Why is the military restive? --The Daily Tribune

Why is the military restive?
By Col. (retired) Guillermo Cunanan, PMA, Class of 1966

03/08/2006
(Part 1)


Today we are facing another crossroad in our country’s history. We are looking at the prospect of experiencing a repeat of two momentous events that happened in 1986 and 2001 when we saw two of our Presidents being forced by our own people to vacate the highest seat of power. The events on the third weekend of February confirmed that there exists a restiveness among our military officers and men that is aimed at toppling the President and reforming the country’s political system.

Why we have to experience two revolutions and be confronted with the prospect of experiencing a third in a span of 20 years makes us wonder what’s wrong with our people. Why does the military which is charged with the task of maintaining peace become a major player in toppling our leaders?
Let me attempt to give some answers.

Courage, loyalty, integrity —

These are values that the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) is tasked to instill in the minds and hearts of every cadet who enters its portals.

These are values that are meant to bring upon the cadets not only a high degree of self-respect but also the highest sense of professionalism and love of country.

To perform this task, the PMA provides the cadets an honor system that requires them to live with a standard of integrity and honor higher than what any other institutions of learning provide their students.

Any cadet who commits any act that is in violation of the honor code is asked to resign and if he refuses he is ostracized by the whole cadet corps and is officially tried in a court martial. Also, any cadet who observes any violation of the honor code and does not report it to the authorities is deemed as guilty as the offender.For four solid years a cadet is taught to live a life of honor and love of country.

After graduation, when the cadets join the regular officer corps of the Armed Forces they are expected to continue to live with that high level of commitment to the same values of courage, loyalty and integrity. Soon as they are immersed in the realities of the life in the fields, however, they realize that living by the same standards of values as they were taught in the academy is not easy.

As young lieutenants, lest they be considered an oddity and branded as naively impractical, they are forced to look the other way as their superior officers violate the same rules of integrity that military officers are supposed to live by. A few who dare learn early that fighting against overwhelming odds is foolhardy. Within themselves, they ask why and do not get any answer.

This conflict between values and reality happens as they expose their lives to enormous risks while on duty in the name of patriotism. As they are introduced to the gruesome experience of confronting danger, they see their classmates and other comrades in arms dying at their side. Here, the seed of rebellion begins to take life.

As they grow older in their profession and get assigned to higher positions, they get exposed to even more serious cases of turpitude. This time they realize that they are slowly being drawn into participation.

Faced with the growing needs of their families that their meager income cannot meet, and the more convincing thought that idealism has no place in a country that is hopelessly mired in corruption and so controlled by well-entrenched vested interests, many are lured by the comfort that such participation can bring to themselves and their families. As they find participation in corruption more materially and professionally rewarding, they become part of that corrupt system.

Others, however, continue to live in a struggle between values and needs. To this group belong the officers who dance gracefully with the situation, carefully keeping their image acceptably professional while they ensure that the needs and comfort of their families are satisfied.

These are the same officers who learn and play expertly the art of compromise in a highly politicized government where the highest positions in the military organization are dispensed only by political leaders.

Some others whose roots of idealism have grown stronger, however, remain steadfast and refuse to be involved. But they could not do much except to console themselves with the promise that their time to set things right will eventually come.


(To be continued)



* * *


Why is the military restive?
By Col. (retired) Guillermo Cunanan, PMA, Class of 1966

03/10/2006
(Part 2)


Some others whose roots of idealism have grown stronger, however, remain steadfast and refuse to be involved. But they could not do much except to console themselves with the promise that their time to set things right will eventually come.

At every period in our country’s history, the ranks of the military officers in varying proportions and degree of commitments are divided among these kinds. From time to time, the country experiences periods of great conflict when the military is called upon to play a part. Each class responds to these situations according to their appreciation of the conflicting elements and the values they live by.

