Colonel who hit brass over resort gets new post

A senior Army officer who aroused controversy last year when he spoke out against the building of a military resort is back in good graces, and given command of a unit in Mindanao. Col. Ricardo Morales was relieved of command of a brigade in Compostela Valley in June 2005 after he posted comments at an Internet messaging group for Philippine Military Academy alumni that decried the project to build a resort in Boracay for the military. He has now been assigned to lead the Army’s 403rd Brigade based in Bukidnon. "He is not bad at all, he is not all bad," Philippine Army chief Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said, upon announcing Morales’ reappointment. "He is good, and I think he can do the job of a brigade commander and a higher post perhaps. If you fall, you rise, and I admire him for rising above his mistake," Esperon said. Morales had pointedly asked in an online message last year, "How can the 60-room resort in Boracay improve the (Armed Forces of the Philippines') capability to fight? Who determined this priority? We have hospitals without medicine and they spend money for this resort?" "The time has come for all good men to come to the aid of their society. The time for talking is over; the time for action is now. The next 'coup' will be peaceful and open. Enough of leaders who talk about reforms but do not understand what they are saying. Enough of this organizational stupidity," Morales also said in his e-mail. In announcing Morales' new assignment, Esperon said they had "'corrected" Morales’ "indiscretion." "I do not even need to know if he is remorseful but if you get delayed in a promotion by six months, then that's something to be remorseful about," Esperon said. Then Army chief, and now AFP chief, Gen. Genoroso Senga admonished Morales at the time he made his remarks online. "As brigade commander, it is out of bounds for you to criticize decisions made by higher headquarters in just any forum; moreso, to speak ill of the AFP leadership," Senga had said. Morales, who belongs to PMA Class 1977, was also arrested during the Martial Law years for his alleged involvement in a plot to overthrow the Marcos government.-GMANews.TV