The Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Lieutenant General Jessie Dellosa, was reported to have opened a Twitter account last Friday, his first tweet reading: “This is the official twitter account of the Chief of Staff, AFP. Thank you to the first followers.”
Lt. Gen. Dellosa said that this was a manifestation of his efforts to reach out to the soldiers out in the field, and that this account would be their access to him. He further stated his intention to use social media as “an effective feedback mechanism in order to address the concerns of the ground units, and to help spread the development brought by their IPSP Bayanihan Campaign.”
This whole idea is a little bit curious for me. For one thing, I doubt that our soldiers in the filed have the luxury of time and money to spend on gadgets and equipment that will give them access to the AFP Chief’s tweets. For another, is the military not a government unit that involves itself with matters of national security, such that anything and everything that relates to matters of this sort is better discussed behind closed doors? Of course, I know that people are smart enough not to divulge national secrets through this forum. That might have been an exaggeration. I’m just really skeptical about the idea of having the highest ranking official in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (apart from the President) share his everyday thoughts on a national scale. For now though, I suppose we’ll all just have to wait and see what happens.
Joni R. Gomez, Blog Entry # 9
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