Quezon City – As the Department of National Defense (DND) marked its 84th Founding Anniversary in Camp Aguinaldo on Friday, November 24, Secretary Gilberto C. Teodoro, Jr. emphasized the transformation journey being undertaken by the organization to become more effective.
“This year in June, we embarked on a mission to first know where we are on the civilian side, particularly on the DND proper and the other civilian agencies,” said Secretary Teodoro.
“Slowly we are discovering the gaps that we have and we need to address from skill sets to systems to strategies, visions, and work outputs. Hopefully soon we can have these products (and) skill sets going with our partners in Congress supporting us in our journey towards providing efficient services to our stakeholders.”
With the theme, “Building a Stronger Nation, Securing a Safer Future,” the DND commemorated its anniversary and conferred awards on the civilian model employees and supervisors from the DND Proper, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Government Arsenal, Office of Civil Defense, Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, National Defense College of the Philippines, and the Veterans Memorial Medical Center.
In his speech, Secretary Teodoro shared that the DND is trying to balance the needs of being a civilian agency, which is a service provider, with the needs of national security.
“The normal civil service paradigm will not work in a national security agency,” the Defense Chief said. “So we have to develop our own, hence the transformation effort that we are spearheading with you as the main participants and actors.”
Secretary Teodoro also underscored the importance of developing a different strategy that is responsive to the needs of the times. According to him, “we have to be resilient and we have to be steadfast in our combined efforts to safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of this Republic.”
Equally important to the development of the organization is the invaluable support of the Department’s stakeholders, as Secretary Teodoro expressed his commitment to sustaining this transformation effort.
“I will take this occasion, too, to thank our supporters and stakeholders, our partners in the executive branch of the government, the legislature, the local government, our private sector stakeholders, and our citizenry who rely upon us,” he said. “We thank them for the invaluable support that they give us, and we thank also most importantly the members of our families who have been most understanding and supportive of us given the amount of time that we have left to spend with them.”
In closing, Secretary Teodoro congratulated the awardees once again and expressed his hope for the coming year as this year’s holiday season approaches.
“My family and I hope and wish that we have a blessed Christmas, thinking of those who are beset by calamities at this late in the year, in Samar, in Eastern Visayas, in Region 11 and 12, and we pray that the Lord spare us from more of these calamities,” he said. “We hope next year will be a year of prosperity, a year of change, a year where we can unite as a country committed – in our case – towards a more significant, a more robust national security posture and national defense [policy].”
