Part Three
WHAT the December 1989 coup that almost toppled the Aquino regime, the July 27, 2003, Oakwood and the February 2007 incidents showed was the plain fact that the country had a democracy where civilian supremacy over the military was still not truly a fact, and where the ability of the military to overthrow the constitutional government was beyond question, as shown in what is now known as Edsa II or the infamous January 2001 ouster of President Joseph E. Estrada.
Commenting on that incident, former Defense Secretary and now Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile said: “Edsa II was no less and no more than a partisan struggle for political power. It was a rebellion, pure and simple. It was assisted by top generals of the military and the police to depose the freely elected incumbent president.
“The conduct of the top generals of the military was a brazen disregard of their professional duty and moral obligation of fealty, loyalty and obedience to the Constitution and to the duly constituted authority of the Republic. There was no valid excuse sufficient enough to justify or mitigate such misconduct by our military leaders.
“On the contrary, they provided a bad, contemptible, and dangerous example and precedent to their subordinate officers and men. Now, the country feels threatened. It suffers from a great anxiety because of the bad example set by the top generals in Edsa II.
“The top generals were led by the chief of staff himself. In the chain of command, the chief of staff is the highest military commander immediately below the president. He is the direct link of the president with the military and his principal adviser on military and security matters.
“As the No. 1 soldier of the Republic and the overall commander of the military organization, the chief of staff is entrusted with the singular task and responsibility to protect and preserve the presidency. It is his sacred duty to defend the seat of political power of the nation to the death, if need be, against any form of predatory force.
“However, Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes defaulted in performing his solemn duty at that crucial moment when his gallantry and honor was put to a supreme and final test.
“He failed to heed the clarion call of courage, integrity and loyalty, the three words most familiar to and ingrained in the heart and mind and soul of every graduate of the Philippine Military Academy.
“He betrayed the Constitution. He betrayed the presidency. He betrayed his commander in chief. He betrayed the 11 million people who voted to make Joseph Estrada the president of the country.
“Rather than the protector, the defender and the preserver of the Constitution that he should have been, he turned himself into its dangerous and perfidious
aggressor.
“He was the first to commit an act of infidelity to his president. He severed the chain of command at his level and pointed his bayonet at the heart of his commander in chief. He completely forgot the biblical injunction that says, ‘Thou shall not follow a multitude to do evil or pervert justice [Exodus 23:2].’”
In the end, General Reyes committed suicide.
Worse, the military organization, after that infamous incident, earned the unfair image of being a mercenarian or a power-grabbing military force. Needless to say, however, the military after that incident slowly recovered its pro-constitutional image and became again a latter-day puritan or a protector of the State and its four elements: people, territory, sovereignty and government.
Looking at the military and police organizations now where their sword is again unsheathed from its scabbard because of the current worsening political, social, economic and national-security situation, is there an assurance that they will not intervene again in the civilian life of the nation?
In fact, many of them are now looking at Thailand, a neighbor and also an original founding member of the A, where the military is running the government for the better. Like Thailand, it can be argued that the military and the police here have also the preponderant force to run the civilian government.
Mind you, the announcement of President-elect Rodrigo R. Duterte to share power with the leftists, by offering them three or four Cabinet positions without preconditions, has already triggered an upsurge of restiveness among the 28,000 officer corps of both military and police organizations that are in the brunt of fighting insurgency, separatism and criminality.
To be continued