General Romeo Brawner Jr. officially assumed his position as the 60th chief-of-staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), with President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. leading the turnover ceremony in Camp Aguinaldo yesterday .
In his speech, he assured Marcos of his loyalty and commitment to the Constitution and the Filipino people.
Brawner will lead more than 150,000 soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen bows stronger territorial defense .
In his message, Marcos gave a marching order to Gen Brawner … “recalibrate our internal security operation” to deliver public services in remote and disadvantaged communities.
The commander-in-chief said his administration was firm in modernizing the AFP to strengthen external capabilities.
“I have faith that under the supervision of General Brawner, the Armed Forces will continue to ensure the security of the Filipinos and the sovereignty of our country amid the challenges ahead,” the commander in chief added
His focus areas include unification in both external and internal forces, the “normalization” of process in the Bangsamoro region, particularly in the disarmament and reintegration of former fighters of the MILF; and the internal security operations to defeat local and communist terrorist groups.
…As I take the helm of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, allow me to articulate the five areas where I wish to focus our efforts. for this focus areas I would to keep in line with the President’s call for national unity. so please allow me sir to use the acronym UNITY to better explain these focus areas. this was also used earlier by General Bartolome Bacarro when he took over as chief of staff.
U, u is for unification. internally we will focus on making sure that we have a solid and professional armed forces of the phils. all members of the afp whether they are officers, enlisted personnel or civilian human resource should follow the chain of command. externally we will help unite our communities. We will make sure that the former rebels unite once again with their families as we extend our hands in reconciliation. we will leverage interagency coordination, linkaging and alliance building in furtherance of our whole of nation approach
N, n is for normalization. we have to give special attention to the normalization process in the bangsamoro autonomous region in muslim mindanao, particularly in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former fighters of the moro islamic liberation front as stipulated in the bangsamoro organic law
I, i is for internal security operations. we shall immediately defeat the remaining local terrorist groups and the communist terrorist group to attain total victory. we have to sustain the dividends of peace by making sure that there will be no resurgency of insurgency and terrorism in our country
T, t is for territorial defense. In line with the president’s pronouncement of not giving an inch of our territory, the afp will endeavor to modernize its personnel, equipment, facilities, processes and systems so as to enable it to be a lethal and competent fighting force capable of defending our territory from external aggression. part of this modernization would be a focus on cyber warfare. I see cyber as a great equalizer and we have great potential to be a player in the cyber domain. We shall also actively pursue our international defense and security engagements to strengthen our relations with our allies and partners. We shall actively participate in the United Nations missions to enhance our country’s reputation as a peace-loving nation.
Finally Y, y is for youth. the Afp will do its share in developing our youth, the future leaders and citizens of our nation to be responsible and patriotic defenders of our national identity as a people and of our territorial integrity. one way of doing this is through the proper and relevant conduct of the ROTC’s program. This will also coincide with our efforts to develop our reserve force.
Brawner is President Marcos, Jr’s third AFP chief. He succeeded Gen. Andres Centino, who was appointed the President’s adviser on the West Philippine Sea.