Low-ranking soldiers and cops are confused. In recent weeks different factions have been recruiting them for all sorts of activities that have nothing to do with what cops and soldiers are paid to do. Just say no, you say? It’s not that easy to do in an environment so poisoned by partisan politics.
Since the Marcos era, members of the uniformed services have learned that their careers and fortunes could depend on aligning themselves with the right political faction. Officers with connections to Malacañang got promoted faster, jumping ahead of senior officers, getting the best assignments. By "best" I refer to postings that offer moneymaking opportunities or wide media exposure. Those who hitched their wagon to the wrong star found themselves "in the navy" or "floating" – the local terms for being in the freezer. They found themselves assigned to the kangkungan (swamp cabbage or swamp spinach patch), waiting for the end of the term of whoever was in power.
So when a non-commissioned officer, for example, is approached by a junior officer or a retired general identified with a politician and invited to participate in destabilization activities, the non-com must think of his future before saying no.
With promotions based on connections rather than merit, you can see why the uniformed services are going to the dogs.
And because those two national upheavals pitted different factions in the military and police against each other, the factions aligned themselves with either the administration or opposition when the dust settled down.
This is why considerable time, effort and government resources are expended by our intelligence services on spying not on the Abu Sayyaf, Muslim separatists or other enemies of the state, but on enemies of whoever is in power. This has been the state of affairs since EDSA 1.
Power is intoxicating, and the military can no longer let go of it. There’s no problem if politicized officers take the peaceful, legitimate path to power – the path chosen by the likes of Fidel Ramos and Rodolfo Biazon.
But we all know what happens when officers, active or retired, who have little chance of becoming president, backed by lower-ranking officers who cannot hope to win as barangay captain, hallucinate about being saviors of the Filipino people. They stage coup or destabilization attempts, hoping to short-circuit the democratic process by setting themselves up as part of a junta. These crackpot schemes would be hilarious if they didn’t bring so much grief to our nation.
The Supreme Court is leaking like a sieve, with both the administration and opposition getting blow-by-blow accounts of the heated deliberations on the disqualification case.
Depending on which camp is sending the text messages, the court will supposedly remand the disqualification case either to the Commission on Elections or the Court of Appeals for reception of evidence. Over the weekend there were purportedly nine votes to remand the case to the Court of Appeals, with the decision originally expected to be handed down yesterday. By Monday, when FPJ had rushed back to Manila amid a flurry of text messages, the voting had supposedly changed to 7-6. The equation shifted again, and by yesterday one faction was reportedly pushing for outright disqualification, with nine solid votes on their side. The entire court decides on the case this afternoon. The armed components of both sides are on full alert.
The only mitigating circumstance here is that FPJ’s camp is unlikely to have the backing of military and police supporters of that other opposition presidential candidate, Sen. Panfilo Lacson.
Obviously the politicization of the uniformed services is not going to end even if Poe is disqualified and either President Arroyo or Lacson is elected in May. Even Raul Roco, if he wins, is bound to find himself surrounded by a military clique identified with one of his supporters, former defense and national police chief Renato de Villa.
The national police was supposed to be purely civilian, but this constitutional mandate has not been followed for years. The top positions in the Philippine National Police continue to be monopolized by graduates of the Philippine Military Academy, soldiers with their "mistah" culture and training for warfare rather than criminal investigation and police work. They are used to swearing allegiance to their commander-in-chief, and protecting the administration when it is under threat from political enemies.
At EDSA 2 a military/police clique even found a constitutional provision to defend military intervention in political upheavals: "The Armed Forces of the Philippines is the protector of the people and the State. Its goal is to secure the sovereignty of the State and the integrity of the national territory."
Therefore if people power manifests itself, the military – and its supporters in the police – should protect the will of the people, especially if there is a threat that the nation will be torn apart without military intervention. This was the argument of the officers behind EDSA 2.
After opening this Pandora’s box, no one knows how to deal with the ills that have been unleashed.