Ex-army chiefs called to testify in fund scam

Five former chiefs of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), as well as current commanding general Narciso Abaya, are expected to attend a hearing today on a military fund diversion scandal that has threatened to destroy the credibility of the country's military establishment.

Expected to attend the House of Representatives national defence committee hearing are former AFP chiefs Angelo Reyes, Diomedio Villanueva, Roy Cimatu, Benjamin Defensor and Dionisio Santiago as well as Abaya.

All six officials had served with Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia who is at the moment the focus of investigations that he funnelled hundreds of millions of pesos of AFP money to an account he and his family owns.

Garcia, who is currently recovering at a hospital after developing problems with his health as a result of the ongoing controversy, had served recently as comptroller of the AFP and was in charge of overseeing fund allocations in the military bureaucracy.

According to defence committee chief representative Roilo Golez, they see no reason for the six generals, as well as Garcia, not to attend the hearing.

Late last week, the Court of Appeals issued the freeze order on the bank accounts of Garcia, his wife and three sons in six banks in the country and their investment in the Armed Forces of the Philippines Savings and Loan Association Inc. based on the request of the Philippine's Anti-Money Laundering Council.

The Court of Appeals had likewise directed the Land Transportation office to impound eight vehicles owned by the Garcia family.

Senator Edgardo Angara had earlier proposed that the government take Garcia in as a state witness to enable him to name other armed forces officers who connived with him in a scheme to convert military supplies into cash, the main source of corruption in the military units.

"In putting someone under the witness protection programme, we need his statements so that we will know the extent of what he knows and who are the other people involved," Golez said.