Exploitation not adventurism

As we explained in our last column, one of the problems in keeping the military insulated from partisan politics, as mandated by the Constitution, and preventing civilian government (which is to say, politicians) from meddling in purely military affairs is that the principle of civilian supremacy has institutionalized such meddling.

From the military’s budget, up to the appointment of the AFP chief of staff, both the Executive and Legislative Departments have what amounts to the final say. The President decides, in the first instance, how much to give the military in a proposed appropriations law. Congress decides through the legislative process whether to accept the Executive department’s proposal in toto or, in general, with amendments.

Thus, for example, any expenditures for equipment modernization, increases in salaries and benefits, upgrades of combat armament, new and improved field medical and base hospital facilities, or expansion of training opportunities, must all be authorized under a current year’s budget.

Moreover, when colonels and generals, as well as the heads of the service commands and the AFP chief of staff, are appointed, the concurrence of the Commission on Appointments is required. Otherwise, the appointment is deemed rejected.

The relationship between the civilian government and the military is, by constitutional mandate, close and can be mutually reinforcing. Whether either party likes it or not, the civilian government meddles in the military. On the other hand, the military is not in a legal or constitutional position to meddle in the civilian government because of the principle of civilian supremacy. Nevertheless it can benefit, and in this country has historically benefited, from that relationship.

Initially, the weighing scales tip in favor of the government, in particular the Executive department. In our constitutional system, executive power is vested in the President of the Republic. But the relationship is an uneasy one. The President is also the commander-in-chief of all the country’s armed forces. Thus, the "chain of command," to which all military personnel swear fealty, should run all the way up to the President.

But the Armed Forces of the Philippines claim constitutional authority and historical precedent for one proposition which, in their minds, justifies the breaking of that chain of command and the eventual removal of the civilian authority.

This proposition has nothing to do with armed rebellion or coup d’etat a la EDSA I, a process which led to a revolutionary situation, the scrapping of the Constitution then in force, and the decree of a temporary "revolutionary" constitution, while a new organic law was being written up.

But coups d’etat have become specific crimes punishable under our Revised Penal Code. "People power" has gone out of style, and even the Church is somewhat paralyzed by its agonizing over the extent it can participate in political affairs.

These days everything, including political protest or overt anti-government action, must have constitutional "color." Thus, the uniformed military has found weighty constitutional justification for a strange, bipolar relationship with its civilian commander-in-chief.

While proclaiming the supremacy of civilian authority, the AFP also recognizes an authority higher than the government which happens to wield that civilian authority at any given time. That higher authority is "the people and the State" which the Armed Forces of the Philippines (The Constitution refers specifically to the AFP, in caps. Look it up.) have the sworn duty to protect.

In discharging that duty, this argument goes, the AFP may legally "withdraw support," in that immortal formulation of Angie Reyes, from an incumbent civilian government. The military has done this, both when the electoral mandate of the incumbent President was dubious (EDSA I) and when that mandate was indubitable (EDSA II). So, it doesn’t seem to matter whether the President was duly elected or not. What matters is whether, in the eyes of the AFP, the "people" have "lost confidence" in the incumbent President.

You’d have to be pretty dense to deceive yourself into thinking the Palace occupant doesn’t have this supposed constitutional responsibility of the AFP in mind when she deals with the military establishment. She has the constitutional obligation to wield the "supreme" civilian authority, but she also can’t step over the line beyond which the AFP perceives a duty to exercise its power to protect the people and the State against an incompetent, corrupt, inefficient, ineffective, unelected, or unpopular President. Choose your reason. There are many of those around to use as rationale for "withdrawing support." Anyway, you don’t have to prove anything. The successful unseating of the incumbent is the best evidence of the validity of your cause.

You don’t even have to follow Constitutional processes of impeaching the President. That process is flawed and corrupted anyway, it is asserted, whereas any action in the name of the protection of the people and the State has to be spotlessly pure, unquestionably patriotic and selflessly professional.

Defense Secretary Avelino "Nonong" Cruz and AFP chief of staff, General Generoso Senga, recently felt it necessary to restate the painfully obvious about the soldier’s duty to stay above politics and recognize the supremacy of civilian authority.

Why did they do this? Not, I think, because there remains a credible threat of a "tactical alliance" between the Left, Rightist "military adventurists," and elements in the political opposition obsessed with unseating GMA. The government, the AFP and the Philippine National Police have pretty much succeeded in aborting any such alliance. It is, for all intents and purposes, dead in the water.

The real audiences of Nonong and Senga are not those of us who are tired of the posturing of military men who think, contrary to the evidence, that they can run government better, and of political leaders who exploit the military.

Their real audience is the long-suffering military man, except that Nonong and Senga glossed over that existing relationship with the President which, while remaining uncomfortable and even threatening, has actually been quite profitable and career-enhancing for those in the senior officer corps willing to play the game. (To be continued)