Is Corpus turning his ISAFP "intelligence" network into a Gestapo?

The accusations against newly-elected Senator and former Police Chief Panfilo Lacson are grave, indeed, but they will still have to be tested in a court of law.

Judging from street interviews, the masa and the lower middle class don’t seem to be impressed. Some of them think it’s just another carnival sideshow distracting the Presidency and the government from their real concern: Uplifting the people’s welfare. Others in the same C-D-E levels are scoffing that Lacson "may have" committed violent crimes, but the multimillion-dollar overseas "bank accounts" yarn appears to be a clever demolition job against Lacson who could be a political "dark horse" in 2004.

The A and B, the civil society, the intelligentsia, the NGOs, most of the media, and those who underwent imprisonment, torture, or lost loved ones to "salvage" murders during the Marcos martial law regime are in full cry for Lacson to be beheaded. They’ve long regarded him as a murderer, a torturer, a vicious criminal (add to that the latest wrinkle: drug lord, kidnap king, and, who knows, someday serial rapist, Dracula, and basher of babies). I’ll leave the beleaguered Lacson to take care of himself. He seems to be quite capable, while surrounded by foes, informers and accusers, to deliver blow for blow.

William Shakespeare through one of his characters said it well: "Murder will out…" If murder was committed, he meant to say, the truth of it will eventually come out.

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On the other hand, I’ve begun to worry – and a lot of military men along with me – about the growing power and aggressiveness of the once mild-mannered looking Col. Victor Corpus, the chief of ISAFP (Intelligence Service Armed Forces of the Philippines) whose intelligence "coup", so described, was what "exposed" those fabulous bank accounts belonging to Lacson, his wife Alice, Erap, Loi, etc.

To begin with, unless Colonel Corpus got specific "clearance" for it from his Commander-in-Chief, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, what he did in going to the media and openly publishing, and airing on radio and television, his "intelligence" findings and shocking "discoveries", constitutes a court-martial offense. In short, who’s lying? The President, before she flew off to Malaysia, tried to distance herself from the controversy, claiming she had nothing to do with it. C’mon, Madam President. Did you or didn’t you? Because if you didn’t give Corpus an official "okay" to go to the press and personally, to boot, make statements all over the media, then, as a military intelligence officer, he must be court-martialed – cashiered, drummed out of the armed forces. So, if you want to save Corpus, then publicly announce: "I told him to go ahead."

Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a former AFP Chief of Staff and Marine General, is right to question whether Col. Corpus, the ISAFP head – indeed, the top intelligence honcho in the military – should have come out into the open to personally hand out that information for publication.

It’s clearly a military offense. In sum, Corpus violated the military chain of command: First, he was supposed to ask permission from the Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Gen. Diomedio Villanueva, who, in turn, would have to secure permission from the Commander-in-Chief, the President herself. So, unless they’re ready to throw Corpus to the lions, the trail leads straight to Malacañang.

And who, while we’re in an asking mode, authorized the expenditure of P3 million to fund the expenses of sending an intelligence-police team, led by ISAF Col. Mario Chan, all over the place – from Hong Kong to Canada and the United States? That’s not petty cash, considering that many veterans can’t even get their pensions.

They already "got" Estrada, so to speak, so the intention must have been to "get" Lacson.

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My old friend Corpus cannot consider me biased or prejudiced against him since I was one of the very few columnists and journalists who rushed to his support when his appointment by President Arroyo to the sensitive and critical post of ISAFP chief was being objected to and assailed by a significant number of officers and PMA "cavaliers" who cried out that as "a former New People’s Army commander" and a "traitor who raided the Philippine Military Academy armory to seize a hoard of weapons for the NPA rebels when he was himself an Army officer and PMA instructor", Corpus was a man not to be trusted with intelligence and other militarily vital matters.

Remember? I recall a much younger Corpus, declaring himself disillusioned with the bloodthirstiness of the NPA who met with me just before he surrendered himself as a rebel commander "coming in from the cold" to the government forces. They even made a heroic movie about him afterwards (was it Rudy Fernandez who portrayed him?). I praised the book he subsequently wrote about "low intensity conflict" and anti-guerrilla tactics.

He will also recall, along with former Senate President Jovito Salonga (who mentioned the matter in his recent, fascinating book) that I rang up Jovy immediately following my meeting with Corpus to relay what Corpus had told me; i.e., that it had been Communist Party chief Joma Sison, and nobody else, who had ordered the terrible 1970 grenade attack known as the "Plaza Miranda Massacre." I believed Salonga should be the first to know since he had been one of the worst injured, in fact arriving in the hospital almost "clinically dead" with his hands mangled and 100 grievous shrapnel wounds in his body.

What I’m trying to say is that this writer has known and admired Corpus for many years despite his having been called a turncoat and renegade. I’ve always in the past ascribed his decisions, even the most radical ones, to idealism.

Now, I’m not quite so sure. The attack on Lacson may be the most visible act, but my grapevine in the Armed Forces conveys to me that Colonel Corpus has been summoning officers to his presence like the dreaded Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler did during Hitler’s time as head of the Gestapo and creator of the most-feared elite and merciless ground units, the SS or Schutzstaffel.

