Senate to probe mercenary outfitsBiazon confirms contract for training of recruits in Subic - Malaya 06/16/2006

BY DENNIS GADIL

THE Senate committee on national defense chaired by Sen. Rodolfo Biazon is poised to investigate the recruitment of former soldiers and policemen to serve as mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Biazon said he was gathering information in the meantime on the American companies which are luring "desperate" Filipinos with generous salaries of $1,700 to $5,000 a month plus insurance.

Two American companies – Blackwater USA and Triple Canopy – have been identified as engaged in recruitment and deployment.

"I want to know the impact of this on our laws like the bearing of firearms during their training," Biazon said in an interview.

Biazon said he has secured a copy of a contract between the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and Blackwater for the use of freeport grounds for the combat training of Filipino recruits.

He said the alleged contract gives premium to applicants with military and police background.

He added Blackwater has manpower contracts with the US Pentagon.

Earlier, Romy Redelicia, local representative of Blackwater, said the company has deployed a "few" Filipinos to work as security guards in the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

He said the employment contracts of the workers in Afghanistan are registered with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.

Redelicia added Blackwater has not recruited Filipinos for work in Iraq in violation of the government ban on deployment to that war-torn Middle East country.

Triple Canopy last year sent 300 workers, mostly former soldiers, to Iraq. Their jobs are unclear although some who have finished their contracts said they had come under fire and had to repulse their attackers.

Triple Canopy is represented in the Philippines by Mark Villacruzes, an American of Filipino descent.

The recruitment is apparently in line with the US’ "outsourcing" of some of the duties used to be performed by its armed forces.

Protests have been mounting in the US against the continued stay of American troops in Iraq.

"Outsourcing" is seen as an attempt to minimize American presence and to limit casualties.

"Outsourced" services include guarding of "static" sites such as camps, depots and offices, and securing supply convoys that regularly make the dash to Kuwait, the main US supply base, and back.

BLACKWATER FIRST

Biazon said he was initially focusing on Blackwater.

He said Blackwater recruits people who are skilled in intelligence work, security operations, and K-9 handling.

"I’m still securing a (copy of a) contract between the recruit and the recruiter," he said.
Biazon said the same private military company also recruited "mercenaries" in Guatemala but ran into trouble after the host government raised gun ban violations.

POEA administrator Rosalinda Baldoz earlier said her agency has not given a license to any American company for the recruitment of Filipinos for military and paramilitary work, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SBMA officials have denied Blackwater’s presence in Subic.

SBMA president Armand Arreza said Blackwater applied for a locator license in October last year but it was rejected.

Sen. Richard Gordon, former SBMA chair, said there is nothing wrong with Filipinos being recruited for work in Iraq.

Gordon did not confirm or deny that if Blackwater is operating in Subic, but said he has heard it is recruiting security guards.

"If Filipinos want to be mercenaries, it’s their right. If they want to be ‘labanderos’ in Iraq, it’s their right also," Gordon said.

"Life is hard. That’s why many of our Filipino brothers are looking for jobs abroad no matter how dangerous it is," he added.

OWN RISK

Gordon, nonetheless, said it is the duty of the government to warn Filipinos against going to Iraq.

"They must be warned that if they go there, they should not expect to be helped like Angelo de la Cruz," Gordon added. "You take the risk, but don’t take the country at risk with your decision."

The government imposed the ban on working in Iraq in 2004 to secure the release of De la Cruz who had been taken hostage by Iraqi militants.

There are an estimated 3,000 Filipinos serving in US camps in Iraq, most of whom were on-site before the ban was imposed.

They mainly serve as service personnel.

The latest recruits, however, are considered paramilitary men, which could make Filipinos direct targets of Iraqi militants opposing the US occupation.

Fears have been raised that the presence of Filipino mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan would invite terror attacks in the country.

Rep. Faysah Dumarpa (Lakas, Lanao del Sur) earlier said the deployment of Filipino mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan could generate ill will in the Islamic world, imperiling the country’s bid to secure observer status in the Organization of Islamic Conference.

Dumarpa, vice chair of the House committee on Muslim affairs, said the failure of the Arroyo administration to stop the illegal recruitment of Filipinos for service in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan "can be misconstrued as an acquiescence to the Bush government’s war policy and may seriously hurt the country’s observer status application in the OIC."

"The Arroyo administration must arrest those who have been making a mockery of the government’s ban against the deployment of workers or soldiers in these troubled Islamic countries," she said.

Dumarpa, citing news reports, said Halliburton, which provides products and services to oil and gas industries, has already lost 68 employes since the Iraqi invasion in 2003 while four armed security specialists of Blackwater were killed in an ambush in 2004.

"These published statistics may have been doctored so as not to scare off recruits. We don’t expect them to reveal the real numbers," she said.

Dumarpa said the number of casualties among mercenaries in Iraq is rising. She said Filipino mercenaries would likely become casualties if more of them were deployed.

DFA SYNDICATE

Sources said a syndicate at the Department of Foreign Affairs is aiding Filipino workers bound for Iraq to skirt the ban by not stamping their passports with the markings "Not valid for travel to Iraq."

The "clean" passports are being sold for P5,000 to P25,000, depending on the desperation of the applicant to secure a job, the sources said.

Gilbert Asuque, DFA spokesman said, they cannot rule out the possibility that one or two passports did not get stamped "Not valid for travel to Iraq" because this is done manually.

He blamed human error and gave the assurance the rare slips could not have led to a proliferation of unmarked passports.

Asuque added the Philippines has agreements with countries bordering Iraq, like Jordan and Kuwait, for the latter to bar anybody holding a Philippine passport from crossing to Iraq.
Even if the passport is not stamped "Not valid for travel to Iraq," the agreement applies, he said.

Asked why there are Filipinos still working in Iraq, he said they went there illegally. He said nobody can stop one who is determined to enter Iraq.

"It’s the new big racket (at the DFA)."

Documents obtained by Malaya showed the recruits used Dubai as a jump-off point to Iraq.

Another favored jump-off point is Jordan.

An Iraq veteran who left in March 2004 said they did not pass though the POEA, the office that regulates deployment of Filipino workers overseas.

They traveled as tourists and at every airport where they landed, they were taken care of by people they presumed were working for their recruiter, Triple Canopy.

At the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, they were delayed for about an hour while somebody took care of their papers. They first went to Bangkok by Air France, then to Amman, Jordan, then to Baghdad. They were assigned to different places.

The source said at the end of their contract in September 2004, they asked for higher pay. When this was rejected, they decided to come home.

The complainants said when they were sent home, "after giving us our plane tickets, we were left to fend for ourselves with nobody looking out for our welfare, a situation which was very different from the one which we experienced on our trip from the Philippines to Iraq."

The source, however, said he wants to go back to Iraq if the ban is lifted.