Maraming salamat Heneral Arturo Enrile, ang pinuno ng ating Katihang Pilipinas, binabati ko rin ang mga pamunuan ng Philippine Army, ng mga kinatawan ng GHQ, Department of National Defense, ating mga kasama na galing sa pribadong sektor at mga retired, mga beterano kagaya namin, kay director mirasol, mga kasama rito sa seminar workshop ng Philippine Army company grade officers dito sa Fort Bonifacio, magandang hapon po sa inyong lahat.

Alam po ninyo ako ay natutuwa at ako ay inyong inanyayahan upang sumali dito sa katapusan ng inyong workshop dito sa moran hall dito sa may premises ng philippine army training command. Dahil sa noong mga nakaraan na panahon ay dito rin ako nag-umpisa bilang isang company grade officer, bilang isang company commander kagaya ninyo.

Ngunit noong mga panahon na iyon ay wala pa kaming mga guerrilla theater na kagaya ninyo, hindi pa kami masyadong high tech wala iyong mga portable sound systems at medyo kakaunti pa ang mga units ng Philippine Army na nasa digmaan laban sa mga komunista. Kaya sa araw na ito ay medyo para tayong nagkaroon ng reunion mabuti nandidito nagko-cover sa atin ang mga Malacañang Press Corps. At sana ay naibalita ninyo sa pamamagitan ng inyong istorya bukas na mahirap nga ang buhay ng isang sundalo lalo na kung iyong sundalo na iyan ay sundalo ng NPA. At siguro naman mamaya baka magkaroon tayo ng open forum fellowship diyan sa kabila eh maikukuwento ng ating mga company commander kung papaano ang buhay sa ating sandatahang lakas lalong-lalo na sa ating Philippine Army dahil sa sila ang humaharap doon sa malalayong lugar sa mga kabundukan, sa mga liblib na pook at barangay ng ating malawak na bansa.

My dear friends and comrades-in-arms I cannot help but reminisce over my own days as one of you with the uniform of the Philippine Army.

Many people missed the fact that I spent more than one half of my military service in the Philippine Army going through the command and staff ladder as platoon leader, company commander, group commander, brigade commander and then at that point I became general and then as an army general I was loaned to the Philippine Constabulary and that was my first assignment in the PC to become a chief. Kaya medyo malalim iyong aking naranasan bilang isang Philippine Army unit commander starting as a platoon leader and then going up the ladder of command. And I fully understand the problems and the challenges that you face in the field as well as in your dealings with the highest commanders, your constituencies which includes the families of your soldiers and especially the civilian population with whom you have to deal. And I am very delighted to see that the seminar workshop are being carried out by CGPA not merely through the simple and classical method of classrooms instructions but also through such methods as the use of the guerrilla theater.

During my own time as company commander I can recall that I also had to make a presentation to the President of the Philippines there in Fort Magsaysay during the time of President Diosdado Macapagal. Ako ay company commander ng first special forces group airborne of the Philippine Army, the only one of its kind at that time and the forerunner now of the special forces units now constituted into a group with several thousand-strong in the Philippine Army.

The presentation I had to make to demonstrate the capabilities of our small company of 12 officers and 85 men special unit because of its mission. And I can share with you the fact that while I felt our then president and commander-in-chief, President Macapagal was impressed with our presentation in spite of the lack of sophisticated arms. I am now even more impressed as your commander-in-chief and president seeing this presentation here today of the 2nd infantry division.

Ito ay hindi pambobola dahil sa simple lang naman iyong aming demonstrasyon noon. Pero ito hindi lamang demonstration ng theatrical ability of the people of Gen. Lacson and Gen. Bautista of the two brigades but also the fact that this has a message that must be remembered by our young people, by our rural folk and by the impoverished and underprivileged among the great masses of our people.

And so today let me repeat that this is a great opportunity for me to be with all of you once more and to take advantage of this opportunity to bring to you the message of what our government, what the ramos administration is trying to do on all fronts. Between one soldier and another we need not define the bonds that tie us to each other for each of us understands what duty means, duty to our comrades, duty to our co-workers, duty to our people and most especially duty to the nation. These bonds can only be further strengthened now that one of you occupies the highest position in the land. While you are in command in the field you can be assured that my primary concern will be your welfare as well as the welfare of those under you, particularly the soldiers. Your well-being will be my first priority and your progressive development will always deserve my top attention as a commander of the army. And I consider company commanders as among the vital components of the state organization. You served as the vital linchpins over (distorted) of our government (distorted) and during peace and order condition that will serve as the solid (distorted) of our economic recovery and development.

You must continue to work closely with the masses because only you have the unique opportunity to project the image of a strong, stable but caring government to the Filipino in the remotest barangay. This is one of the unique roles that those who are in uniform, those in the Armed Forces of the Philippines as well as those in the Philippine National Police can play. Because while our co-workers in the civil side of government are equally dedicated, equally selfless, they do not have the capability to seek out the Filipinos in the remotest parts of our country.

This seminar workshop therefore which you have all undergone could not have come at a more opportune time as far as I am concerned. As already shown in the theater presentation most of you are aware of the extraordinary proposals that I have made during the short time that I have been your president, to heal the conflicts that have divided our people for such a long time.

This administration has initiated an amnesty package consisting of four steps. The first being offering amnesty under existing laws and policies. The second is the establishment of a national unification commission which will further define the policies, programs, rules and the regulations that will be addressed to those who are still underground or who are the leaders of the various rebel and guerrilla groups that have fought the government, from the extreme left, the CPP/NPA/NDF or the extreme right the military rebels and somewhere in between the secessionist represented by the Moro National Liberation Front and the MILF. You who are here today are among the key components of the government machinery to help bring about success of this package of peace proposals.

