How can a ‘revolution’ now be called a joke?

First the bad news: I don’t believe retired General and former Defense Secretary Fortunato Abat – a hero in his past life – achieved martyr status (which he perhaps craved) by the thing he did. Sanamagan – worst of all – after that silly but troublemaking act of seizing Club Filipino and declaring himself "president" of a revolutionary transition government, he was semi-arrested, put in the PNP hospital (but not given a psychiatric examination), then walked free the next day "on bail," crowing that "this is my amnesty."

No, Tony. You shouldn’t be forgiven – and this comes from somebody, namely me, who was undeservingly "adopted" by your proud Philippine Military Academy Class 1951, a class full of combat heroes like yourself, who served in the Korean War, with the PHILCAG and Philippine Contingent in South Vietnam, and in the Mindanao wars, as well as the fight against the New People’s Army (in which your own brave son also courageously died). Your guru FVR, who fought in South Korea, too, joining our army directly from West Point, then on to Seoul and the battlefield, also belongs to PMA ’51. As Bill Shakespeare once said, "What a tangled web we weave . . ." The rest of the quotation I leave to our readers.

I don’t understand the indignant statement of Senator Joker Arroyo (once Ninoy’s and this writer’s lawyer, along with brave, deceased Francis Garchitorena, when we vainly sought release by habeas corpus from maximum prison in Fort Bonifacio from the Marcos-controlled Supreme Court). Joker had demanded that Abat be released when he and others were arrested in Club Filipino.

"Has the government lost its sense of humor? The arrest of Abat is absurd! He should be released immediately!" Joker had fumed. What was absurd was the funny way in which the Police sort of arrested Abat & Company, by donning civilian clothes, then grabbing him and his gang without a warrant when a genuine "warrant of arrest" could have been obtained without a delay of an hour or two.

Now, after Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez rightly confirmed the arrest, the Department of Justice is nitpicking and hesitating over what legal jurisprudence defines what crime would-be revolutionary "president" Abat and his cohorts committed, and what kind of inciting to rebellion he committed. Gadzooks and Godzilla – when our lawyers begin stumbling over each other in defining this and that, we not only begin to look stupid – we all begin to feel stupid.

Joker should not shrug off such acts which smack of treason (I don’t wish to prejudice the case) as something humorous. When somebody announces himself as heading a revolutionary government, whether in Club Filipino or in the Casino Filipino, he’s inviting somebody to stage a revolution, even if he’s not firing a gun himself, or merely "arming" his supporters except with pretentious red-white-and-blue sashes. Ditto for our old friend and former FVR Budget Management Cabinet Secretary Salvador "Jun" Enriquez, ex-Ambassador Roy Seneres, Charlie Serapio, et al. Can we say like Jesus, expiring on the Cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do"? If they’re not non compos mentis or escapees from the National Mental Hospital how they help not knowing what they were doing? The Offense rests.

I grieve for Tony Abat. He was a courageous soldier, and is a patriot still – but this weird act simply cannot be wished or laughed away. GMA may be "corrupt," she might even have "cheated," who knows? But when you state you’re leading a revolutionary transition government, it’s not just playing with harmless words. One newspaper headlined a story: "Proud Family Stands by Abat." Of course. This is a country where it’s often, indeed much of the time, Family above everything else. It’s a nation of "them" versus "us." The family first is what is "natural" to us Filipinos, it’s a source of strength for individuals under stress, battered by fortune. It’s also what prevents us from becoming, at last, a true nation – with a sense of national pride and national purpose.

The ridiculous three-day "occupation" of the Club Filipino in Greenhills was designed to accomplish what? Overthrow President GMA and our banged-up but Constitutional government? Or what else?

It’s just the awful November 1986 "rebellion" in which troops seized control of the Manila Hotel in order to install Macoy’s Vice-Presidential running mate, Senator Arturo Tolentino as "President." How can you overthrow a government – this time Cory C. Aquino’s government – by grabbing a hotel? Perhaps those soldiers thought that by planting their flag on the "historic" hotel’s roof they might get other "hidden" forces to erupt into action and crush Cory’s government. Nobody came.

