P-Noy seeing 3 D's

There is purportedly an ouster plot against President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III by the so-called “enemies of reforms” who want him out of office before his term ends in June 2016. The supposed plotters, though unnamed, are described as those trying to regain their political power and continue with their corrupt ways.

With that kind of generic description, many would qualify as the usual suspects for this alleged ouster plot against P-Noy.

No less than P-Noy revealed this alleged ouster plot against him during the program last Thursday that marked the 26th founding anniversary of the Presidential Security Group (PSG). P-Noy led the program at the PSG headquarters located across the Malacañang Palace by the Pasig River. It is also where P-Noy stays at the Bahay Pangarap that was converted into a bachelor’s pad for him.

It is a highly secured area where media and visitors have no access to at all, unless invited and thoroughly pre-screened at the PSG main gate in Otis, Manila. So, it would be inconceivable for P-Noy to be having any sleepless nights if indeed there is such a sinister plot to oust him from the Palace.

The PSG celebrated this special occasion with its founder, then Army colonel Voltaire Gazmin. When P-Noy took office, he pulled Gazmin out of retirement and appointed him as his Defense Secretary who is the immediate head of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

The elite corps of presidential troopers was formed a few days after the February 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution that swept into office P-Noy’s late mother, former President Corazon “Cory” Aquino. Army Col. Ramon Mateo Dizon, who was one of the young officers during Gazmin’s six-year command of the PSG, is P-Noy incumbent PSG commander.

During those tumultuous six years, Gazmin, Dizon and the rest of the PSG officers and men successfully repelled and quashed nine coup attempts, some of which were bloody and violent. The August 1987 coup attempt, in particular, nearly cost the life of the presidential son. Rebel mutineers who stormed the Palace in the wee hours of that fateful day ambushed Noy’s convoy a few meters away from the presidential residence in Arlegui. Three of Noy’s PSG close-in security escorts were killed.

Up to now, P-Noy carries in his body some of the fragments of those bullets that could not be removed because it may cause more harm than good. So I don’t think P-Noy is worried about supposed ouster plots against him that may cost his life. He is a veteran in terms of threats to his life with scars to show for it. I would like to think P-Noy has taken much from his late mother’s fatalist view in life.

But 24 hours later, P-Noy had a change of tune. When he flew the next day to Calapan, Mindoro, the President told a different story altogether, saying he now has fewer detractors to worry about. This is because, the Chief Executive noted, the reforms he has initiated under his administration begin to take root slowly but steadily.

“I’ve been told my detractors are dwindling, including those holding protest rallies,” the President told reporters who covered him at the ceremonial switch-on of an electrification program for the 45 towns in the province. However, P-Noy failed to say who fed him that information or what gave him that impression.

Since P-Noy specifically used the term “protest” rallies, then he may not be alluding to the mammoth gathering in Luneta last Feb. 28 that was organized by the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC). Billed as a “grand evangelical mission” to spread the teachings of the Bible, the INC event, however, was seen differently by astute politicians despite claims to the contrary.

Aside from the fact the Luneta gathering caused daylong traffic, the INC-led event was as a show of force against the perceived excesses of the Aquino administration in its campaign to go after and vilify former administration officials accused of corruption.

P-Noy’s public disclosure of these purported ouster plots against him brought to mind public revelations made by former President Joseph Estrada during his impeachment trial. At the height of protest rallies calling for his resignation in office, Mr. Estrada bared an alleged “3 D’s” plot against him as uncovered by military intelligence operatives loyal to him. It stood for the three-stage plot that starts with a campaign of Dis-information, Dis-affection, and Destabilization.

As later events turned out, Mr. Estrada was not at all the boy who cried wolf. The “3 D’s” plot removed from office the most popularly elected President of the Philippines. The rest is history when EDSA-2 took place and installed into office his former Vice President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was backed by the AFP, the police, certain members of Congress, and civil society groups.

What we now hear from P-Noy are the same things we have heard before from Mr. Estrada. Shortly after his own overwhelming election victory in May 2010, P-Noy said the intelligence community immediately warned him about people who did not want him proclaimed. These detractors, he recalled, disseminated “libelous and slanderous statements” against him.

Although he did not mention it, it would be safe to assume he was referring to the “psychiatric” issue thrown at him during the presidential campaign. The same issue was recently revived by embattled Chief Justice Renato Corona in retaliation to P-Noy’s leading the impeachment campaign against him.

Amid alleged plans by the Aquino administration’s political enemies to orchestrate his ouster, the AFP, of course, reiterated the assurance that the military establishment is “solidly behind” P-Noy as its Commander-in-Chief.

Incidentally, the National Geographic Channel has featured a special documentary on Malacañang and the PSG. The global airing of this documentary, showing the nooks and crannies of our country’s seat of power, will also be aired on local cable TV by the middle of this month.

Some choice film clips were already being aired showing the marksmanship and precision shooting skills of the PSG. A gun enthusiast himself, P-Noy enjoys the shooting range at the PSG grounds. Since he got shot, P-Noy has decided to hone his gun skills. But seeing a threat like the “3 D’s” plot requires a different kind of skill that P-Noy’s precision shooting would not solve.