This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VI, No. 9, April 2-8, 2006
STREETWISE Many
a young officer learns soon enough the yawning gap between the ideals that he
learned in the military or police academy – courage, integrity, loyalty and
the reality of military and police establishments that have succumbed to the rot
of corruption, dishonesty, favoritism and organized criminal activity with the
generals knowingly and firmly in command. © 2006 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
To Rebel Is Justified
By
Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
BusinessWorld
Posted by Bulatlat
Now that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has declared she would deal with the
rebellious military officers and men with an iron hand, the AFP and PNP
commanders are caught in the horns of a dilemma. How to contain if not
exterminate the deadly “virus” of rebellion before it spreads uncontrollably
without having to sacrifice some of the brightest and the best among the young
and middle-level officer corps and the elite units that appear to be involved.
How to differentiate the hard core from those who were merely duped or got
carried away? How to give vent to small, manageable, legitimate grievances that
do not undermine the system? Where to draw the line?
Is the withdrawal of support from the commander-in-chief, to the point of
breaking the chain of command, an aberration in an otherwise sterling military
record? Is this is still a case of misplaced idealism taken advantage of by the
anti-GMA opposition and the communists or plain incorrigible recidivism
encouraged by lenient treatment?
The propensity of outstanding officers to mutiny is simplistically being
attributed to unprofessionalism when it is becoming more evident that the
opposite is true.
Let us recall the Oakwood mutineers and other junior and middle level officers
recently implicated many of whom have outstanding academic and service records
and/or feats of bravery that have earned them medals and citations.
Recall the late Capt. Rene Jarque, a brilliant army officer with a promising
career, who was forced out of military service because he could not keep quiet
about the rot in the military establishment and persisted in calling for
wide-ranging reforms.
All this leads one to conclude that those who take their military oath
seriously, if perhaps a bit naively, and do their jobs well and by the book,
eventually start to question and protest the military’s role, if not end up in
open mutiny or rebellion.
Why is this so? Many a young officer learns soon enough the yawning gap between
the ideals that he learned in the military or police academy courage,
integrity, loyalty and the reality of military and police establishments that
have succumbed to the rot of corruption, dishonesty, favoritism and organized
criminal activity with the generals knowingly and firmly in command.
While patronage politics has always extended to the military and police with
politicians from town mayors to governors and even legislators cultivating the
loyalties of particular police and military officials, an advantage especially
handy during elections, the Marcos dictatorship gave the generals a taste of
unprecedented power and pelf during martial rule.
Unfortunately, the overthrow of the dictatorship by a popular uprising combined
with the withdrawal of military support by the chain of command served to cover
up the sins of the past. These included the sordid human rights record of the
AFP and the then Philippine Constabulary and the involvement of military and
police officialdom in the wholesale looting of the treasury and the lucrative
criminal syndicates that were operating under their protection. No real reform
took place within the AFP and PNP.
The return of the trappings of democracy failed to rein in the overweening role
of the military and the police in the life of the nation, particularly in the
survival of ruling regimes. One government after another since Marcos has
barely been able to institute political stability, limping from one economic
crisis to the next. Until the Estrada administration that saw the exacerbation
of the country’s chronic woes that led to another people’s uprising that was
again backed up the defection of the military chain of command.
Once more the corrupt and fascist generals were given their chance to bail out
of a sinking ship and get into the bandwagon of a new regime with their loot
intact, their crimes against the people whitewashed and with new positions of
power from which to continue their nefarious ways.
So the lesson for Mrs. Arroyo and her clique is that the chain of command must
be given the right amount of incentive to maintain loyalty to her as President.
Including the right amount of rhetoric regarding professionalism and duty to the
country.
The bad precedent set by the Marcos dictatorship that loyalty to the Republic,
defense of the Constitution and protection of the people and the State means
blind loyalty, defense and protection of those in power persists.
Today it is invoked by the Arroyo administration to justify the reduction of the
military and police to being its tools for perpetrating massive electoral fraud,
going after its political enemies and in short propping up its tottering regime
in the face of its rejection by a majority of the people.
Mrs. Arroyo was recently quoted as telling the new graduates of the PNP Academy
that theirs is “not to question why; theirs is but to do or die.” A bit trite
but to the point.
Fortunately, the conformist ideas that have pervaded the military and the police
about their proper role in society, as the maintainers of the unjust status quo
and suppressers of legitimate dissent and the people’s resistance to oppression,
have been eroded over time.
The remaining idealistic, reform-minded , basically honest and upright among the
younger officer corps have begun to see through the thin veil of lies, deception
and cooptation with which the Arroyo regime wishes to fool them and keep them as
loyal praetorian guards.
They have learned that in the face of oppression to rebel is justified. No
amount of suppression can suffice to keep these men and women in uniform from
making the correct decision and the correct moves in due time. Business World
/ Posted by Bulatlat