After Corpus –who’s next to go?

The President accepted with alacrity the "irrevocable resignation" of the controversial Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus as chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP), but tried to put a good face on it by "prevailing" on him to remain in the military. Her spokesperson, Secretary Ignacio "Toting" Bunye, mouthed the usual platitude about the Chief Executive having "accepted with deep regret" Corpus’s resignation.

Indeed, Corpus submitted his resignation, copy furnished the Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Narciso L. Abaya, then took off Tuesday night for a "conference" in Seoul, South Korea.

"I think it is best for all that I get out of the picture," Corpus had asserted in his letter, referring to the demand by the Oakwood hotel putschists last Sunday that he be ousted. Since I was there that night, let me confirm what was said. The high-profile spokesman of the mutineers, Navy Lt. Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes IV, had declared: "We want Secretary Angelo Reyes and Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus, the chief of military intelligence, to be removed." Trillanes charged that because of Corpus’s "bungling" there had been "a loss of many lives". Another leader of the putschists, Scout Ranger Captain Milo Maestrecampo added the name of PNP Director General Hermogenes "Jun" Ebdane. "Don’t forget," he said, as if it were an afterthought. (Unfortunately for Ebdane, the "escape" of Jemaah Islamiyah bomb-terrorist Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi was on everybody’s minds.)

Television interviewers have rung me up in the past couple of days to inquire whether there had been a show of hands regarding this demand. As I have already written, I wanted to make certain Trillanes and Maestrecampo had spoken for the entire group. (I did not want the others later to complain that they had been misunderstood, or did not concur with the "demands" of the two leaders.) So, I asked if they all agreed. Everyone nodded in unison – and this includes the dozens of officers and men in battledress, with their weapons slung behind them, standing right behind the seated "ringleaders" – and many of them audibly said "Yes".

Corpus may have made a swift exit in the aftermath of last Sunday’s affair, but obviously Defense Secretary Angie Reyes is determined not to oblige the mutineers. He’s defiantly standing pat, rebuffing interviewers, meeting with business leaders, showing off the equipment and gadgets the mutineers had with them (they were well-equipped, with neat backpacks and other stuff allegedly worth over P1 million) to demonstrate they had powerful and wealthy backers.

Oh, well. Corpus had been Reyes’ protegé, and now he’s gone. Indeed, if you go by the book, Corpus should have reached the "mandatory age of retirement" last October 4, 2002. Official records indicate he will now retire next October 4, 2003.

What will he do in the meantime? Something less harmful, I hope.

* * *

Quite a stir was created yesterday when surrendered mutineer Tony Trillanes managed to sneak an angry phone call to ANC/ABS-CBN television, alleging that President GMA had betrayed the promises made to them when they surrendered and dumped them into the hands of the ISAFP – the military intelligence outfit of their sworn enemy, Victor Corpus!

Having been one of the ...well, negotiators who had made certain assurances to Trillanes and the 296 mutineers, I was both startled and indignant. Had they turned the five surrendered leaders of the failed "coup" into the hands of their torturers? No wonder Trillanes was resentful and, let’s face it, worried about the survival of his companions as well as himself. I don’t blame him. Having once been in military prison, I’d have been scared stiff myself.

Getting through to Armed Forces Chief of Staff Narcing Abaya, I asked him WHY the five leaders (Trillanes, Maestrecampo, Ranger Captain Gerardo Gambala, Marine Capt. Garry Alejano, and Navy Lt. Senior Grade James Layug) had been put in the ISAFP detention center. Would Corpus’ henchmen not take advantage of this to "get back at them?" I asked.

General Abaya replied that "Corpus is gone, definitely resigned. I personally guarantee the safety of those military detainees." He explained that, deplorably, the ISAFP detention center was the only place available for maximum security detainees. "We don’t want a repeat of the al-Ghozi escape scandal," he pointed out.

He was, however, rushing the construction of a better detention compound for them inside Camp Aguinaldo, Abaya added. For the detainees’ peace of mind, he assured me, he had removed all the ISAFP guards and replaced them with men detailed from the headquarters of Navy Commodore Tirso "Pete" Danga. Since Commodore Danga had been one of the negotiators with us last Sundays in the mezzanine of the Oakwood premier luxury building, and knew all the terms under which the mutineers had surrendered, this ought to be reassuring.

Well, somewhat anyway.

* * *

I asked General Abaya who would be the ‘next ISAFP Chief, holding the top post in military intelligence. He replied that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, would soon appoint one, usually based on the recommendation of the Board of Generals, of which he, as Chief of Staff, is the chairman. I inquired whether the President or he himself had anybody in mind. "Nobody yet," Narcing said, "Not even a short list."

