All these ‘dak-dak’ and noisy self-flagellation are really nothing new

In this political season – with the moment of truth looming as to who’ll run or not – President Macapagal-Arroyo might as well face it. She’ll just have to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous commentators.

When she declared at the Philippine Military Academy that "I am married to the country", some wiseguy I know cracked yesterday: "Yes, but the country wants a divorce!"

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There was really no need for all that drama about a series of blasts (sounded like an old-model car backfiring really) having led to the discovery of an "arsenal" hidden by detained putschist, Navy Lt. s.g. Antonio Trillanes IV, in a Novaliches apartment allegedly owned by the mutineer.

How careless of that property caretaker (janitor) to be trying to burn garbage containing .50 caliber bullets, broken pieces of electric blasting caps, and parts of light antiaircraft weapons! Any dodo would know that if you torch ammunition and blasting caps, there’s bound to be an explosion or series of explosions capable of blowing anybody close by either to the hospital or to kingdom come.

The responding policemen, of course, "found" those huge giveaway rounds of high-powered .50 caliber stuff, etc., plus four incriminating red armbands with the Magdalo white Katipunan sunburst, the symbol of the Oakwood rebels. How convenient.

Those mutineers were, indeed, a sloppy lot. They left all those red armbands, ammo, and other incriminating junk lying almost everywhere, in the Trillanes Gloria Subdivision flat in Barangay Talipapa, Quezon City, in Eki Cardenas’s Paraiso street house – also conveniently unoccupied – in Dasmariñas Village, Makati, and in an apartment belonging to Laarni Enriquez, ex-President Erap’s lady.

Better check your apartment or home today, guys and girls. Chuck out those red Magdalo armbands before the cops, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) sleuths, or ISAFP spooks descend on your domicile or outside "rented" properties and suddenly "uncover" that "evidence".

Sus, the NBI is still harassing the poor woman bank cashier, "whistle-blower" Acsa Ramirez, long after the court cleared her of being involved in that old money-laundering scandal.

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In short, when the government is after you, you’ve got to beware.

As for me, I don’t mind the fact that the ISAFP (Intelligence Services, Armed Forces of the Philippines), Brig. Gen. Victor Corpuz’ outfit (c’mon, he publicly resigned but is probably still running it) has me under surveillance day and night. This is confirmed – and, if you want to know, my dear wife isn’t unhappy about it. She says it keeps me "safe", and whatever else.

As for telephone and cellphone tapping, what’s new? This probably never ceased, even after the Marcos dictatorship collapsed.

After all, it was an ISAFP major who arrested me, in my home in San Juan at 2 o’clock in the morning that September 1972. The ISAFP officer headed a detail of Metrocom troopers (dispatched by then Vice Chief of Staff and Philippine Constabulary chief, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, on instructions of Apo Ferdinand himself). This is what FVR told me when he spoke to me on the phone from Camp Crame, urging me to "surrender" without a fuss or a fight.

The ISAFP major was very courteous and even friendly when he arrested me, so I won’t mention his name in this corner (he retired not very much later from the armed forces – at his young age, he opted for early retirement). In fact, when I came out the door he had saluted me, and said: "Sir, I’m sorry to have to be the one to arrest you."

"Why are you sorry?" I snapped back.

"Because, sir," the major declared, "You are my favorite columnist!"

Even in the first hour of martial law, with the firing squad lurking at your subconscious, flattery succeeds in cheering one up.

Anyway, I asked to see the warrant of arrest. It was xeroxed, and declared that "a state of subversion exists" (familiar?), and that I, "knowingly or unknowingly, wittingly or unwittingly," had contributed "to that subversion". Sanamagan, many years later – would you believe? – they’re still using the same phrases.

Peering closer at the "warrant", I saw that my name had only been typed in. Everything else was xeroxed, even the signature authorizing the arrest, that of Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile.

Every ASSO ("Arrest, search and seizure order") after that, during the long agony of martial law, followed the same formula. Only the name of the victim was typed in. Those lettres de cachet sent many to their incarceration, torture, and sometimes even death by "salvaging".

It was the ISAFP who dumped Ninoy Aquino, this writer, and eight others into maximum security prison in Fort Bonifacio. Now, I’m seeing those guys from that same old outfit dogging my tracks today. It’s beginning to feel like an Alumni Reunion or Old Home Week. I didn’t even have to spot them, as I did. I can smell them. Susmariosep, they didn’t even bother, since those good old days, to change the name of that intelligence agency.

Oh, well. I’ve just been reading Tom Clancy’s new novel, The Teeth of the Tiger (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2003). Everybody knows Clancy, naturally, for his Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, all made into movies, and his latest one, Red Rabbit.

