Now ‘more’ coup rumors are being triggered by the ‘great escape’

Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Gen. Generoso Senga – unless, we trot out the usual caveat, he was misquoted – should stop saying the military doesn’t have the capability to tap cellphone conversations. This is a laugh. Of course the AFP has. The tapping of cellphones is not new technology, and our military and police got the gadgetry for it some years ago.

As one whose ground lines and – more recently – cellphones have been bugged habitually, even in the days of more primitive technology, although sometimes not necessarily by ISAFP or the military, such assertions make Senga sound evasive – and rather ridiculous. The ISAFP (armed forces intelligence) may strive to deny it was bugging the Commander-in-Chief GMA’s and Garci’s cellphones, but to deny that the AFP can "bug" people’s phones is silly. Nowadays, probably every hick detective agency can already do it.

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The almost comical escape of an Oakwood Mutineer, Marine Captain Nicanor Faeldon, sanamagan even in full military uniform, is being billed as a sign that the much-publicized "coup" is now in progress. To begin with, as one of the Oakwood negotiators, I didn’t get the impression during our hours of dialogue with the mutineers’ Top Five in the barricaded, explosive-rigged Oakwood Premier Ayala Center building on July 27, 2003, that Captain Faeldon was one of the "key leaders" – as he’s now being billed.

The key leaders were the high-profile spokesman, Navy Lt. S.G. Antonio "Sonny" Trillanes, Army Capt. Milo Maestrecampo (whom I think was the quiet man and real chief of the Magdalo group), Army Capt. Gerardo Gambala, Marine Capt. Garry Alejano and Navy Lt. S.G. James Layug.

We sweated it out for hours past the GMA-delivered government deadline to attack the Oakwood where the 296 armed-to-the-teeth would-be putschists were holed up. In the end, the mutineers, after vowing to "fight to the death" and blow up the entire complex and surroundings, fortunately agreed to surrender – which they did so in good formation. Whew. Remember, I’m the guy in the former Negotiating panel who’s been yelling the Oakwood top leaders were double-crossed by the GMA government in one of the most major pledges made by the government panel, many of whom have suffered . . . well "amnesia." The leaders were supposed to be tried, under the articles of war, exclusively in military court martial. In truth, many of the angry complaints made by the forlorn mutineers, who could never have hoped to succeed, have not yet been addressed. Our government and our military brass would be well-advised not to be so smug.

That having been said: A coup "last night," or today, or tomorrow? Coups are not – except in the most bizarre coincidences – announced by press release, not even in this country of Lilliputian minds and Puritanian romance-fiction. Nobody can declare that a mutiny or coup or putsch is impossible. But as the great Napoleon Bonaparte, perhaps not as dedicated to the bedchamber as to the battlefield, used to say to his Empress: "Not tonight, Josephine."

By the way, was it connivance or carelessness? If you ask me, in a land where Islamic terrorists, kidnapper kings, and drug lords blithely "escape" from Camp Crame or jails and detention centers, it’s not surprising that Captain Faeldon could "excuse" himself from his military guards, be permitted to get down from a military shuttle bus on the pretext of buying fruit from a nearby stall beside the Makati RTC building (by golly, everybody knows that this street is jammed with traffic, and packed with people, walking, jaywalking, or just chatting or being usiseros on the pavement and the street itself).

An "escape"? When a Navy or Marine is brought out from the Brig in the US, or in Russia, it’s usually in irons, even when the shackles are removed inside civilian court. The arraignment of Faeldon in the Makati Regional Trial Court, incidentally was one of the betrayals of the government panel’s "surrender" pledges made to the top mutineers.

What’s fascinating is that the three other "detainees" who were being ferried back to Camp Aguinaldo on the same military shuttle bus were among the above-mentioned top leaders, Trillanes, Alejano and Layug. Susmariosep, what a zarzuela. Faeldon (a PMA classmate of Sonny Trillanes) even left a letter behind in his room inside the ISAFP detention compound saying he had planned his own escape. The note, addressed to Trillanes, Alejano and Layug – sort of "exonerating" them for complicity, perhaps? – declared that his getting away was the best way he could help in achieving a transition government. Guess he’s determined to try, try again.