The choice of a chief of military intelligence should, under the military chain of command, be that of the Commander-in-Chief (the President) and, immediately beneath the Chief Executive, the AFP Chief of Staff. The Secretary of National Defense (Reyes) isn’t supposed to enter the picture when it comes to selection.

In the case of Corpus, on the other hand, it was Secretary Reyes who had insisted on appointing him as ISAFP Chief, and later promoting him recently to star-rank as a Brigadier-General. Corpus had attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government (public administration) in Harvard together with General Reyes in 1990. Former ISAFP chiefs and other officers, from generals to colonels, had furiously protested the appointment of Corpus, a former Communist New People’s Army commander, calling him a "security risk".

The members of the association of former ISAFP chiefs sent one of their members to Reyes to voice their opposition to Corpus. But the retort they got from Reyes was: "Napirmahan na ng Presidente!" (It has already been signed by the President!).

According to a former ISAFP officer, retired Col. Cristobal V. Irlanda (PMA 1941), some of their group even went to see then AFP Chief of Staff Diomedes Villanueva "to air their objections in the presence of Corps". Villanueva allegedly promised he would "do something about it, but retirement overtook him and nothing was done".

And what could be done, after all? Both Villanueva and also retired AFP Chief of Staff, Gen. Roy A. Cimatu – who did a great job last Sunday (I must repeat) as chief negotiator – are bosom buddies protégés of Angie Reyes.

What about Abaya, the 32nd Chief of Staff, a West Pointer and reputed to be tough and independent? Abaya belongs to PMA Class ’70, and US Military Academy Class ’71. This is a test of his mettle. In these troubled times, he’ll need all the grit and gung ho he can muster.

* * *

As the front-page story indicates, I visited "arrested" former Deputy Executive Secretary Ramon "Eki" Cardenas yesterday, with permission from the President. Presidential Chief of Staff Rigoberto "Bobbi" Tiglao sent his Undersecretary Ricky Alfonso, Jr., to accompany me, and we were received in Camp Crame by PNP Director-General Jun Ebdane in whose PACER (Philippine Anti-Crime Emergency Response group) headquarters Eki is being held.

It’s fortunate that Ebdane escorted me to Eki’s cell, since Eki was able to directly request the PNP Chief – he had been dealing only with subordinates – to permit a visit from his immediate family, namely his nephews and nieces. He told us he didn’t want his mother to see him, given the poor state of health she’s in. He also asked for some essentials to be brought in to him – he’d been cut off from the world – and didn’t have anything in his cramped cell except the small and creaky double-decker bed in it (nobody on the top berth, of course).

Up front, and I’ve written this before, Eki is a cousin of mine, some degrees removed, but more than a cousin, he was one of my late mother’s adopted "sons". Her favorite nephew, he was always faithful to her, visiting her regularly even when she was dying in the hospital. As a small kid, together with our youngest brother Victorio (now the V.V. Soliven of all those buildings, subdivisions, etc.), he used to shine my shoes and that of my brother Willie. We paid him the child-labor exploitative price of ten centavos per "shine".

The Eki we know – we always called him "Monching", but his friends and classmates dubbed him Eki because he adored Ike Eisenhower – would never dream of engaging in a coup d’etat plot or conspiracy, even for his "boss", former President Erap (whom they’re also trying to "connect" with last Sunday’s mutiny). It’s not in his nature. He’d recoil at such an idea.

If his former Paraiso street home was, in truth, utilized by the mutineers as alleged by the police and the National Bureau of Investigation, he vows he never knew about it. (He’s lived for more than two years in a new home on Palm Avenue, also in Dasmariñas Village, Makati). Indeed, if he’d been involved in some putsch, why did he come home from the US last Wednesday, only to be "arrested" the following Sunday? Sanamagan. Nobody’s that stupid – not even our lawmen. Oops, I forgot. They’re the ones who let al-Ghozi get away.

* * *

I had lunch with Jun Ebdane afterwards, in their headquarters just in front of the cell detention block.

With us was Police Director Eduardo S. Matillano, who said he had been told to keep mum. We were joined by our friend, Police Chief Supt. (General) Arturo C. Lomibao, the Director for Intelligence, Police Chief Superintendent Oscar Castelo Calderon, Director for Comptrollership, Police Director Jose C. Lalisan Jr. (MNSA), directorate for Personnel and Records Management, and, of course, Police Director Ricardo "Dick" de Leon (also a two-star general), director for Police Community Relations.

Jun Ebdane sighed and asked me why he had been included in the "to be removed" list by the mutineers last Sunday. I could only answer that, "Alas, Jun, owing to the al-Ghozi thing, you were probably put on the hit parade."

