Teodoro reiterates Marcos call to transition to external defense
By Robina Asido
Newly-designated Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. reiterated the pronouncement of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to transition to external defense without sacrificing the government gains in internal defense as he returned to the Department of National Defense (DND) after more than 10 years.
"Honestly the first thing I would do in the first few weeks is to listen and to learn. I can't come in here with preconceived notions of what to do because national security is at sake," Teodoro told reporters in a press conference on his first day at the DND building in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City on Wednesday.
"I'm here to listen and to learn and then consult with the national security cluster and then we shall evolve the security policies, but definitely taking into account the president's pronouncements, number one is that national defense shall transition of course without sacrificing the gains in internal security to external defense and number two our territory is our territory and UNCLOS the basis of that cannot be changed by the passage of time nor changes in the administration," he added.
As the new defense chief, Teodoro vows to make sure that under the modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) the military will acquire best assets "at the most affordable cost".
"In the modernization, the AFP has set the horizons, what we will do is to make sure that they get the best at the most affordable cost with the most sustainability as possible," he said.
Amid the delays in the modernization program of the AFP due to the pandemic, Teodoro said the DND will "continue to lobby congress for that and for more funds."
"The experience is if you postpone an investment in national defense today, it took five times in a few years, but you are going to have to spend it anyway, so what is necessary is to find the funding mechanism," he said.
"One of the jobs of the secretary of defense to attend to the welfare of our veterans and our retirees and our current plantilla whether in the armed forces, the non uniformed personnel and the our employees to balance all those requirements and to make hard choices as to what goes, where and how much," he added.
Teodoro also mentioned that the first marching order of the president to him "is to work with our legislative partners and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to continue the work of (Senior Undersecretary Carlito) Galvez and (Finance) Sec. (Benjamin) Diokno to find a sustainable MUP... scheme."
"The initial job actually is to minimize as much as possible the hemorrhage immediately and then because a self-sustaining pension scheme needs time, we need to build up the funds and we will need to raise sources in order to find sources, in order to raise capital for the fund," he said.
As the head of the DND, Teodoro noted that he will also focus his attention in building up its capabilities.
"I would like to also add certain things that are important, we cannot continue to have a Department of National Defense without a capital outlay for our own department you know, we need to build up the capabilities of these department as part of the national defense family and I would like to state that is one my goals, to build up the capabilities of the DND proper," he said.
"As a manager, my first job is to manage the whole institution itself, I want to help to lay the foundation for a DND for our future, to develop expertise in program management, analytics, prediction, other capabilities, contracting, international relations and to build up the career track of our own employees because we must remember that this is a civilian department. We are here to support of course the largest agency is the AFP and the four other agencies under our watch. But then again in order to manage that we need to build up the managerial capability of the managing department and that is what I would like to focus my attention on," he added. DMS
