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================= ================= ================= ================= ================= ================= ================= Restiveness Redux Angling for Support ================= ================= ================= Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook ================= |
The Problem Remains Editorial, Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 10, 2006
THE CONTROVERSIAL VIDEOTAPE BRIG. GEN. Danilo Lim made, to declare his withdrawal of support from his commander in chief, has run up against a wall of public skepticism. The problem isn’t with the tape’s contents; even Lim, the erstwhile commanding general of the First Scout Ranger Regiment, does not dispute the main facts. The problem is with the tape’s provenance; its release or discovery seems to play right into Malacañang’s hands. And the public can see through the appearances. But we should be wary of attributing too much strategic savoir-faire to President Macapagal-Arroyo or her political lieutenants; politics is not an exact science and outcomes do not always agree with intentions. Yes, the Lim tape helps Malacañang make the public (not the legal) case for its declaration of a state of national emergency last February. In other words, it’s a bold ploy in the perception game. But the tape also proves that the real problem undermining the armed services remains active, exactly like a fault line. This problem is manifest even if Lim’s own and most recent version of the tape’s provenance is taken into account. Lim, or a surrogate of his who seems to enjoy direct access to the controversial general’s innermost thoughts, has outlined the defense we will hear again and again in the coming days: Lim produced the tape, or agreed to appear on video, in order to delimit, or defuse, or defang (choose your own self-serving verb), the coming coup. “He didn’t want any more violence, but the young officers were hot,” said a self-described key participant in the crucial meeting between Lim and more junior officers. Lim’s decision to videotape his withdrawal of support, the source said, was meant to temper their hot-headedness, to channel their power-grabbing energies in a more democratic direction. “In a way, the video even did the government a favor because it helped prevent violence,” the surrogate said. In fact, the increasingly expansive surrogate continued, there was really nothing to the events last February. “In truth, there was really no coup. There was no plan to attack Malacañang, take over networks, or hit police or military camps. Lim prevailed upon the junior officers and they finally agreed to a peaceful march.” As a legal defense, this narration of events is rather creative—even if it comes down a little too hard on the junior officers. But even if it had the virtue of being true, it cannot hide the essential truth about the armed services today: Restiveness continues to roil the ranks. That is the undeniable subtext of a five-month-old videotape. Why does the restiveness continue to exist? Because the sense that the Armed Forces and the police were used to commit election fraud in 2004 continues to nag at the conscience of many soldiers and quite a number of policemen. We do not even think that most of the conscience-stricken necessarily share Lim’s videotaped conviction (apparently different from his live, not-on-video position) that Ms Arroyo is a fake President. We think many of them merely want what we want too: accountability, the subjecting of even the very highest officials of the land to a reasonable process that will determine whether there is, in fact, liability or not. Of course, there is an enormous difference between wanting accountability from a commander in chief whose mandate is in doubt and supporting a transition government which has no mandate at all. A soldier who cannot see the difference has no business serving in a democracy. This brings us back to the Lim tape. We think it actually proves two things. It gives the lie to the repeated and increasingly irritated assertions by the President’s many spokespersons that her crisis of legitimacy has been resolved, that so-called closure has been achieved. And it makes the case that some form of transparent accounting must take place, if the crisis is to end: an impeachment, a Congress-mandated inquiry, a revamp of the election commission, a mid-term election serving as a referendum. Nothing less =====================================
Where's the Crime Editorial, Daily Tribune, July 5, 2006
Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim’s videotape of his announced withdrawal of support from Gloria Arroyo has surfaced, along with the military probe body’s report, which Malacañang aides quickly claimed was proof of the Feb. 24 coup. The report and video tape were obviously leaked by the Palace and Gloria’s military generals to the select media, namely ANC and The Philippine Star. And it was obviously done for a purpose — Malacañang’s purpose. The aides justified Presidential Proclamation 1017 and blasted away at the critics who rejected Palace claims of a coup. It should be pointed out to Malacañang aides that, even assuming there was a coup, the acts stemming from PP 1017 were still unconstitutional, as it clear in the Constitution, and upheld by the Supreme Court, that the rights of a people cannot be curtailed. And what Gloria and her goons did at the time, was to curtail those freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, making her acts unconstitutional. That matter being out of the way, the question is whether the Lim videotape is proof of a coup attempt, or even if Lim had committed a crime under civilian or military rules. It can be claimed by the military brass that Lim had violated the Articles of War and the government can charge Lim and some 38 officers and men with the crime of attempting a coup d’etat. But the fact remains that in 2001, then military Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes also announced publicly, at the Edsa Shrine, that he and the entire Armed Forces of the Philippines — which should include Lim, Ariel Querubin, Generoso Senga, Hermogenes Esperon and the whole lot of them, were withdrawing support from a constitutional President and Commander-in-Chief, Joseph Estrada. Even worse, then Vice President Gloria Arroyo — as admitted by herself, and caught on video too — was plotting a coup with at least five different sets of military officers a full year before the actual power grab. Gloria, it should also be noted, had officially written the Supreme Court justices to come to Edsa and swear her in as President, claiming that she, along with civil society, Estrada’s Cabinet, the military and police, have already withdrawn their support from Estrada. It will also be recalled that the high court, in justifying its forced and unconstitutional removal of Estrada from the presidency, through that absurd “constructive resignation” doctrine, did not state that the withdrawal of military support was a crime. In fact the court legitimized that withdrawal of support as well as the 2001 power grab. It will also be recalled that when a group lodged a complaint against Angie Reyes and his military commanders, along with retired generals before the Ombudsman, this was dismissed, as Reyes et. al claimed that a coup is marked by stealth and arms, and they did neither. So just what did Danny Lim do that his superiors, then and now, did not do? So he had a video tape of his withdrawal of support from the bogus President, but he was not armed, and neither was the military group behind him. Gloria had a letter withdrawing her support and invoking the name of the entire society. Is the video then proof of a coup staged by Lim and his boys? Or, for that matter, was the Marines standoff proof of a coup attempt? Lim stated he had never asked AFP Chief of Staff Generoso Senga to withdraw his support from Gloria. But as stated earlier, a withdrawal of support can’t be considered a crime, unless of course, Angie is haled to court and made to pay for his, and Gloria’s treachery. Angie Reyes took it upon himself to invoke the name of the AFP in withdrawing support from the legitimate President. That act was completed, and yet he and his generals remain unpunished. Lim’s withdrawal of support was an unfinished action. There was no coup staged. And now he is being punished. And that is the big problem the military and Gloria have been facing and continue to face: The fact that there exists a double standard on these same issues. If it was a crime for her and her coup plotters in the military to withdraw support from Estrada, who was legitimately and democratically elected, and the command chain was seriously breached by the Reyes military that was rewarded and continues to be rewarded, why should it be deemed a crime committed by Lim and company for doing the same, and with more justification too, since it is evident that Gloria was never the legitimate President twice over? The military and the Filipino people see this double standard and the sympathy is not toward Gloria and her military brass, but with the military that said it like it is. =====================================
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