|
|
||
Home | From the Soldiers | The Struggle for Change | Withdrawal of Support | The Armed Forces | The Nation | Issues and Concerns -------------------------------------------------- From the People | Soldiers of the People | About Us | Links --------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
Kudeta: Rebellion from the Barracks ================= ================= Details of the Military Report of the Feb. 24 Plot ================= ================= The February "Coup d'Etat" and the Left's Alliance with the Militay ================= Miriam Grace A, Go, Aries Rufo, Carmela Fonbuena, Newsbreak ================= Chronicle of the July and February Days in Manila ================= Coup de Main, Coup d'Etat or Coup de Theatre ================= ================= Intrigues, Kindness, Rock Music Wear Down Madalo Detainees ================= ================= ================= ================= ================= Coup VirusThrived in Flawed Democacy =================
|
Senga's Swan Song Lito Banayo, Malaya, July 19, 2006
Senga may be busy packing his bags. Or he may be too engrossed writing his swan song, the speech he would deliver when he turns over command of all the armed forces to Hermogenes Esperon. What could be in his mind in these few final days, these few remaining hours? To be sure, chiefs of staff before him had rather uneventful episodes of leadership. After Angelo Reyes, who made his mark in military history for steering the troops to clear victory against the Muslim secessionists during the war his commander-in-chief declared in Mindanao, and made his mark in political history when he withdrew his fealty from the same commander-in-chief at Edsa Dos, successors to the most coveted post in the military are hardly remembered for anything. What does one remember of Diomedio Villanueva’s stint as chief of staff? From retirement, he was appointed postmaster-general, and what the postal service remembers him for is a 1.1 million US dollar indebtedness to the Royal Mail of Great Britain that to date remains unpaid, because an American firm deputized as a private mail carrier by the Philippine Postal Corporation has apparently run away with the funds. Succeeding him in the revolving-door stewardship of the military were Roy Cimatu, Dionisio Santiago, Benjamin Defensor, all in short shrift, each one trying to out-distinguish the other only by more days or more weeks. Again, after retirement they got cushy civilian posts–Cimatu as ambassador in charge of overseeing the evacuation of OFW’s in troubled lands, Santiago to the prisoners, Defensor, also with the debased title of ambassador, this time in charge of combating terrorists. Then there was Narciso Abaya, who in the mold of Senga, seemed to be just another quiet performer. Quiet but for the revelation that under him, as under previous chiefs of staff to whom the guy allegedly saved enough for generous "pabaon", Carlos F. Garcia who controlled the finances of the armed forces, was busy feathering his nest, silently but surely skimming feathers from the humongous forest of funds that was the budget of the military. Abaya retired and was appointed chair of the cash and property-rich Bases Conversion Development Authority, and after court-martial proceedings, Garcia was given a slap on the wrist, two years of "cleaning" AFP offices, kuno, while waiting for the Ombudsman to act on the criminal charges of plunder leveled against him. Do not hold your breath. With Merceditas Gutierrez, merciless against small fry, Garcia’s case will smolder like dying embers, just as the un-filed cases against Joc Joc, and Nani, and Abalos, big fry all. Then there was Efren Abu, whose swan song was really an AFP statement read before the nation in the wake of the electrifying mass resignation of ten top officials from "I Am Sorry" Dona. It affirmed loyalty to the Constitution and the legal processes, and of course, to the Filipino people, but not specifically to their beleaguered commander-in-chief. Still, unable to displease anyone with epaulet de quatre etoille, Abu was soon named ambassador to neighboring Indonesia. And then came Generoso Senga of Calumpang in Bayani’s Marikina. He ascended the hot seat at a time of political turbulence. Hurricane Garci had just passed, and the destruction in his commander-in-chief’s credibility and public trust swooped down to record depths. The orgy of lying and cheating and stealing that Garci’s telephone saga exposed, which was replicated several times over during the impeachment crisis and beyond, both by the Doña and her faithful acolytes, has been unprecedented in the nation’s history. And just as eight out of every ten polled Filipinos were convinced that she indeed lied, cheated and stole, so too did eight out of every ten soldiers believe that their commander-in-chief lied, cheated and stole. The disquiet borne by the "outside" political turbulence, heightened within by the promotion of officers linked by Garci’s voice to the election cheating of 2004, roiled the placid soldiery into restiveness. Surely