The legal basis for promoting five senior military officers had already been argued and settled on the Senate floor when Sen. Imee Marcos put the same objection in writing, asking the Commission on Appointments to justify how it cleared the appointments under a law governing eligibility for the armed forces’ top ranks.
During the June 17 plenary session, Sen. Panfilo Lacson defended the confirmations against a challenge from Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, who argued the officers had fallen short of the service requirement in Section 1 of Republic Act No. 11939. Lacson maintained that the ad interim appointments were resubmissions of papers issued before the regular session resumed on May 25, a position he said kept the promotions within legal bounds. The commission confirmed all five.
In a letter to CA Secretary Myra Marie Villarica dated the same day, Marcos pressed the matter further. She zeroed in on the provision setting a minimum of one year of remaining active service before an officer can be appointed or promoted to brigadier general, commodore, or any higher grade, contending the five no longer met that threshold by the time the commission acted.
Her argument turns on a sequence of dates. The officers’ ad interim appointments had already lapsed when Congress adjourned on June 3, which under Section 16, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution rendered them ineffective and required fresh appointments before any confirmation could proceed. The earliest the five could have been reappointed was that same adjournment date — and by then, Marcos wrote, each had slipped below the one-year service margin the law demands.
The officers named in her letter are Lt. Gen. Edmundo G. Peralta, Vice Adm. Alan M. Javier, Maj. Gen. Isagani O. Criste, Brig. Gen. Niceforo M. Diaz Jr., and Brig. Gen. Rosemawatte A. Remo. All five were born in April or May 1970, placing them within months of compulsory retirement age when their appointments were taken up.
Marcos set out four points for the commission to address: whether it weighed the requirements and prohibitions of RA 11939 in acting on the appointments; whether any exception or legal ground was cited to get around the one-year rule; whether it has issued or plans to issue any ruling or guidance on applying the law to officers with less than a year of service left; and whether it holds records establishing that the appointees were qualified despite the statutory bar.
She acknowledged that Marcoleta had already brought these concerns before the commission, but said she considered it necessary to raise them again because of their bearing on future promotions across the AFP. Marcoleta, for his part, had asked Peralta directly for his birth date during the session before concluding the officers were bypassed at the June 3 adjournment.
Republic Act No. 11939, signed in 2023, amended an earlier measure on the fixed terms and tenure of ranking military officials and tightened the conditions under which senior officers may advance in grade as they near mandatory retirement.