In our recent history, one such conflict happened in February 1986 when the country experienced for the first time a revolution that toppled a president. While a lot of our politicians would have us believe that the military was an instant participant in that event, an accurate record of history would show that the young officers, for a number of years before that revolution, have been planning to oust Marcos. Those of us who are old enough to remember may recall that in 1983, during the graduation at the Philippine Military Academy, a number of young officers while in an alumni homecoming parade dramatically brought out banners on which are written the statement “WE BELONG.” To them WE BELONG means they belong to that group of officers who steadfastly refused to be absorbed by a corrupt system in the Armed Forces. Subliminally kept is the message that they are tired of politicians using the Armed Forces to destroy the institutions of democracy they have been taught to protect. The fact is the young officers’ involvement started over four years before Edsa I. These are the same young officers who finally lit the fire that burned the structure of dictatorship that kept the country captive for 24 years.

Of course we remember that following Edsa I was a number of unsuccessful attempts to topple President Cory Aquino. In all those coup attempts, there were a number of idealistic officers and men who participated — part of those who worked to topple Marcos — but because the justification to topple a popular and untainted president was not present, all their efforts failed.

In 2001 at the height of our people’s demand for the ouster of President Estrada, the military once again intervened. The events went so quickly, however, that the young idealistic officers did not need to take part. An attempt to enlist their participation was still beginning when the top leadership in the military decided to withdraw their support for President Estrada. Coming from the presidency of President Ramos when the military had been relatively quiet, issues closer to their hearts were not heart-rending. Before the young officers could band together and decide what to do, the revolution was over.

Our observation of recent events in history has given us a few lessons.

First: That at any time in our country’s political life there are these idealistic officers who are ready to rise up in defense of our democratic institutions — in their true sense. Most of these are the younger officers whose involvement in such conflict situation between comfort and promotion to the highest positions in the military against idealism and love of the service and country has not yet been most challenging.

Second: During regular times, these officers who receive meager salaries selflessly perform their missions in the fields of battle with courage and conviction.

Third: These officers have more than an ordinary respect for democracy’s goals in society and its institutions and will always be loyal and standing ready to protect them.

Fourth: These young officers, while idealistic, realize that certain amount of irregularities in government is unavoidable and for as long as there is still reasonable hope that the country’s democratic goals can still be served, maximum tolerance has to be exercised.

At certain times in the recent past, a number of these idealistic officers took it upon themselves to unilaterally make a negative judgment on the viability of the current democratic systems and rose up in defiance of the government. They were defeated and lessons were learned. Now they realize that such exercise should take place only with the highest level of selfless discernment and unity among themselves. Decision to rise up must be based on solid and well-established grounds that the people can understand and accept. They also realize that such exercise which may put themselves in great danger and possibly put the country into turmoil may only be worth the risk if victory means much of the ills of society can be addressed and the country be placed along the right path.

From what we had recently seen the idealistic young officers have completed their discernment.

Do they have enough solid grounds to rise up? Surely, yes, they have.

We have a sitting President who cheated massively to retain her position. They know and we know.

They know because many in their ranks were utilized for the cheating. We know because signs and evidence are too numerous to be hidden. If they did not serve as legal bases for official determination of the truth, it is because the rules have been mangled and the institutions have been subverted through bribery and threat. A great majority of our people no longer deny that the rules were perverted to keep the election investigation and impeachment processes from proceeding fairly and justly.

Aside from cheating in the process of counting votes, the sitting President used tens of billions of government funds to generate votes. We saw with our own eyes the millions of “Kalsada natin, alagaan natin” signboards with the name and face of GMA displayed in the streets all over the land and the millions of street sweepers wearing T-shirts with the same marks during the election period. This campaign gimmick cost the government P8 billion. We know of the billions of funds used to provide voters healthcards with GMA’s Nora Aunor look-alike pictures, again during the time of elections.

We now are well aware of the nearly a billion pesos distributed to politicians during the election period to buy liquid fertilizers that never reached the farmers and for which they would not have any use.

Providentially, evidence of election anomalies has been revealed through the Garci tapes and virtually admitted by the President. Unfortunately, the men and women in our institutions of democracy have been so corrupted to be reliable protectors of truth.

But the problem of a fake President is only a minor part of our bigger and more socially and economically debilitating problems. They are certainly difficult problems we have to address through an overhaul of the political system if we want to avoid a social revolution.

No less then GMA in her 2004 State of the Nation Address admitted that “our political system has degenerated to the extent that it is difficult for anyone to make any headway yet keep his hands clean.”

We can only disagree with her in the sense that it is not difficult but impossible for our people to make any headway under our degenerated political system.

