The arrest of former senior Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official David J. Rush has exposed significant vulnerabilities in the federal government’s background check and resource-allocation procedures (Chappell, 2026). Charged with the criminal theft of public money (18 U.S.C. § 641), Rush was found to have secretly stashed 303
The nexus between national security and institutional corruption represents one of the most critical structural challenges facing the Philippines. While national security frameworks are traditionally oriented around territorial integrity and external defense, widespread corruption and domestic governance failures directly degrade the state’s capacity to respond to both external aggression