The PH Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro apparently likes the word “privilege” and a soundbite. On September 8, Gibo said: the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) security detail assigned to Vice President Sara Duterte is “a privilege, not a right.” Crisp. Quotable. But on closer look, not quite true.
Executive Order No. 98, s. 2019 lists the VP among officials “entitled to the detail of military personnel,” aide-de-camp included. Yes, the AFP Chief of Staff evaluates, and the Defense Secretary approves the size and composition of that detail; the VP doesn’t get to hand-pick her security detail. But an institutional entitlement regulated at the margins is not the same thing as no entitlement at all.
PNP Memorandum Circular No. 2025-016 makes the point even more awkward for Gibo. It designates the President, Vice President, Senate President, House Speaker, and Chief Justice as Key Government Officials (KGOs) automatically entitled to protective security upon assumption of office. No application required. And when the circular does invoke the “privilege, not a right” language, it explicitly carves out these same KGOs from that category.
And since Gibo has put the word “privilege” into a national public discourse and circulation, it seems only fair to ask where else the word might apply and perhaps the word deserves a little more exercise…
Speaking of privilege… Whose Ship is that, Exactly???
A friend shared with me two photos worth sitting with. One shows a vessel hull marked, in plain lettering, “AEGIS INFRASTRUCTURE.” The other shows the same vessel moored beside a low-lying developed shoreline, with buildings, equipment, and stockpiled materials suggesting active construction nearby. The photos have allegedly been identified as Pag-asa (Thitu) Island, a disputed area in the South China Sea (SCS).
Coincidentally — or not — a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Certificate of Business Name Registration lists “AEGIS INFRASTRUCTURE CORP” as a business name registered to one Dennis Prieto: Gibo’s brother-in-law. Issued January 17, 2024; valid through 2029.
To be scrupulously fair, a DTI business-name certificate is not a construction license, a contractor’s accreditation, or a government contract. The certificate says so itself. So no, this alone proves nothing.
But it does raise the obvious next question, which the certificate cannot answer for us: if a vessel bearing that company’s name was sitting off Pag-asa, what was it doing there? Hauling materials? Chartered by someone else? Subcontracting? Providing logistics? Does Aegis hold a government contract at all, and if not, whose boat did it borrow?
Take note, Pag-asa is no ordinary construction site. It is one of the Philippines’ most strategically sensitive positions in the SCS. Infrastructure there intersects with national defense, sovereignty, logistics, civilian governance, and the country’s maritime dispute with China. That’s why this matter deserves clarification.
This isn’t idle curiosity. Teodoro himself publicly called in July for accelerated development of Pag-asa and directed Western Command to stand up a dedicated task force (Pag-Asa Task Force) as part of a whole-of- government push. The island is, by his own account, a priority. Which makes the identity of whoever is building on it rather more than a footnote.
Then it gets interesting. A good friend shared additional materials with me. Their authenticity unverified, a caveat that matters and that I am not waiving — purport to show a message exchange between contacts labeled “GT” and “Andrew Lee,” discussing setting up a company, developing “the island” contingent on “GT” being elected (2028, presumably), the island’s value as leverage against China, and the importance of keeping it all quiet.
A second document, captioned “Cooperation,” names “Party A: Gilberto Teodoro (GT)” and “Party B: D Prieto.” It reportedly describes campaign support from Party B and, once Party A assumes office, policy guidance and administrative backing for projects on Pag-asa — infrastructure, logistics, transportation.
If genuine, and that “if” is doing a great deal of load-bearing work, this describes an arrangement in which political backing and post-election access to a sensitive strategic asset were discussed in the same breath. That is precisely the kind of thing the public is entitled to ask about, and precisely the kind of thing that should be run down before anyone concludes anything at all.
The Actual Question
Having a relative in business is not a scandal. Cabinet officials do not forfeit their in-laws’ right to earn a living. But a business bearing a relative’s name allegedly operating at one of the country’s most strategically sensitive outposts, the very outpost Gibo portrays himself as a champion of, as a frontline of Philippine sovereignty, is not a detail the public should have to fish for out of leaked photographs. It is a detail that gets disclosed, promptly and completely, by the people positioned to disclose it. And this is where Teodoro’s own public posture makes transparency and accountability particularly important.
Furthermore, another question needs to be asked: is it now a privilege for a defense secretary’s brother-in-law to allegedly operate at a military-adjacent construction site the secretary himself is racing to develop? What exactly is Aegis’s role, if any, at Pag-asa?
Malacañang could resolve this in an afternoon by publishing whatever procurement records exist — contracts, subcontracts, charters, logistics agreements — naming Aegis Infrastructure or Dennis Prieto, if any exist at all. Absence of records would be its own answer. So would their existence.
Conclusion
Two forms of “privilege” are now on the table insofar as Gibo is concerned. Both deserve a straight answer: First, why insist the VP security is merely a “privilege” when the law Gibo himself administers says otherwise?
Second, what, precisely, is Aegis Infrastructure doing at Pag-asa, and do Gibo and his office have anything to do with it?
Questions are not verdicts. Asking whether public office and private commercial interests intersect is not necessarily an accusation. The photographs and the documents convict no one. But they make the silence considerably harder to defend than the VP security-detail soundbites and talking points ever were.
Security arrangements may be regulated. Contracts may be competitively bid. Transparency and accountability, however, should never require a “privilege” for those in power to obtain, least of all from the man tasked with defending the very ground in question.
This article is submitted by Sam.
It does not represent the opinion of our site.