this was not lost upon Senga’s consciousness, but he remained seemingly imperturbable. Even when the officers were investigated by Mateo Mayuga, soon to be FOIC of the Navy, after a report he filed was silenced in the dead files of both the armed forces, a conspiring defense secretary, and a conspicuously secretive commander-in-chief. And then came the evening of February 23, 2006. According to a subsequent report filed by an Ad Hoc Investigating Committee chaired by Rear Admiral Rufino Lopez, the Scout Rangers Regiment commander, Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and Marines Col. Ariel C. Querubin were accompanied by Maj. Gen. Rodrigo F. Maclang, the deputy chief of staff for intelligence, to an audience with their chief of staff, Generoso Senga, at Camp Aguinaldo, mismo. There, at about seven in the evening, Lim and Querubin told Senga that they could no longer restrain forces under their command and other sympathetic units, from breaking ranks with their "bogus" commander-in-chief. About an hour after their meeting, Senga decided to call his commanding officers to a meeting. That meeting commenced at or about 9:30 that Thursday evening. By eleven, Lim and Querubin, this time along with Marines Commandant Renato Miranda, and PNP-SAF Commander Marcelino Franco were once more invited to the top level conference. There they reiterated that they would, in the words of Miranda, "follow the will of the people". Two hours and a half after Lim and Querubin in the presence of Maclang told Senga that they would withdraw support from Doña Gloria, and asked their chief to join them so as to unite the Armed Forces against a bogus leader who cheated and stole and lies, Senga finally decided, in front of the Army’s Esperon and the Air Force’s Reyes, that he would not join them, that they should desist from their plans. Two hours and a half – of Senga’s "longest day". In between those hours, Lim and Querubin had the impression that their chief had decided to join them, in an act intended to peacefully and without bloodshed, fulfill the AFP’s role as "protector of the Filipino people". If so, the act would have been with historical precedents. Enrile the defense secretary and Ramos the vice chief of staff in 1986, Edsa Uno. Angelo Reyes the chief of staff in 2001, Edsa Dos. So certain was the impression, and both Lim and Querubin are battle-tested field commanders who would not likely accept hesitation or contemplation as a go-signal, that Lim sent a text message to his operations officer, a Major Jason Aquino, at or about ten that Thursday evening, that their chief, General Senga, had agreed to join them in withdrawing support. Apparently, Senga changed his mind at or about the end of his longest day. The rest is history. The cheat was saved in the wee hours of the morning of February 24, after Esperon’s men encircled Lim in his quarters. On 19 January 2001, Angelo Reyes went up to the Edsa shrine and announced his withdrawal of support from a commander-in-chief who never cheated, but stood accused of stealing and lying. Had he thereafter denounced any appointive office, whether retention as CSAFP or promotion thereafter to SND, he would have maintained the purity of his patriotic intentions. Patriotism after all, should be its own reward. If Generoso Senga had agreed to the plea of Lim and Querubin, he would have sided with the overwhelming majority of the Filipino people who find it most difficult to move on with their lives by countenancing a leader who steals and lies, and has indubitably cheated. That could truly have been patriotism of the highest order. Did Senga agree, and then, in the face of trepidation by his commanding generals, as the Lopez report suggests, execute an about face? In the case of Angelo Reyes, his commanding generals disagreed, but he was firm. In the end, they toed his line. In the case of Senga, his generals overruled him, or at best, convinced him otherwise. On Friday, in the headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Generoso Senga will turn over his post to Hermogenes Esperon, the general Garci "used" to perfect his "operations" in Mindanao. On hand to witness the ceremony, beaming with satisfaction obviously, will be the lying, cheating and stealing commander-in-chief of all the armed forces. How, pray tell, would General Generoso Senga cap in speech, his event-filled stint as chief of staff of a terribly fractious and demoralized corps of soldiery–as hesitant hero in the service of a "bogus" president, or as heel to those to whom he gave his "word", and infidel to the principles ingrained in him and his peers by the Academy, that "they should not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do"? =====================================
|
|
|
Home | From the Soldiers | The Struggle for Change | Withdrawal of Support | The Armed Forces | The Nation | Issues and Concerns -------------------------------------------------- From the People | Soldiers of the People | About Us | Links --------------------------------------------------
|
||
M