Soldiers as Citizens
Open letter to my friends
by Francisco Nemenzo
Professor Emeritus and former President
University of the Philippines
In countries with stable political parties that offer alternative policies and programs, responsible voters take time to study the platforms of competing parties. But in the Philippines, this is a futile exercise. Here the platforms are meaningless documents usually crafted by paid campaign strategists who try to please everyone with glittering ambiguities. They do not tell us what the candidates intend to do but only what they think we want to hear.
Let us not delude ourselves that the inclusion of a few good men will make a difference in a trapo-dominated senate. I therefore base my choice on what trends the candidates symbolize. This is how, after the elections, political analysts will interpret their victory or defeat. Do they represent the status quo, or the process of system change? Do they stand for things as they are, or things as they ought to be?
I will vote for ANTONIO TRILLANES and GREGORIO HONASAN because they represent a break from traditional politics. Both are in jail, accused of trying to oust a regime of dubious legitimacy and obvious venality.
Trillanes is a young man whose reputation is not built on the names of famous ancestors. He does not belong to a political dynasty. Neither is he a showbiz personality. Born a year before Marcos declared martial law, he was barely 15 when the dictatorship fell. Presumably inspired by the heroic role of the military rebels in the overthrow of Marcos, he entered the PMA and graduated cum laude in 1995. He later studied in UP where he obtained a master’s degree in public administration, writing his thesis while in prison.
As a navy officer Trillanes rose to the rank of Lieutenant Senior Grade (the equivalent of Captain in the army). He fought the Abu Sayyaf in Mindanao and commanded a team that rescued the survivors of M/S Princess of the Orient. But he gained national prominence as the leader of the Oakwood mutiny. For this, the Joker of Team Unity denigrates him as “the poster boy of rebellion.”
But Oakwood was more of a demonstration than a rebellion. A coup in the proper sense of the word aims at grabbing power and installing a junta. Coup plotters go for the jugular, not hold out in a five-star hotel. The Magdalo boys merely wanted to express their aversion for a wicked government and expose the corruption and incompetence of the AFP high command. After they made their point, they laid down their arms to avert bloodshed.
Capt. Trillanes sacrificed his military career to run for the senate in order to keep alive the struggle for reforms. He speaks for the men in uniform who wish to bring back honor to their profession and transform the AFP from a defender of elite rule to an agent of social change.
Those who remember my lectures or read my articles in 1986-87 might wonder why in the coming elections I am supporting two candidates with a military background. In the civil society movement I have always been identified with the anti-militarist wing. In 1986, while people were ecstatic in their adulation for Gringo, I expressed strong reservations about “politicians in uniform.” At that time I saw them as a threat to democracy.
I have since discarded the myth that EDSA 1 restored democracy. What it restored was oligarchy with a democratic fa?ade. I have also come to realize that civilian supremacy is utterly devoid of meaning where the civilian trapos are able to corrupt the generals and use the military to preserve an illegitimate, graft-ridden and repressive regime.
A closer reexamination of that period led me to see the coup attempts of 1987 and 1989 in a different light. I now understand why the RAM officers felt betrayed. They obeyed President Cory Aquino when she ordered them back to the barracks because they were assured that her government would institute reforms in the AFP. They submitted several recommendations, but these were all ignored. On military affairs, Cory listened only to Fidel Ramos and other conservative generals.
Critics argue that military men have no business telling the civilian authorities what to do. The military is supposed to be non-political. But a review of history shows that the AFP and its predecessors have always served the political function of protecting the landlords and capitalists. The military’s political neutrality is a fiction. The military is either partisan for the elite or partisan for the people.
RAM set a new trend in the armed forces. Led by Col. Honasan, they questioned the legitimacy of the Marcos regime. Had they blindly followed civilian authority, the dictatorship would have survived. This trend continues to inspire the young officers to reflect on the missions their men are asked to risk their lives. In a regime like GMA’s, I have more confidence in these thoughtful soldiers than in the star-spangled thugs atop the “chain of command” as guardians of democracy and human rights
Soldiers are citizens, too. They have more right than the IMF-World Bank advisers and the foreign investors to propose reforms in our economy and society. They have as much right as any citizen of this republic to denounce the performance of evil, to protest against repression, electoral frauds, and diversion of funds to the pockets of some generals.
A vote for Honasan and Trillanes is a vote against the trapos and the system of elite rule.
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