Do mutineers really believe their claims?

"If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then what is it?" former defense chief Juan Ponce Enrile once said about alleged communists in Cory Aquino’s government. His one-time security head Sen. Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan and Makati mutineer Navy Lt. Antonio Trillanes did waddle and quack alike in separate television interviews Sunday as they tried to dispel suspicion of common, though hidden, political motive. "I do not presume that they will obey me, what is important is to listen to them," Honasan said evasively when asked if he was willing to negotiate for the peaceful surrender of 50 or so junior officers and enlisted men holed out at Ayala Center’s Oakwood condominiums. "The senator is not our leader, we do not have a leader," Trillanes retorted on cue when asked who they want to install with their demand that President Gloria Arroyo step down. But theirs was a vain effort to dissociate from each other. The dead giveaway was that both wanted, rather impatiently. the implementation of their national recovery program (NRP).

That NRP is their prescription for curing all the nation’s ills that politicians have long identified: poverty, corruption, red tape, deteriorating quality of education, labor migration, lawlessness, communist insurgency, Moro secession. It has been published as a pamphlet for potential funders and campaigners of Honasan’s newly-announced presidential bid. It is also being distributed to young Armed Forces and National Police officers. Sources who have read Trillanes’s recent masteral thesis on corruption in the Navy aver that the NRP was lifted from the scholarly work. As the NRP goes, any solution of the myriad social problems must start with one crucial act: to capture government power.

It is the legitimate aim of any party to grab the reins of government. But the Constitution and law specify that it be peaceful–through elections. Rebellion, never an acceptable method, is thus banned by the Penal Code. So is coup d’etat, against which a law was passed in 1991 after eight failed attempts by restive soldiers to topple Mrs. Aquino. But Intelligence Service-AFP chief Gen. Victor Corpus had gotten wind of a plot by junior officers to bring down the present government. At least 20 members of Philippine Military Class of ’95-’97 had gone AWOL with 40 enlisted men after carting off sniper rifles from the training headquarters of the Army Scout Rangers in Bulacan. They also were monitored to have tried to convince their classmtes to join what President Arroyo disclosed Saturday night as a "weekend coup." Thus, AFP chief Gen. Narciso Abaya was already hunting them down for court martial on charges of desertion and inciting to rebellion.

With most classmates reporting on the coup plot, the core group led by Trillanes switched to Plan B. They took over the Makati condo building that houses foreign businessmen and diplomats. From there, they yelled out the reasons why they wanted Mrs. Arroyo out of office. All of it is old hat, though. As contained in their manifesto:

• The defense-military brass is selling bullets to communists and separatists. That’s why, after 35 years of war, "the enemy has not run out of bullets." Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes naturally denied it, explaining that the enemy is sometimes able to grab cartons of bullets in the heat of battle. It would have been better for him to admit that corrupt AFP and PNP officers have indeed been caught and jailed before for passing ammo into rebel hands for a few pesos more.

• Corpus and the AFP brass were behind last April’s Davao City airport bombing in a ploy to extract more US aid from Mrs. Arroyo’s impending state visit to Washington. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front had come up with that preposterous line right after the bombing was admitted by their captured operatives. The separatist group was so afraid of being listed by the US and allies as an "international terrorist group."

• The escape of Indonesian terrorist Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi from a high-security jail in Camp Crame was a deliberate ploy of Mrs. Arroyo to declare martial law and stay in power beyond the May 2004 election. Their proof: PNP Director General Hermogenes Ebdane was retained, whereas Land Transportation Office head Robert Lastimoso was fired for a much lesser offense. It cannot get any more fantastic than this. Mrs. Arroyo’s mistake was to not fire Ebdane and instead ordered him to bring al-Ghozi back. But martial law? Many personalities in Mrs. Arroyo’s administration were victims of martial law. Her chief of staff Rigoberto Tiglao and political adviser Hernani Braganza were tortured by Marcos’s soldiers. Social Welfare Sec. Dinky Soliman, Environment Sec. Elisea Gozun and presidential adviser on media affairs Conrado Limcauco had fought the dictatorship. Vice President Tito Guingona and adviser on overseas Filipinos Heherson Alvarez were imprisoned. Mrs. Arroyo’s own dad, former President Diosdado Macapagal was constantly harassed for not supporting military rule.

Do the mutineers truly believe their claims? Perhaps they have started to believe their own propaganda. Those young officers, as Mrs. Arroyo declared, "crossed the line of professional military service." They have decided to go the way of the putschists of 1986-1989. Some of those mutineers of old rose in political circles to become senator or governor or mayor. Some were able to resume military careers after suffering broken records. Most, however, have had to resign from the military service and live disgraced lives. They were used by rich civilian politicians who were out to promote selfish personal interest.

At dawn yesterday, civilians were caught on television marching on Ayala Avenue in Makati to support the mutineers. They were waving the banner of Honasan’s NRP Movement , which curiously had the same emblem and color of the mutineers’ Magdalo Group. At mid-afternoon, loyalists of jailed former president Joseph Estrada were also set to march to Makati waving the banner of his Partido ng Masang Pilipino.

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