In addition to these proposed proclamations for amnesty as you already all know, we have also asked Congress to repeal Republic Act 1700. This must not be misconstrued by those of you who are fighting the CPP/NPA in the field. This must be understood as part of our reaching out to our misguided countrymen whose cause here in the Philippines as well as overseas even starting from where the communist ideology started has already collapsed.

And so because of our democratic and humanitarian orientation under the constitution we now offer our brothers and sisters still out in the hills, the hand of friendship with the hope that they accept it so that they can once more become productive and law abiding citizens of our republic.

I think there is no one that abhor war more than the soldier. There is no one who gets tired of fighting so much as the soldier especially when this has gone on over such a long period of time. We all have shared this experience, the challenges and the risk and the dangers of the military profession. The long periods of separation from our loved ones. And the deprivation of the normal privileges that should come to people of your status, who have trained hard, who have acquired certain progress in your respective profession which is soldiering. But more important than all of these difficulties is what is best for the nation. What is best for the people’s welfare. And so therefore this proposal to bring involuntarily so that we can start rebuilding the nation together all those that have persisted in fighting our government.

We have also started to institute basic reforms to root out the causes of armed revolutions and insurgency in our country. Foremost among these are our programs to alleviate poverty, to deliver basic services to the masses of our people, to bring about speedy justice and to overcome the other problems that have for so long slaved the Filipino in the countryside.

I have placed top most priority on our insurgency problem which hopefully would lead to a better condition of national stability and security not only because we will not be able to make any headway in our development efforts for as long as instability characterize our life but also because we have to put a stop to the armed conflict where Filipinos fight fellow Filipinos and where innocent civilians get caught in the cross fire. Among these reforms that I am pursuing as your president is to rid the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the integrated national police of misfits and scalawags within the uniform branch. How can we convince our rebel brothers of our sincerity if some officers, and even commanders and enlisted personnel continue to be involved in criminal activities. The drive to expel these undesirable elements must be unrelenting and more than that we expect a chain of command in the military organization to which all of you belong, to itself lead the cleansing process and take the lead in bringing each own offenses to the bar of justice.

In this regard I would like to recall one of the directives I issued to the armed forces as your Chief of Staff during the period from 1986 to 1987 on the subject of command responsibility. This, I also reiterated when I became your Secretary of National Defense in 1988. And those policies then are still valid today now that I am president in 1992. And what are these? First, if a military personnel is charged with the great offense, the military unit to which he belongs should in coordination with the fiscal or the state prosecutor actively help and file the case against him before the civil court, that is if his case is within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Meaning, it is not service connected. And thereafter obtain a court order committing him back to military custody while under trial to ensure his presence during court hearings. In the meantime, the firearms, the ammunition and all other government properties issued to him must immediately be recalled.

Second, the commanding officer of an erring military personnel, if indeed he err shall be held similarly accountable either for conduct unbecoming an officer or as an accessory after the fact in cases where this commander refuses to act, fails to render a timely report to his superiors, delays action to remedy the matter or otherwise aids and abets the wrong-doing of his subordinate who is the subject of a valid complaint.

Under this principle which was in effect then during my time, the immediate commander of an offending subordinate if he does not do anything to correct or to remedy the situation or fails to render a timely report to his superior or does not act to rectify the error especially if the victims are civilians, he is himself equally liable as if he were also the principal offender because of this principle of command responsibility.

And usually in our organization it is the company commander that must be very very careful, very disciplined and very vigilant because usually the personnel are within his level of immediate command. But just as these measures may seem, we cannot afford to further damage the prestige, the credibility and the effectiveness of the entire uniformed organization because of the nefarious deeds of just a handful. But hand in hand with these purging efforts vis-a-vis the scalawags and the misfits, I would like to assure you that we will continue to adopt measures to improve welfare, discipline and professionalism within our armed forces. Commanders must always be reminded to closely supervise the chain of command and use the buddy system to ensure that the whereabouts of the military personnel under them and their actuations are known and monitored. Discipline exists only where a subordinate who is left alone behaves the way that he does as if his commanding officer is around. So there is also an honor system involve here. So that the measure of good discipline is that the soldier or the officer acts in a manner as if he is being supervised by his superiors even if they are not there.

And so I would therefore ask that this be one of the lessons that you bring back with you to your units if this is not in the lessons that you learn during the seminar workshop. I would like to assure you that insofar as the welfare of those in uniform is concerned that you can depend on your president and your commander-in-chief to persist in the halls of Congress through our friends in the House of Representatives as well as in the Senate so that the maximum possible benefits allowable under our very tight budgetary situation can be delivered to our personnel in the uniform of our country.

I said this during our testimonial review at Camp Aguinaldo on the 10th of July and we have already filed the necessary bills or included the budget proposals for fiscal year 1993, those fund requirements which I committed as for the welfare of the soldiers and our officers in that testimonial review. I have full confidence in the ability, dedication and the professionalism of those who are in our armed forces today particularly those ones in command. But do not forget that we must continue with the reform movement to flush our ranks, to institute reforms as well as to ensure more professional, more responsive and more effective services to our people. This is the only way we can really ensure a better future for ourselves and for the younger generations of Filipinos that will follow after us. Now is the time to effect all of these corrective measures. The time is running short because we have wasted so much of our energies, our resources and our time over the past several decades.

Since independence in 1946 we have really progressed very little if we are now to compare ourselves with our neighbors in our part of the world. And so while there is still a little time left while the opportunity still exists, I enjoin all of you to unite, to remain solid and to work as a team with our civilian brothers and with your commander-in-chief.

Thank you, maraming salamat sa inyong lahat, mabuhay ang Filipino.