Coup talk

As far as I can remember, EDSA ’86 started out with a coup plot that was discovered by forces loyal to the Marcoses. EDSA Dos, meanwhile, was spontaneous combustion by an outraged public, which occurred at the same time that a group (at least according to its members) was also plotting a coup.

Was Fidel Ramos involved in the coup plots? He has repeatedly said he has never been involved in plotting a coup d’etat, and on the surface, news coverage will bear him out. We remember him announcing his withdrawal of support from the Marcoses, then making his victory leap in 1986. In January last year he was simply on stage with the rest of the EDSA Dos group. And he did foil those numerous attempts to topple the Aquino administration.

But what were his nephew Hernani Braganza and generals identified with him doing shortly before and as EDSA Dos unfolded?

* * *

For the sake of the nation, let’s hope FVR is telling the truth: he’s no coup plotter, period, period, period. Just as he did not want to amend the Constitution, period, period, period.

I do miss his days as president, if only because my peso went a long way back then and the stop light at the corner of Roxas Boulevard and MIA Road never broke down (for that matter, the light worked perfectly, too, throughout Erap’s tenure).

But we can use an infusion of fresh blood at Malacañang. Right now I can’t see anyone exciting, but 2004 is still far away. Too far away, perhaps, for some people — the only reason I can think of for these persistent coup rumors.

And the problem is we’re too jumpy about these rumors. If you want to destabilize any administration, all you have to do is get some senior military and police officers together and start joking about staging a coup. You can be sure the joke will find its way to the media, but something will be lost in the telling and suddenly it’s a serious coup plot. Anyone can plot a putsch. The question is whether it can be launched. No one will even bother wondering if the characters at the gathering enjoy a following and are capable of staging a coup.

After EDSA Dos everyone was scrambling to take credit for the new government, and there were officers bleating that they were set to stage a coup but were overtaken by a popular uprising. They shut up only after critics wondered if the Arroyo administration had been installed through people power or a coup.

Now there’s a furor over the Young Officers’ Union and the Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabansa. YOU has as many factions as it has members, and the RAMboys broke up over money a long time ago. Years ago RAM officers grumbled that Greg Honasan pocketed the rebel returnee funds they got as part of their peace agreement with the Ramos administration. Since not even thumb marks were used to leave a paper trail, Greg can easily deny the allegation.

Baron Cervantes was disowned by everyone: YOU, the police. Even the military emphasized that he had been dropped from the rolls and that he was just a lieutenant, not a captain.

As for Edgardo Abenina, the buzz is that he would soon be replaced not so much because he couldn’t control an underling blabbing about coup plots, but because he got into trouble with the Iglesia Ni Cristo over the contract for license plates and vehicle registration stickers.

How can the RAMboys and YOU stage a coup? Are our soldiers still willing to risk their lives for a bunch of power-hungry officers? As for cops, the non-PMAyers who make up the bulk of the national police are too street-smart to allow themselves to be used as cannon fodder by ambitious soldiers-turned-cops.

We should be worrying about a brutally competitive world market, about the Islamist threat, about lost jobs. We should be worrying about our seriously deteriorating public education system, about being left behind in the information technology revolution.

Yet here we are, at the start of a new year, with the next presidential campaign still two years away, all jittery about a coup attempt.

* * *

CUSTOMER ISN’T KING: Retailers should improve processing of credit cards, especially in Metro Manila where many people have become dependent on plastic. At the Ace hardware outlet at Festival Mall in Alabang, cashier Flordeliza Villarin spent an eternity Sunday night checking a buyer’s credit card, asking him all sorts of information including contact numbers, even after he had presented two identification cards. She said she had checked with Equitable and the card was OK, so what was taking so long? It was the store’s New Year policy for credit card holders, she said. Card holders, take your business elsewhere.