General Garcia Blogging.

I am going to blog the trial of Filipino General Garcia.

For those of you have not been following my blogs about the Filipines (aside from the Marcus in Arabia Series) I have been reading closely blogs by Wretchard at the Belmont Club. Over there he has been analyzing events in Southeast Asia namely the Filipines. It is my analysis that a major part of the problems in the Filipines is rank corruption of which General Garcia is a stinking example.

I do not know a whole lot about the nitty gritty details of the case. Here is what I know General Garcia came under suspicion when it was discovered he had a suite in New York City when his salary is the equivalent of $600/month (31,800 pesos at 53 pesos/dollar). The investigators believe he stole about USA $2 million! Friends have told me many soldiers under his command went without pay and for a guy with a wife and five, six or even more children to go without pay is bad for many reasons. The first is the injustice of it, the second is because this guy's price for looking the other way at a given time during his guard duty or the price for the weapons he is guarding becomes ridiculously low. That is corruption begets corruption.

This corruption makes it hard for the Armed Forces of the Filipines to fight Abu Sayyf and the New People's Army (the Communist rebellion).