Mutineers undergo stress therapy

Talk therapy is in session.

The debriefing has begun for the enlisted men who occupied the Oakwood Premier Ayala Center luxury apartments in Ayala Center, Makati City during the failed July 27 mutiny.

Stress debriefing began yesterday for the soldiers of the Magdalo group that staged a failed mutiny in the Makati central business district, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said.

She said the procedure is similar to the debriefing given by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Department of Health (DOH) to victims of abuse, disasters and other "traumatic" experiences.

Soliman said psychologists and trained counselors from the DSWD and DOH began their sessions at the military camps where the enlisted men are under custodial detention.

Debriefing, Soliman said, "is a critical step towards letting them air their gripes and frustration. It’s a counseling process, where the counselors will ask them about their problems. The counselors will help them think through what happened (at Oakwood)."

She also assured the mutineers that the counselors would not act as mouthpieces of the government during the sessions.

"It’s a process purely based on what the soldiers will say. The counselors will not react in defense of the government," she said. "We just want them to let go of their angst."

"Many of these enlisted personnel did not know where they were going," Soliman said, "They did not understand what was happening and, as good soldiers, they just followed the orders of their superiors (to go to Ayala Center)."

Soliman said the "foot soldiers" would undergo debriefing ahead of the junior military officers who led the failed coup because most of them are poor and have no contact with their families. The sessions, however, are not compulsory.

"Many of the officers come from middle-class families. They have already been visited by their families — while the families of the enlisted soldiers are mostly in the provinces," Soliman said.

Besides the debriefing, the DSWD will be setting up "family assistance desks" in its regional offices to facilitate communication between the detained soldiers and their families.

"We also want to help the soldiers if they have urgent needs they want addressed," Soliman said. "For instance, if a soldier has a wife who is about to give birth, we can help them coordinate with hospitals."

The DSWD also intends to help facilitate the release of benefits due a soldier by linking him with the concerned offices.

Some 300 heavily armed soldiers, including 70 junior officers, seized Oakwood and booby-trapped Ayala Center with explosives on July 27 to air their grievances, including complaints about corruption in the military and low and inequitable salary scales among the various branches of the AFP.