By Antonio C. Abaya
Was it a coup engineered by Malacanang to pave the way for Charter Change that would allow President Arroyo to remain in power beyond 2010?
Or was it an internal coup crafted by the potential rivals of Sen. Manny Villar for the presidency in 2010 who wanted to cut him down to size by removing him from the Senate presidency and thus level the playing field?
I am inclined to believe that the coup de chamber was purely an exercise in partisan politics. But it does have the unintended consequence of giving an unforeseen boost to maneuvers to change the Constitution for the benefit of President Arroyo.
In the previous attempt by then Speaker Jose de Venecia in 2006 to convene Congress into a constituent assembly in which to railroad ChaCha, the strategy was to exclude the oppositionist Senate from the deliberations, on the reading that the Senate would block any attempt at Charter Change.
This shameless maneuver was rightly condemned by public opinion and tagged JdV as a lapdog of President Arroyo. That he now leads in the efforts to impeach Mrs. Arroyo merely underlines the opportunist and unprincipled character of Filipino politicians..
With Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, a staunch ally of President Arroyo, now Senate President, the Senate ceases to be a bulwark of opposition to ChaCha and can now be expected to play along with the majority Lakas-Kampi juggernaut.
Unless Sen. Enrile, now 84 years old, rediscovers his moral roots and redefines himself in what must be considered his Last Hurrah.
With his vast experience in government service – he was at time or another, secretary of finance, secretary of justice, secretary of national defense, collector of customs – he was regarded by many as the best president we never had. Of course, contrapuntal to that was his role in Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law regime.
As he was to admit later, he faked his own ambush, which Marcos used as one of several excuses to declare martial law in 1972, and he himself became the administrator of that martial law regime.
While he was minister of defense in the early 1980s, he started plotting the downfall of Marcos with his protégés in the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) led by then Col. Gringo Honasan.
The RAM were poised to strike at Malacanang sometime in November 1985, with Honasan leading an assault force that was going to paddle down the Pasig River in rubber boats and enter the Malacanang grounds through its undefended riverside underbelly, while other RAM colonels were to lead armored units across the Nagtahan and Ayala bridges in a pincer movement that would have left Malacanang isolated from any reinforcements.
On the evening before their D-Day, Col. Honasan made a clandestine last-minute inspection of Festung Malacanang and found, to his horror, that defenses had been doubled at all their intended points of entry. Marcos and his Gen. Fabian Ver knew what the RAM were planning to do, and were waiting for them to make their move.
How? It was later revealed that the RAM boys had blabber-mouthed about their plans to their friends in the CIA, in particular to a US Air Force colonel who had been ninong or godfather to the son of one of the RAM colonels. The CIA, following the dictates of US national interests – i.e. their bases in Clark and Subic – passed the information to Marcos and Ver who thus foiled the RAMs’ coup attempt even before it got rolling.
Several lower level officers were arrested, but, surprisingly, Enrile and the RAM colonels were left alone. But when they felt the noose tightening in February 1986, they staged their mutiny in Camp Aguinaldo, together with then Philippine Constabulary chief, Gen. Fidel Ramos, and the rest, as they say, is history.
A personal note. When Sec. Enrile was conducting his mutinous press conference that Friday evening, Feb. 22, 1986, my son Hochi and I decided to drive to Camp Aguinaldo out of curiosity, taking a short cut through Fort Bonifacio.
The Bonifacio sentry would not let us through because, he said, they were on red alert. But, for some reason, he asked me my name, which I gave him. Then he asked if I was related to Brig. Gen. Antonio Abaya, chief then of the Constabulary Highway Patrol Group, and I replied that we were cousins. (We really aren’t.)
Without asking for my ID to verify my identity, the sentry saluted smartly and waved us in. What we saw in Fort Bonifacio were about a dozen military trucks loaded with Marines in full battle gear and several jeeps mounted with .50 caliber machineguns. We presumed they were going to assault Camp Aguinaldo and end Enrile’s mutiny.
We, foolishly, proceeded to Camp Aguinaldo, expecting to see some bang-bang action. From the outside, the camp looked deserted and undefended, except for a few soldiers at the Santolan gate. We drove around the camp several times, but nothing was stirring, not even a tramp. The same in the adjoining Camp Crame.
And the dozen truckloads of Marines that we had seen in Fort Bonifacio never arrived. We got bored and went home. We found out the next day that the Marines had gone instead to reinforce Festung Malacanang. There is a lesson in military tactics here: if you don’t strike while you have the upper hand, you strike out.
The plan of Enrile and the RAMs - if they had succeeded in toppling Marcos - was to hold elections after six months of a civilian-military junta headed by Enrile. As the victor over Marcos, Enrile would have been elected president hands down.
But they were upstaged by the unexpected rise of Cory Aquino, who declared herself winner in the snap elections – the Comelec declared Marcos the winner - and formed a revolutionary government in which Sec. Enrile was retained as defense secretary.
But the inexperienced Mrs. Aquino ruled with an unsure hand and was pulled and pushed in different directions. Several months into her revolutionary government, I wrote identical letters to Cardinal Sin and Secretary Enrile that Mrs. Aquino was appointing known and suspected communists and pro-communists into her government, apparently without even realizing it, since she was not aware of ideological nuances.
Cardinal Sin did not reply to my letter. Sec. Enrile did, inviting me to a meeting in Camp Aguinaldo, where I met Col. Honasan, Col. Tito Legaspi and Col. Red Kapunan.
Enrile was subsequently fired from the Cabinet in November 1986 for his alleged involvement in “God Save the Queen,” said to be a plot to overthrow Mrs. Aquino. Col. Honasan led a coup attempt against her in August 1987, and another one in December 1989, both of which failed.
There is no doubt that if either coup attempt had succeeded, Enrile would have been appointed head of junta, then elected president. But, for better or for worse, the cards were stacked against him.
Now, in the twilight of his years, he is suddenly foisted to the Senate presidency. He has protested to his peers that “I am an old man who has acquired some bad habits of sometimes being arrogant, rude, harsh with my words, insensitive and impatient .”
But all will be forgiven, Senator, if in this your Last Hurrah you resist all pressure to prostitute your Office for the greater glory of unscrupulous and insatiable politicians. *****
Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www,tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com.
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