The Boss as Commander-in-Chief

Barely one year in office, the administration of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III is faced with a purported destabilization attempt. The destabilization plot scenario cropped up after a retiring senior military officer came out in a video making a call to action against mis-governance in the country.

The alleged coup plot emerged with a talking head in the person of Marine Col. Mariano. This was after Mariano came out in a 95-second video while reading a prepared statement on his views on how the government must urgently address the prevailing situation in the country from poverty to high cost of living. Super-imposed on the video was July 3, 2011 to indicate the supposed date when this was taped.

“And if this present administration has no intention or is not doing anything to ease the lives of the majority, it is the duty, it is the right of every Filipino including soldiers to replace the government. I repeat, replace the government,” Mariano says in the video. The shared videos on Facebook purportedly originate from the account of a group called “Oust Noynoy Movement!” A copy of the video was distributed to media hours before P-Noy presided over a command conference at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City last week.

Yesterday, the Department of Justice filed formal charges of alleged inciting to sedition against Mariano before the Judge Advocate General’s Office (JAGO) of the Armed Forces. Mariano allegedly violated at least four provisions of the Articles of War. These are Articles 63 (disrespect toward the President), 67 (mutiny or sedition), 91 (provoking speeches or gestures), and 96 (conduct unbecoming of an officer).

Although he is already out of the military service when he reached the mandatory retirement age last Sunday, Mariano faces court martial proceedings since he supposedly committed the alleged offenses while still in the active service in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Mariano is detained in his Navy quarters while under investigation.

There were at least nine coups d’etat launched but were quashed during the term of the late President Corazon Aquino. That was the official count of former President Fidel Ramos who served as Aquino’s first AFP chief of staff and later as Defense secretary. But when Ramos later became President, he forged a peace agreement between the government and the various groups of military rebels and granted amnesty to all those charged and jailed for mutiny.

Half of this number of times military rebels tried but failed to oust Mrs. Aquino were bloody and destructive. In fact, incumbent President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III nearly lost his life in one such bloody coup launched in August 1987 when military rebels attacked the presidential residence then located in Arlegui, across Malacañang Palace.

The commander of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) during those fateful times is now P-Noy’s Defense secretary, retired Gen. Voltaire Gazmin. Incidentally, Mariano was among those tagged in the military rebellion in 1989 but was not among those charged.

The putschists, led by then colonel, now Sen. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, carried out their coup plot without anyone knowing until they struck and caught everyone by surprise. That element of surprise is one of the basic ingredients of any coup plot.

So commonsense dictates that utmost secrecy is a must for any group supposedly cooking up a coup plot. There is simply no sense to pin down Mariano to any supposed coup plot. No one talks about a coup plot; they just do it.

With so many conspiracy theories now being dished out from all corners, we have again the “usual suspects.” The talking heads of P-Noy at the Palace were too quick to accuse Mariano as someone working for former President, now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Retired Col. Ariel Querubin, who was among those charged and detained for leading a mutiny during the Arroyo administration, vouched for Mariano. Short of implicating Mariano in their coup plots against Mrs. Arroyo, Querubin squelched accusations against his fellow Marine.

“I gambled my career fighting the Arroyo regime, and now my accusers are saying that I am working for GMA,” Querubin quoted Mariano as telling him. Querubin claimed Mariano’s misfortune was that he made the controversial statements in academic discussions during a forum held at Club Filipino in San Juan City last June 24.

Having Querubin as a defender will not help in any way the case against Mariano. While under military detention, Querubin ran but lost in the senatorial ticket of presidential candidate Sen. Manny Villar, who in turn lost to P-Noy in the May 2010 elections.

But perhaps, the testimony of Fr. Eliseo Mercado, director of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance in Notre Dame University, would help. As one of the invited speakers also in that forum, Fr. Mercado corroborated Mariano’s explanation.

Fr. Mercado recalled the discussions strayed into the governance issue when the forum tackled the one-year performance in office of P-Noy. It was at this juncture, Fr. Mercado said, when Mariano declared that “IF” the government fails to address the plight of the people, the people themselves have the right and duty to replace the government.

Mariano’s offense is perhaps talking out of tune, if there’s any such crime in our penal statutes. Come on, P-Noy is just one year in office, so how could he, or any President for that matter, get Filipinos out of the poverty mire that quickly?

Mariano’s retirement benefits are now in danger because of that video where he spilled his guts out by echoing soldiers’ sentiments and feelings as something they commonly share with the civilian populace. But men in uniform, unlike their civilian counterparts, do not enjoy freedom of expression.

The military leadership, specifically Philippine Navy flag officer-in-command Adm. Alexander Pama, quietly looked into this videotaped material; the circumstances of how they got a copy remain sketchy.

If there’s one good thing left for Mariano it’s the fact that the AFP enjoys a professional leadership as demanded of them by their incumbent Commander-in-Chief.

As he declared in his inaugural address that he listens to the people who are his “Boss,” P-Noy has to make his officers and men in the AFP also feel the same way but following the chain of the command.