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In order not to influence the military’s ongoing investigation into its misassignment of alumni of the University of the Philippines (UP) as members of the communist New People’s Army (NPA), another senior officer in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP ) announced Friday that he was going on leave.
In a statement, Major General Benedict Arévalo, AFP’s (J7) deputy head of the civil military operations cabinet, did not give further details on when his official license would come into effect.
“I go out and make this statement to reiterate what I have already said many times in my past interviews and I say again that, in fact, the wrong list was a mistake made by the J7 staff,” he said.
As the head of the office for civil military operations, Arevalo said that he would personally take responsibility for his actions.
“This is the reason why I issued a public apology and reiterated it in my subsequent interviews,” said Arevalo.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana relieved Major General Alex Luna, Deputy Chief of Intelligence Staff (J2), after the controversial publication of a list of some UP alumni turned communist rebels who were killed or captured during military operations. .
Lorenzana said Luna, who was transferred to the office of General Gilbert Gapay, head of the Armed Forces, committed an “unforgivable lapse” for drawing up a “wrong list” posted by the military on Facebook.
“His negligence only shows an indifferent attitude towards his work that results in confusion and damage to reputation,” Lorenzana said, adding: “We do not take these offenses lightly. We want to hold the people involved responsible ”.
The list of alleged NPA members was posted on some FB pages run by the military. He wrongly labeled several UP alumni, who criticized the post and demanded an apology from AFP for the misinformation.
The AFP Information Exchange apologized and promised to hold accountable those behind the post, which the military has since removed.
The controversial post came after Lorenzana unilaterally rescinded the 1989 agreement between the UP and the Department of National Defense, which barred state forces from entering all UP campuses across the country.
The military has supported the decision and ran its own advocacy on social media about why the deal should be terminated by posting a list of suspected NPA rebels who graduated from the UP.
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