The ridiculous denouement of that insane caper was that when Defense Minister (and former Armed Forces Chief of Staff) Gen. Fidel V. Ramos . . . uh, "crushed" the rebellion, recovered the Manila Hotel without any change in anything even the room rates, he lined up the "rebels" and punished them, not by slapping them in prison, or threatening them with court martial and death by musketry, or some serious comeuppance. He ordered them to "do 30 push-ups." Or was it 60 push-ups? No wonder nobody is afraid to foment revolution or incite to sedition, or commit sedition, or treason. All they get is a slap on the wrist.

I think the 296 young mutineers, the Magdalo kids, who occupied Oakwood on July 27, 2003, for all their foolhardy and rebellious actions were more sincere. Most of those youthful officers and their men were, in my estimation, motivated by no selfish ambition, but some messianic complex or explosion of disgust. They hoped their forlorn but ab initio hopeless stand, even their avowed threat to "fight to the death" and blow up the complex, might be a signal for others in the military, the police and among an "angry" civilian population to join in the uprising. But nobody came.

In fact, others who had been expected to join simply gave up and melted back into the woodwork, or were – as some of our military brass boast (frankly, they didn’t have a clue) – headed off, their "foul" intentions "nipped in the bud." Some rush to take credit for putting down the mutineers and getting them to surrender. Truly, as Italian Il Duce Benito Mussolini’s son-in-law, Count Ciano so pungently put it, in sorrow: "Victory has many fathers, defeat is an orphan."

As long as we are a country in which nobody is punished, or the law enforced with maximum force, we’ll not be a strong nation – in fact, sad to admit, not a genuine nation at all. We are a great people, full of faith, but we’ll never have faith in ourselves if we don’t embrace the hard part. We have to do the difficult thing: Enforce the law on those who would break it. And mete out due justice to those who have broken it.

* * *

So the Constitutional Commission created by the President to recommend what kind of new Constitution we should strive to implement has turned in its report to GMA.

How Congress will proceed from there, with the Senate and House deadlocked (not even capable of agreeing on an anti-terrorist bill), is anybody’s guess. A rump group of Consultative Commission members have signed a collective position paper strongly objecting to the Transitory Provisions in the "approved" draft – their objections submitted to Concom President Jose V. Abueva. As former Congressman (for a day) and Commissioner Noel "Toting" Cariño pointed out to this writer yesterday, "I personally find this controversial Transitory Provision unnecessary." He asserted that "it has put into jeopardy the entire work of the Commission. Thus, together with Mr. Jarius Bondoc, we both voted NO to the draft document. Three others voted NO as well for the reason they did not believe in the form and structure of government."

I looked at the full text of the so-called "Collective Position Paper on Transitory Provisions" and saw 19 signatures, including those of Toting and Jarius. The names of Andres D. Bautista, Amado S. Lagdameo Jr. and Alfonso T. Yuchengco, in addition, had been attached, but in the copy I received I didn’t see their signatures.

The preamble of the Paper stated: "The position being taken by certain members of this Consultative Commission, specifically Sections 7 and 8 of the Transitory Provisions, proposing in effect the cancellation of the May 2007 election is a position that will not be accepted by our people."

It added: "It could be construed as an attempt to entice our national and local officials to push for the passage of the revised constitution, in a myopic view that all our officials are only desirous of ensuring their political tenure. Such a proposition is not only an insult to our public officials but more importantly it is an affront on our people’s intelligence."

Now for my two centavos worth: I agree that our coming May 2007 elections must not be postponed – and perhaps no Cha-Cha effort can be fast-tracked to effect such a postponement. There is no way, I fear, to effect instant salvation for us via changing our form of government – without changing our attitudes and our mores.

But, contrary to the elegant two paragraphs above, some of our public officials deserve to be insulted, as well as our people’s intelligence, at times, "affronted." And here’s my problem: How can we hope for meaningful elections unless and until we reform the corrupt Commission on Elections which flubbed the May 2004 elections? As long as we cannot eject the crooked, and allegedly "vote-rigging" Commissioners of the Comelec – whose identities are wellknown – how can any Comelec-run polls be clean, honest and acceptable? Those who have been touting a "snap election" were guilty of the worst form of sophistry when they presented this to our people as the antidote to a "vote-cheating" La Gloria. A new "President" elected through the courtesy of the old Comelec by "snap elections"? It’s no surprise the idea fell flat on its face, and our people refused to "people power" anything of that demented sort, and went on trying to make a living.

Our messiahs have, alas, become pests. Who elected them, or divinely appointed them to lead us out of the morass into the Promised Land? Only themselves.