As usual, Clancy came up with a lot of pithy phrases and bons mots, which he seems to reserve for his weightier opuses, not his paperback Net Force series. Among them this time was the Latin expression, "sic volvere parcas."

This was used by Jack Ryan Jr. (son of the Patriot Games hero, portrayed by Harrison Ford).

"What’s that?" former Senator Hendley asked.

Ryan replies: "The Fates, Senator. One spins the thread. One measures the thread. And one cuts the thread." (The thread of a person’s destiny and existence, according to ancient Greek and Roman mythology, is to be spun, measured and cut by three Sisters called the Fates.)

We’ll have to see how the Fates measure and spin out here, and when the thread will be cut.

But that’s not Clancy’s most striking passage. In a later chapter he remarks: "Probably the best mathematicians of all time were the ones who’d made up the rules for gambling games . . . They’d provided just enough illusion that you had a chance to sucker you in. Born inside the human mind was the most dangerous of drugs. That was called ‘ego’ . . ."

It’s true.

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There was an interesting sidebar in the newspaper accounts of President GMA’s visit to the PMA about GMA and the wife of arrested Mutineer Lt. s.g. Trillanes not having made eye contact with each other at Fort del Pilar, or spoken to each other.

After all, Capt. Arlene Orejana-Trillanes was legitimately present since she is an officer in her own right (PMA ’97) and a member of the PMA’s faculty, a mathematics instructor at the Academy.

The commander-in-chief didn’t acknowledge her, or look at her, the subsequent narratives stated. Neither did Captain Trillanes approach the President. What, indeed, could they have said to each other had they actually braced one another? It might have been an awkward moment for both.

Since everybody’s fond of speculating about "what might have been" or "should have done this" or "done that" perhaps it would have been noblesse oblige, a nice gesture on the part of the President, to have sought out Captain Trillanes and shaken her hand, no commitment on her part being understood. For her part, it would not have been in keeping for Mrs. Trillanes, as a commissioned officer, to plead for her husband – anyway, from that I’ve heard, this is not in her character. She exhibited both strength and fortitude, and adherence to duty, anyway, by not hiding away or appearing to snub the Chief Executive.

Anyway it’s done. The romantics in our midst would have preferred a beau geste. GMA might already have done that anyhow, by decreeing a just trial for the imprisoned Lieutenant and his fellow officers in the "Oakwood Five". A military trial, I trust under the Articles of War, as agreed in the final "return to barracks" formula of the surrender negotiations.

As for that publicized plot to "rescue" the five core leaders from their ISAFP detention cells, allegedly crafted by their supporters and sympathizers in the military (including Kuya?), this has already been pooh-poohed by the Vice-Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia, himself. In effect, Garcia implied that an al-Ghozi type "escape" or rescue would never work for those five in military custody. Garcia, who was a fighting Army Brigade commander in Mindanao during the hairiest period of the Bangsamoro rebellion, is a straight-shooter, even with his mouth – so we can count on his word.

But what’s this? Some intelligence spooks, a week ago, warned about an "Oplan Coral Necklace" to be launched on August 23 to 24, hinting that it was a bigger coup d’etat plan than the puny one which fizzled out at Oakwood. August 23 and 24 came and went yesterday – without either coral or necklace in evidence. The original "source" sheepishly let it be known yesterday that the "oplan" had been postponed. Permanently, I hope – just as I hope Typhoon Niña has vanished in the direction of Hong Kong and China.

We would be a shaky nation, indeed, if we could be destabilized, – as is happening – even by whispers. All those rumors, insinuations, acts of self-destruction and self-flagellation though are nothing new. Those things don’t just happen here – they happen everywhere.

One of the truest observations I’ve ever read was contained in the "American Farmers’ Almanac for 1978" under the heading of "Capsules of Wisdom". It asserted: "To err is human but to really foul things up requires a computer."

And to foul up a computer nowadays, all you need is a virus. These days, fouling things up can be done even more quickly by text via cellphone.

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ERRATUM... All through yesterday's column, I stupidly quoted the name of Rear Admiral Ed Varona (ret.) as the PMA Superintendent of 1997-1998, and quoted him extensively and inaccurately. The officer I spoke to and quoted in yesterday’s piece was Lt. Gen. Victor Mayo (ret.), who was PMA Superintendent, and is the class President of PMA ’66. He’s the one to whom all the observations must be attributed. Both lapsus mentis and lapsus manus, I plead guilty – and apologize for the grievous error. By the way, General Mayo is still prominently serving the government in the National Security committee, under the aegis of Secretary Roilo Golez.