Her own paradigm

We’ve already noted that the real audience of Defense Secretary Avelino "Nonong" Cruz and Armed Forces chief of staff, General Generoso Senga, when they delivered their recent public lectures on civilian supremacy and the military’s duty to stay above politics, was the young officers and rank-and-file soldiers.

These are the segments of the military which need reminding, not the senior officers. The junior officers (from lieutenants to majors) and ordinary soldiers are the reason why reports persist of continuing restiveness in the military and of the suspicion that the AFP leadership has been puzzlingly indecisive in taking disciplinary action against erring military officials.

Secretary Cruz and General Senga are obviously engaged in an effort not only to flush out rebellious elements in the officer corps but also to unify the AFP by appealing to the sense of patriotic duty and professionalism of all military personnel. This effort is both politically correct and constitutionally sound.

It is politically correct because GMA’s defense of her presidency is largely dependent on a united military which is not constantly distracted by firefighting operations aimed at preventing defections by key units led by "adventurist" officers. Her overall plan to get to 2010, the centerpiece of which is Charter change, simply won’t work with a fractured and unreliable military organization.

The Cruz-Senga project is also constitutionally correct because the principles of civilian supremacy and a non-political military are undeniably critical to the health of our country’s democracy. The arguments, however, stem from the particular motives which seem to be driving the two gentlemen.

When Nonong holds forth about civilian supremacy, it can hardly be missed that organizationally, the Supreme Civilian he’s talking about is his boss, GMA. Further, as a member of the Cabinet, he is the alter ego of the President and, as such, is expected to echo her views about critical policy issues.

At the same time, General Senga, who insists he turned down the alleged invitation of Gen. Danny Lim to head the military "breakaway," and vigorously denied he was among its masterminds, probably needs to demonstrate his loyalty to his commander-in-chief, to whom he owes his position in the first place.

What better way for Senga to reinstate his credentials than to proclaim in several venues, including a Philippine Constitution Association luncheon meeting, no less, that "never again" will the military be used to further political ambitions. Some wags see this as an admission that there have indeed been times when the military has been so used.

Both Cruz and Senga made a point of debunking the distinction made by Angie Reyes between the "people and State" that the AFP is sworn to protect, and the incumbent government or administration which could precisely be the menace that the people and the State need the AFP’s protection from.

This was the sort of sophistry which GMA sought to reject in Proclamation No. 1017 when she cited an unrelenting effort to overthrow her "duly-elected" government as evidence of a plot to undermine the state. In her view, there can be no distinction between her government and the state. Here, Cruz and Senga, the highest officials of the country’s defense establishment, are obviously on the same page with her.

GMA has pragmatically concluded that accepting such a distinction, as she herself did when she was sworn in as President after Erap’s ouster, would be potentially fatal to her presidency. What Angie did unto Erap in 2001, in other words, a current AFP chief could do unto her in 2006.

Indeed, her current situation is more akin to Erap’s (I won’t say Marcos’ although that too can be argued) than to Cory Aquino’s. As President, Cory Aquino faced repeated attempted coups. Most were nipped in the bud or fizzled out on their own. But two actually resulted in armed hostilities, one in 1987 and a more serious one in 1989.

In both attempted coups, Cory was able to retain the loyalty of most of the military and repel Gringo Honasan’s attempts to unseat her because of the solid support of civil society and the Catholic Church. There were also rumors then of high-ranking military officers who would join Gringo. None materialized. Cory’s base was iron-clad, and the AFP stood firm against military defectors and coup plotters.

In 2001, Erap faced off against civil society and the Church, both of which wanted him to leave office. The issue then was not his electoral mandate, which was indubitable. The issue was alleged corruption which led to a supposed lack of confidence in him. At first, the AFP, then under Angie Reyes, stood with him.

Later, to make a long and familiar story short, Gen. Reyes broke ranks and "withdrew" the AFP’s "support," claiming a higher obligation to protect the people and the State. That proved to be the killing blow and, in short order, Erap was deposed.

Today, GMA does not have civil society behind her. The Catholic Church is still divided, agonizing over its role in political matters. While the Church has not officially asked her to resign, individual religious organizations and clergy have. The Senate is dominated by a vocal opposition while administration senators appear largely ineffectual.

The congressmen in the majority and most local officials have stood by her. The House majority dutifully, if somewhat artlessly, threw out the impeachment complaint. But these alliances, I’m sure she’s aware, are born of convenience and sustained by executive largesse. Their durability is, at best, uncertain.

Her best defense is a united and steadfast AFP. She already has the Philippine National Police, but ultimately, it’s the AFP that spells survival or disaster. Her nightmare is a Gen. Angie Reyes-type "withdrawal of support" of the AFP on the alleged authority of the Constitution.

GMA has to remove the constitutional underpinnings, and render both the political conditions and internal military situation wholly inhospitable for such a move. Her firming up of an alliance with the AFP leadership may seem to some to be a sensible exercise in realpolitik, or yet more proof of her growing desperation to others.

But from where she sits, she probably thinks the Cory and Erap experiences to have been instructive but not on all fours with current realities. Thus, she has had to invent her own paradigm. She really had no choice.