Brawner brushes off ‘disgruntled’ military talk

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) still has “trust in the system” despite emerging issues concerning the reduction in its budget, chief of staff general Romeo Brawner Jr. said Friday.

“Well, for us in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, because we want to continue to be professional, we don’t care anymore. For example, the [open] letters about our budget, because anyway the President said he is going to go over the budget,” Brawner told reporters in an ambush interview at Camp Aguinaldo.

An open letter to President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has been circulating online, asking the commander-in-chief to “seriously” look into the “questionable deviations of the approved General Appropriations Bill 2025 from the National Expenditure Program.”

The open letter was supposedly signed by a group of retired and concerned members of the AFP, the Philippine National Police (PNP), the uniformed personnel, UP Vanguard, civil society and civic organizations.

“We sincerely request, Your Excellency, that the budget be returned to the bicameral conference committee for a thorough and open assessment to ensure that allocations are consistent with the nation’s priorities and address the most pressing needs of the Filipino people,” the group stated in the letter.

The group also called on Marcos to use his veto power “to delete extraneous clauses and support the return of monies to essential sectors that were unfairly disregarded throughout the financial process.”

No loyalty check

Brawner, in response, believes that Marcos knows what he is doing.

“He (Marcos) promised, in fact he was supposed to sign the budget into law today, but he didn’t do it because he wants to review it first and if he needs to return the budget, he will do it. So we have full trust in our system,” he said.

Brawner said there was no need for the open letter to become a source of discontent for the entire military.