I thought of ribbing him on the point that if the PNP had put al-Ghozi and the two Abu Sayyaf in the same kind of fool-proof cell, in the PACER compound, in which Eki Cardeñas is being held, the terrorists wouldn’t have "escaped". But we all know this isn’t true. If somebody unlocks the door and guides you out of the prison cellblock to freedom outside, no prison is fool-proof.

The PNP Chief and the other officers at lunch discussed the maximum security cellblock, a one-story affair, being constructed on a 1,500 square-meter site inside Camp Crame. Once more, it will only be as secure, when it’s completed, as the old cell-block in the PNP Intelligence Group building from which al-Ghozi et al. had decamped. If somebody gives the prisoners the key, they can waltz off into the night.

General Ebdane pledged they are trying hard to recapture al-Killer – and ferret out those he angrily swore who helped him "escape".

Indeed, I feel sorry for the PNP Intelligence Group whose reputation has fallen on hard times. In the past, the I.G. scored spectacular arrests and feats of intelligence.

TIME Magazine’s latest issue (August 4), the one with the complimentary article featuring La Presidenta on its cover, ran an accompanying article entitled "Her OTHER Problem" written by its well-known correspondent Simon Elegant (the son of Bob Elegant, my former NEWSWEEK bureau chief, and a world-famous novelist, who now lives in splendid semi-retirement in Perugia, Italy, when he’s not traipsing all over the world).

That article on page 39 was subheaded: "A confession by a Filipino terrorist could deal a blow to Arroyo’s negotiations with Islamic rebels."

Elegant started out by describing a stunning escapade of our intelligence agents:

"When Saifullah (Muklis) Yunos set out on a bombing mission two months ago, he knew that as the Philippines’ most wanted terrorist he risked recognition. So Muklis came up with a novel disguise. He appeared at the airport in Cagayan de Oro, a city on the strife-torn island of Mindanao on a stretcher, complete with a heavily-bandaged face and a plaster cast on one leg. As if to complete what could be interpreted as a sickening homage to his previous victims, he swallowed a tranquilizer at the advice of his traveling companion, Egyptian Diah-al-Gabri, and passed out.

"Muklis didn’t stay asleep for long. Security officials, tipped off when al-Gabri’s name popped up on a terrorist watch list issued by the US, arrested the two men before they could board their flight and whisked them to police headquarters in Manila. There, Muklis was subjected to an intensive, four-day grilling by members of a joint team of interrogators assembled from a range of Philippine law-enforcement agencies.

"Muklis’ confession, detailed in a 92-page transcript and an accompanying 18-page analysis obtained by TIME, is explosive. A key bombardier and trainer for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has been waging a guerrilla campaign for an independent Muslim state on Mindanao for decades, Muklis told his interrogators that he was on his way to Manila to launch a bombing campaign that was to include a suicide attack on the presidential palace using a gasoline tanker. Muklis said he had been hired for the mission by al-Gabri at the direct orders of Miston Maumar, father-in-law to the MILF’s veteran leader Hashim Salamat. Most revealing of all was Muklis’ casual acknowledgement – despite strenuous denials by both the MILF and Manila – that large numbers of non-Filipino Islamic radicals have been – and probably still are – receiving military training in jungle camps located in guerrilla-controlled areas of Mindanao. The confession could prove to a stumbling block to the resumption of peace talks between

Manila and the MILF, currently scheduled to restart by August 8 in Kuala Lumpur."

"During the 1990s," TIME magazine continued, "hundreds of militants from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand trained in Mindanao under the auspices of the MILF, many of them graduating to become key operatives for Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the loose confederation of radical groups blamed for numerous deadly bombings across Southeast Asia, including last October’s Bali blasts."

The magazine noted that the militant training was supposed to have stopped when Philippine Army units "overran the main MILF base, Camp Abubakar, in 2000 and captured three adjacent JI training camps."

"But in recent months a consensus has been growing among intelligence officials in the region that those facilities are operating again, providing critical refuge and training for an organization still reeling from the arrests of dozens of its key members in the last year-and-a-half."

Elegant maintained that "senior intelligence officials, including those from the Philippines, say privately that JI has at least one and possibly two well-established camps in Mindanao at which groups of about 30 recruits undergo structured training in weaponry, bomb making and evading capture."

Or escaping? Al-Ghozi must have rejoined the faculty of those universities of terror. An Indonesian police source alleges that "one such base is Camp Jabal Quba, a facility located in central Mindanao that he says completed its latest round of terrorist teachings in May."

Perhaps al-Ghozi may even show up in Kuala Lumpur as a member of the MILF delegation. Who knows?