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Analysis:
Why Coup Plots Persist

Whether true or not, coup plots are here to say. Conditions are always present for staging a coup – they have been since the Marcos years. Shadowy coup plotters always wait for the right opportunity to grab power. But they will fail.

BY BOBBY TUAZON
Bulatlat.com

The reason why coup rumors persist in the country is that they contain a grain of truth. The rumors may be the result of psy-ops or media manipulation, but such speculations cannot just be dismissed outright. So long as there are groups – either from the opposition or even from within the current administration itself – that cannot resist grabbing power such reports cannot just be ignored.

Coups have been part of the country’s political culture, with various factions of the ruling elite vying for power one period after another. The French may have coined the term but this does not mean coups were invented by the French. This political device which is used as a means of grabbing power can in fact be traced in the Philippines’ political history itself.

In the 1890s, Andres Bonifacio, who founded and led the Katipunan revolutionary group to wage a revolution against Spain, found himself at odds with the opportunist and power-hungry Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo’s faction tried to seize power from Bonifacio’s leadership and doing this meant decapitating such leadership. The general staged a coup within the revolutionary leadership by holding a court martial of sorts to legitimize the killing of the Great Plebeian.

In the nation’s contemporary republic, it is said that Carlos P. Garcia, who lost in the 1961 presidential elections to Diosdado Macapagal, tried to stop the latter from assuming power by securing Malacañang, the presidential palace, with tanks and additional soldiers. The coup try did not, of course, materialize.

Ferdinand E. Marcos, threatened on the one hand by the imminent election of a staunch oppositionist, Sen. Benigno Aquino, and on the other by a rebellious youth, staged the first ever rightist coup by installing himself as a military ruler on September 21, 1972. The coup, however, could not have been staged had Marcos known the Americans would not support it. And he was right – one day after martial law was declared, the American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines right away welcomed it, a subtle expression of support by the Nixon government.

Propped up

The Marcos dictatorship was propped up both by a strong military-police apparatus and by American economic and military aid. His rule helped institutionalize the military’s influential role in the nation’s politics.

Furthermore, the Marcos dictatorship taught both his generals and business and political cronies that a power grab is possible through a coup d’etat but that it won’t work without the tacit support of the United States.

Thus, when Marcos became isolated and the U.S. government abandoned him by pushing for a “Third Force” – a “democratic alternative” – some of his own top defense and military and police officials attempted a coup. When the coup was aborted, the plotters shielded themselves from Marcos retaliation by switching sides with the Edsa people’s uprising.

Coup attempts never gave the new president, Corazon Aquino, a breathing spell. At least six coup attempts besieged her government and each time, generals who remained loyal to the president secured concessions that even more strengthened the hold of the military over the civilian bureaucracy.

Critics said that Fidel V. Ramos tried to restore authoritarian power. This he did not only by militarizing the Cabinet and the top bureaucracy but through some kind of a constitutional coup. He almost succeeded in ramming through a constitutional change that would have extended his presidency under an authoritarian regime.

Civilian-military junta

During the climactic events of People Power 2, a group of politicians and certain generals close to Joseph Estrada hatched a coup. Part of the plan was to secure assurances from Washington of at least non-interference or at most, a sign of support. The plan called for a civilian-military junta that will install Estrada as the president with nominal powers and with the real power held by the coup plotters.

In a sense, Armed Forces chief Gen. Angelo Reyes, Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado and other top defense and military officials staged a “coup” against Estrada by showing up at Edsa 2, thus ensuring their reinstallation in the new Arroyo government.

The May 1 siege of Malacañang by Estrada loyalists allegedly financed by several opposition candidates was to have been the “people power” component of a coup supposedly staged partly by the previous coup plotters. The plan did not work out as planned when disagreements split the plotters themselves and not a single senior police or military general was won over to their side. Why not, they had just won favors from the new president.

Coups and coup rumors are here to stay. There will never be a relief from these so long as conditions are ripe for staging a coup.

The militants are right when they say that over and above the coup reports, what is more palpable is that nothing has changed anyway. They say that Mrs. Arroyo betrayed the unities of Edsa 2, that is, to address the people’s legitimate grievances, to work for a lasting peace through genuine economic and social reforms and to address the roots of the armed conflicts.

So long as these are not addressed, unrest will continue to build up. And this is the same condition that shadowy coup plotters are always waiting for in order to satisfy their own greed – a power grab.

Of course, they can try again and again. Now one of them has been punished under the law, anyway. But they will always fail. Bulatlat.com

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