philippines have spent about $ 545 billion of pesos ($ 9.6 billion) for thousands of flooding projects over the last three years. The projects were reviewed by the Government to determine which of them are non-standard or non-existent because Marcos said he had found during the recent inspections that he conducted in some flood provinces, including the Bulacan-Tank-populated province north of Manila.
Marcos formed an independent commission that would investigate the huge anomalies that he described as “horrible” and encouraged him to arrest funds for flood control projects at least for next year and agree with the resignation of public works secretary.