How can it be possible to make any headway under a system where virtually all our political leaders spend huge amounts of money to be elected? When a politician has to spend huge amounts to win an election, he necessarily has to steal an even more enormous amount from the government to recover his expenses. Even worse, those who help fund a politician’s campaign have to be compensated generously.

It is through this aberration that our political system is subverted to the point where the interest of the people is relegated to the bottom. Because of this anomaly, we have a system where governance is held under the control of the few who fund the elections of our leaders. No wonder our laws and systems of governance favor these groups whose vested interests know no morals. No wonder the resources of the country is concentrated in the hands of only 20 percent of our people while more than 50 percent live in poverty and 17 percent are actually experiencing physical hunger for lack of money.


(To be continued)



* * *


Why is the military restive?
By Col. (retired) Guillermo Cunanan, PMA, Class of 1966

03/12/2006


For some concrete demonstration of the effect on our fiscal system and the effectiveness of governance, let us look at some figures.

Every congressman, as is popularly known, has to spend no less than P50 million to win the elections. Given that there are about 240 congressmen in the country, the total amount that all the congressmen spend in every election goes to a minimum of P12 billion. On the other side of the legislative branch, each senator spends over P100 million to get elected. Thus, the twenty-four senators collectively spend over P2 billion and P400,000 in the elections. The total expenditure, therefore, of our legislators amounts to about P15 billion.

That’s only talking of the expenses of our legislators. How about the President, the governors, the mayors, the provincial board members, the municipal councilors and the barangay officials?

We may now ask, if the cost of electing our legislators and other government officials is that enormous, how much will it cost our people to pay for the election expenses of our government officials? Twice, three times, four times.

No. Not twice. Not thrice. Not four times. It is costing us everything that is important in a society: our values, our culture, our whole future.

When our political leaders steal to recover their expenses, they have to rely on the bureaucrats to steal for them. Every bureaucrat who is involved in corruption would have some for himself. As we now see reality, most of our bureaucrats are hopelessly mired in the habit of stealing.

Ngayon, ang malinis ay gago, ang mabuti ay tanga, ang natatakot sa Diyos ay mahina.

How ironic — being good is now bad!

When most of our bureaucrats are corrupted, what do you think happens to the contractors dealing with government, the taxpayers, the importers — the citizens as a whole? They all become either corrupt or tolerant.

What percentage of our society still does not accept corruption as a way of life?

As one priest I heard in his homily say, “Sa ngayon, ang taong magsoli ng perang kanyang napulot ay isang bayani, a rare exception.” It is no longer the norm to return what is not yours.

It can no longer be denied that we urgently need to reform our political system.

Mrs. Arroyo, no less, has accepted it and most of our political and business leaders are saying the same thing.

But who will institute change? Should it be our current political leaders? Should we entrust the reformation of our political system to the same individuals who destroyed it?

GMA and her congressional allies are doing their best to ensure that a new Constitution — one that would carry the rider that GMA will be President until 2010 — is passed by June. Congress, with or without the cooperation of the Senate, will ram through the passage of a new Constitution.

June is an important month and a critical deadline for the GMA allies because in July the impeachment case that was filed last year by the opposition against GMA is set to be refiled. That impeachment case will certainly spell big trouble for the GMA presidency and by all means it has to be stopped.

What can be a better way to stop it than obtaining a new mandate for GMA through a new Constitution? In GMA’s equation, a new Constitution that will legitimize her mandate to rule till 2010 will make impeachment moot and academic.

What we will have, if GMA and her minions in Congress will have their way, is a Constitution that is hastily written, rushed and rammed through for ratification by the very people who are causing most of our problems. All for GMA’s survival.

The Constitution is the heart of a country’s governance system. It is the fundamental law of the land. It is the solemn document that defines the most important and fundamental relationships within our society.

To most of our countrymen, a new Constitution can be the only means by which the social inequity and injustice that binds many of our countrymen to poverty and the abuse of our political leaders can be alleviated.

What GMA and our congressmen are doing is madness driven by unconscionable greed.
Should we wonder why our idealistic military officers and men who long for reform are restive?

To answer, let me recall these words from Albert Einstein:

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”





Courtesy of The Daily Tribune


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