But his military escort allowing him to get out of the bus to buy fruits? The old American expression of complete rejection of a tall tale was "Tell it to the Marines!" We can’t use it in this case. The "escaped" Faeldon is a Marine.

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If, for the nth time, former Defense Secretary and retired General Fortunato U. Abat has declared himself head of a revolutionary transition government to replace GMA – in a revolution being conducted from the Club Filipino – we must not be astonished if Abat’s son, Col. Victor "Vicsie" Abat has been "relieved" of his post as deputy commander of the 702nd Infantry Brigade located in Bongabon, Nueva Ecija.

Can a father’s "sins" be visited on his sons? The military is not an organization prone to take chances (despite making stupid mistakes), and sons of even press-release rebels, who happen to command troops in the field are prone to be dangerous – so, obviously, Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon didn’t risk Vicsie joining a mutiny or coup, he just placed the colonel on "floating status" (the military politesse for Siberia).

The colonel, a baron of the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1977 – hence one of the PMA’s most brilliant and talented graduates – has had to suffer delays and detours in the promotional ladder since dad started making critical remarks of La Presidenta. It’s, sorry to say, a familial hazard. (The Chinese emperors and warlords used to be more drastic, slaying their enemies and their enemies’ children down to the third generation).

In Vicsie’s case, he was allegedly "caught" passing on text messages tending to "destabilize" the government – whatever that means. One of his defenders thundered that how could Abat be blamed for merely forwarding "pass on" text messages, like you and I receive almost daily? Depends, really, on what you’re passing on, doesn’t it? Oh well. It’s a useless, nitpicking debate. Vicsie’s "floating," and that’s that.

The so-called "witch-hunt" even is being touted as extending to a Marine officer whose "crime" is that his elder brother is married to former Defense Secretary Tony Abat’s daughter. It doesn’t seem logical, but if it’s true, then the reason should be the same as the above.

As long as retired General Fortunato U. Abat’s transition revolutionary government threatens an "overthrow" (how else could GMA be ousted for the transition government to take over?), sons and in-laws alike cannot rest easy. It’s the way of the world – not just in the Philippines.

General Abat was a hero in his time, a guerrilla teen-ager who fought the Japanese, a fighting soldier in the Korean War, a valiant commander in Mindanao in the most savage of the Moro wars. One of his sons, also an outstanding PMA graduate, died courageously fighting the Communist rebels of the New People’s Army. The Abats are a family who have served with honor in the service of our country. But when heroes in their older years (don’t want to sneer at old age, since I myself afflicted with that inexorable attrition of the calendar) start preaching some kind of revolution from the Club Filipino in Greenhills, instead of taking to the hills, one begins to wonder where patriotism ends and something else begins.

Will there be a coup, kudeta, mutiny, putsch, or whatever? We’re a screwy country, where talk is too often mistaken for action. But usually, such things don’t happen before Christmas. Everybody’s probably too busy going to one of the current endless round of Christmas parties, hoping to win something in the raffle – or avoiding parties, hoping not to be forced to donate something for the raffle.

But hey, the leaders of the Oakwood mutiny had sneaked into the Oakwood "hotel" in July 2003 – lethal equipment and all – by checking in as hotel guests, right under the noses of a full military and police alert, and surfaced just when the PNP and armed forces generals thought the coup "threat" was over.

Nothing can be discounted in this merry, slaphappy nation of ours. That’s part of the fun.

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THE ROVING EYE . . . What happened to the "rape" case against six US Marines? At this stage, let me (blush-blush) correct an egregious blooper in my November 24th column. I had erroneously referred to the ship carrying the six Marines accused as the "World War II aircraft carrier, USS Essex." An alert reader and military buff, Ricky Pabello quickly pointed out that the ship which had docked in Subic was the USS Essex (LHD 2), an amphibious assault ship about 13 years old. "This is the fifth ship of the same name in the history of the US Navy," he said. "The USS Essex (CV 9) of World War II fame went to the scrap yard 40 years ago in 1972." Pabello rightly pointed out that the new ship, LHD 2, launched in 1992, "may look like an aircraft carrier as it has a flat top, but it actually takes on helicopters and VStol Harriers only." Thanks, Ricky. I stand corrected.