The Philippine defense and military chiefs rejected a call from protestors for the country’s armed forces to withdraw support from Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr in response to public outrage over allegations of massive corruption in flood control projects that have implicated several congressmen and public works officials and sparked pockets of street protests.
Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro Jr and Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Romeo Brawner Jr issued a joint statement late on Friday expressing their rejection of “all attempts to patronize the Armed Forces of the Philippines by certain groups that insinuate or suggest unconstitutional, unilateral interventions.”
They did not elaborate, but underscored that the 160,000-member military was non-partisan, professional and “abides by the constitution through the chain-of-command.”
Photo: AP
The Philippines House of Representatives, Senate and Marcos’ administration have been investigating alleged substandard and non-existent flood control projects in separate televised inquiries.
Dozens of Philippine legislators, senators, construction companies and public works engineers were identified and accused of pocketing huge kickbacks that financed lavish lifestyles and high-stakes casino gambling.
The corruption scandal has been especially sensitive in the poverty-stricken Southeast Asian country, which is prone to deadly typhoons and flooding that devastate entire towns and villages multiple times each year.
Unlike recent violent protests in Nepal and Indonesia, street rallies against alleged abuses in the Philippines have been smaller and relatively peaceful. Outrage is largely vented online, including by Catholic church leaders, business executives and retired generals.
During a recent rally, a speaker called on the military to withdraw its loyalty from Marcos and called on Filipinos to stage a non-violent “people power” revolt similar to army-backed uprisings that ousted former Philippine presidents Ferdinand Marcos — the current president’s late father and namesake — and Joseph Estrada in 1986 and 2001 respectively.
Two high-ranking national security and defense officials said there was no currently monitored threat of secessionism within the military and the police forces. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to discuss the delicate issue publicly.
Drastic movements in the military and other uniformed service are very unlikely due to strong loyalty and patriotism ... to Constitution, the flag and the president,” a condidential intelligence assessment said.
The Philippines has spent an estimated 545 billion pesos (US$9.53 billion) for thousands of flood mitigation projects in the past three years. The projects were under government review to determine which ones are substandard or non-existent, as Marcos said he has found during recent inspections he led in some flood-prone provinces, including in Bulacan, a densely populated province north of Manila.
Marcos formed an independent commission to investigate the massive anomalies he described as “horrible,” prompting him to withhold funding for flood control projects at least for next year and accept the resignation of Philippine Secretary of Public Works and Highways Manuel M. Bonoan.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
RSS