Part One
Toward a unique martial tradition
UNKNOWN to many people, the living founders and key members of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM), the reformist group that led the historic 1986 People Power Revolution, quietly celebrated on July 23 their 35th anniversary with an appeal to President Duterte, himself a RAM and a GUARDIANS member, that he finally establishes a martial tradition in this country.
Led by Sen. Gregorio B. Honasan, they also appealed to the President in a meeting that they be granted amnesty because while the key leftists, their social democrat allies and other enemies of the States were released from prison, some were given choice positions in the government, treated as heroes and inordinately compensated by the Aquino administrations (mother and son) and the three other presidents between them; many, if not all, of the RAM members were persecuted, jailed, ousted from the service and denied their salaries, pensions and other benefits.
Curiously, the Ombudsman, an agency known to RAM as staffed with slippers from the Yellow Camp similar to the Human Rights Commission, while it let free the guilty in the multi-billion-peso Disbursement Acceleration Program, Priority Development Assistance Fund and the Malampaya Fund scams involving high officials in the previous regimes, charged Honasan, who often finds himself as a usual suspect in almost all antigovernment activities, with an antigraft case before the Sandiganbayan at almost the same time he and others were quietly celebrating the founding anniversary of the reformist organization.
Some civilian RAM members and sympathizers also suffered the same fate, including this writer who was ridiculously jailed, charged with rebellion twice, multiple-murder, kidnapping and illegal possession of firearms, ammunition and explosives while in the legitimate pursuit of his profession, as detailed by the late Manila Times publisher Adrian Cristobal in the introduction of the best-selling book, Greed & Betrayal, published by Amazon, one of the world’s largest publishing houses, in 2011.
For the RAM, its participation in the revolution has institutionalized a martial tradition for our people. Forged on the anvil at Edsa after turning over power to Mrs. Corazon C. Aquino in a silver platter, it is a covenant that is both an article of faith and a warning that never again shall the liberty, sovereignty, independence, welfare and security of the nation be compromised in the interest of would-be tyrants, corrupt and unscrupulous men.
Appearing to match faith with faith, Mrs. Aquino accepted the gift of power, took her oath of office and pledged to obey the “fundamental law of the land” (Constitution), enforce the laws and do justice to every one.
Then she said:
“Beloved brothers and sisters, it is fitting that, if the rights and liberties of our people were taken away at midnight 14 years ago, the people should recover those rights and liberties in full daylight. It took the brutal murder of Ninoy [Benigno S. Aquino Jr., her husband] to bring about a unity so strong and the phenomenon of people power. We became exiles in our own land—we Filipinos who are at home only in freedom—when Marcos destroyed the republic 14 years ago. Through the power of the people we are home again. And now I would like to appeal to everybody to work for national reconciliation, which is what Ninoy came home for. Continue to pray! Pray to the Lord to help us, especially during these difficult days.”
Acting proud and magnanimous, she announced to the nation and to the world that she would restore unity, genuine reconciliation and democratic space; that she would not file charges against Marcos; that she would not reside in the Presidential Palace (“because in these difficult times, it is not proper to live in extravagance”); and that she would be “the opposite of Marcos”.
In the historical narration and exposition of the key participants in the Edsa revolution, detailed in Greed & Betrayal, what really happened was the opposite of what Mrs. Aquino had pledged to the nation as the book relived the events that marked her regime’s corrupt and bungled presidency and how it systematically and repeatedly blamed President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, Sen. Honasan, Vice President Salvador Laurel, Speaker Ramon Mitra and others as the all-purpose scapegoats to hide its own incompetence, plunder, corruption, failures and perfidy.
And as the elitist image of the Aquino regime permeated society as a whole, its propaganda experts began to shape the political landscape as well with their self-serving political and economic contingencies, and transformed most of the unsuspecting citizens into consumers of its own brand of illiberal democracy and a pro-elite political, social and deregulated economic policies symbolized by the yellow banner, the yellow ribbon and the yellow confetti.
Like the bad experiences of revolutions in other countries, the Edsa uprising had also its own stories of credit-grabbers and a lot of m__r f__s, which were also exposed in that best-selling book and other books of the same author.
In the succeeding articles, you’ll see how the reformist officers gambled with their lives, their careers and the comfort of homes in the hope that Mrs. Aquino and the succeeding regimes would restore peace, unity and progress in this country.
To be continued
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.