Restive RAM expresses concern over soldiers' plight

This may will be the Estrada administration's summer of discontent.

His popularity rating has taken another dive, and an influential sector of the military is restive again.

The other day, the Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabansa (RAM) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado expressing concern over the economy and the government's alleged apathy toward military personnel.

"We are voicing our concerns at this time when we strongly feel that conditions are foreboding ill for all of us," said the letter, signed by retired Commodore Domingo Calajate, chairman of RAM's executive committee.

"A shooting war is raging in the countryside amidst peace talks in the national and regional level. Demonstrations and skirmishes in the streets are increasing. All these challenges to authority occur at a time when government credibility and acceptability is low amid charges of incompetence, corruption and cronyism," the letter said.

"The military would be again made to face the brunt of defending the indefensible in conflicts which would be attended by the senseless loss of lives on all sides -- without being given adequate material and ideological wherewithal," it added.

With a weak economy and a government fast losing credibility and public confidence, RAM said the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police will have a hard time simultaneously fighting insurgency, secession, criminality and other illegal activities.

"With the much vaunted AFP and PNP modernization remaining as dreams, the military and the police will not be capable to accomplish such tasks," it said.

The RAM also expressed concerns that the government appears to address the symptoms of the social malaise with force.

"These problems cannot be won by force of arms alone," the group said. "For these, we need leaders with the vision, policies and programs which can be actualized, not those with the rhetoric and ersatz chutzpah of would-be warlords."

It warned that the "misuse" of the military in a war would be "fatal and tragic for the country if the sword gets the blame and not the hand that wields it."

Since soldiers are not that well-equipped to fight symptoms of social problems, RAM told Mercado that soldiers be initially provided with modern communication equipment and be backed by adequate funds.

It also suggested that the AFP acquire more helicopters and transport planes so that soldiers could be deployed rapidly in areas where there are conflicts.

It added: "The soldiers must be properly indoctrinated on why Filipinos are fighting Filipinos."

"They must understand the causes and objectives they are fighting and dying for," the letter read.

During the administration of former President Corazon Aquino, the government was buffeted by a series of coup attempts led by the RAM. Since then, "the military as an institution has been highly politicized and politicalized," the group said.

But soldiers were "helped in no small measure... by the narrow perspectives of many politicians who upon coming to power have treated the military as if it were only good for warding off perceived enemies of the state on one extreme, and for high impact jobs for which it has not been trained and prepared for on the other," the letter said.

It would be recalled that President Estrada authorized the use of the elite Philippine Marines in guarding and patrolling shopping malls against criminal elements.

Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Alexander Aguirre shrugged off reports that some military officers were planning a coup against the government, saying these were just rumors.

He said "there are no indications of any movement or any kind of activity of this nature."

Aguirre also assured that the military had a counter-intelligence mechanism to prevent such plots.

His statement was actually a reaction to reports that members of the Philippine Navy, supported by former military men, were plotting a coup against President Estrada.

Although he said the report was just a "rumor," Aguirre added that "we are not taking this lightly because it is our job to look for these things, whether the threat is real or not."