Himmler made himself, from humble beginnings as a chicken farmer, the second most powerful man in the Nazi Third Reich as master of the national police, the secret police, director of the concentration camps, death camps and labor camps (the "final solution" extermination machine). The Waffen SS, at the height of Himmler’s power, consisted of 27 armed divisions separate and "superior in clout" to the Wehrmacht or army. Himmler’s SS and Gestapo had even Field Marshals and Generals shaking in their boots.

In his volume, Art, Propaganda and Terror in the Third Reich, Robert S. Wistrich (Pavilion Books, 1996, London) describing him said he was "a small, different man of pedantic demeanor and quiet, unemotional gestures." He added that "Himmler looked more like a humble bank clerk than the police dictator of Germany." And yet he was the man who organized the scientific extermination of six million Jews and millions of others such as Slavs and Gypsies, from Poland, Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.

Whoa, there! I’m not saying that Corpus, having tasted the power of being ISAFP chief, is becoming another Himmler, but this is a good time for President GMA, who appointed him and whose "confidence" he apparently enjoys, to take a closer look at what Col. Corpus has been doing.

Insiders tell me that Corpus has been "calling" even superior officers into his headquarters, in the manner of a Japanese daimyo, to scold them or demand they explain themselves and refute derogatory "information" he allegedly acquired. On one occasion, Corpus required a general to stand stiffly at attention in front of him to "justify" himself and explain his innocence.

It’s well known that as soon as he assumed ISAFP command, Corpus began compiling "dossiers" on almost everybody in the military (and perhaps some civilians). You can imagine what power and influence this gives him, since "evidence" can be inserted in anybody’s dossier or file. (And show me an officer who hasn’t tucked away, some indiscretion, at the very least acts of masturbation).

The ISAFP’s inspectors general have been very busy peeking into everyone’s tent. This has, naturally, sent a frisson of fear through the officer corps. I won’t say that Corpus is "empire building" (but it looks like it). His aim might, indeed, be to "reform" the military. However, it might also be to bend the armed forces leadership to his will. Either, in time, my friend Victor may be in the position to form a "junta" – or, on the reverse side, with resentment on the rise, a junta may be formed against him, and against the President who appointed him and backs him up.

I’ve covered five Presidents and nine chiefs of ISAFP, including Billy Marcelo, Fred Filler and, even my least favorite, Joe Calimlim, but what’s happening in the Corpus command post is the most disquieting.

The colonel’s motives may be simon-pure, but I’m somehow reminded of the sarcastic toast made by the Soviet Union’s Supremo, Josef Stalin – himself no stranger to extreme and cruel methods – at the celebratory banquet to mark the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Agression Pact in August 1939. Stalin had raised his glass and boomed: "To Heinrich Himmler, the man who has brought order to Germany!"

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What interests me is the fact that Colonel Corpus has been actively pushing for the promotion of his friend, Navy Commodore Ruben Domingo, who now heads Philtrade in an innocuous capacity, to Navy Chief of Training, which will give Domingo his second "star" and puts him in an advantageous position to become the next Navy Flag Officer in Command.

What rings a bell is that both spent much time with the New People’s Army, the Communist rebels, but with Corpus as an NPA Commander and Domingo, for his part, as a prisoner. Domingo was "kidnapped" by the NPA in 1987 and spent a year and a half in their hands, living with them as a captive.

There’s nothing wrong with intelligence chiefs compiling dossiers. That’s part of their job. But when dossiers can be utilized to "convince", cow, or coerce people, particularly those in positions of command themselves, that’s disturbing. One man who made it his business to compile dossiers on thousands of people, particularly on Cabinet members, senators, congressmen, mayors, governors – and Presidents, too (as John F. Kennedy and brother Bobby, who was attorney general, discovered when they were trying to cut him down to size) – was J. Edgar Hoover, the founder and lifetime head and icon of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It was Hoover who made the G-men of the FBI famous, squeaky clean in appearance, having been made immortal by his own reputation as the man who had nabbed John Dillinger. The darker side of Hoover was that he blackmailed people with his dossiers into giving him and his bureau everything he wanted. If someone proved stubborn, J. Edgar would just pull out his "file."

Kennedy swore to squash Hoover and take away his power, but he didn’t succeed. JFK, instead, was gunned down by an assassin (or assassins?) on November 22, 1963, while travelling in an open-topped limousine with his wife through Dealey Plaza, in Dallas, Texas. Lucky Hoover never got the axe, and his memory is enshrined in reverence (even his desk preserved untouched as a monument) in the posh FBI headquarters in Washington, DC.

Who inherited his dossiers?

In conclusion, I’m not saying Colonel Corpus is motivated by anything beyond patriotic aims. However, his growing "power" and reported imperiousness give one pause.

In the meantime, everyone must know that Big Brother, on behalf of Big Sister, is watching you. Recently, Corpus’s ISAFP procured the most sophisticated GSM tracking system from the United States, which enables them to track and record all phone calls on cell phones of designated targets.

They tried to buy the same type of equipment from France, but the French government put its foot down. It warned the suppliers that it would not permit such spying and snooping capability to fall into any government’s hands if it believed the equipment could be used to violate privacy and intimidate people.

The French, after all, are such good spies and intelligence "spooks" themselves.