Esperon: The only PSG commander to become AFP chief of staff

Having covered Malacañang Palace from 1986 until February last year, I sort of started together at the same time with the Presidential Security Group (PSG). The forerunner of the PSG is the Presidential Security Command (PSC) that served the Palace during the administration of deposed President Ferdinand Marcos. The late Gen.Fabian Ver headed the PSC which lorded over the entire military outside the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The PSC was disbanded when President Corazon Aquino took office after the February 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. Aquino named then Col.Voltaire Gazmin as the Group Commander of the PSG. Gazmin dismantled the PSC structure and reduced it from a Command-size into a lean and composite Group-size of about 1,200 troopers.

Ex-President Aquino entrusted her life and safety in the hands of Gazmin. She found a very loyal Gazmin leading the PSG in her defense during the more than seven coup d’ etats launched against her government by military rebels. It took years after the Aquino administration ended in 1992 that Gazmin was promoted. He ended his military career as commanding General of the Philippine Army.

After Gazmin, the PSG saw several changes of commanders during the administration of President Fidel V.Ramos who had three under him –Brigadier Generals Ishmael Villareal, Leo Alvez and Jose Calimlim.

It was during the Ramos administration when I first came to know then Colonel Hermogenes Esperon Jr. He was the PSG deputy commander and chief of the Presidential Escorts from 1996 to 1998. He was the second-in-command and Chief of Staff of the PSG under Gen.Calimlim.

Throughout his tour of duty at the PSG I came to know Esperon fully well and witnessed how he worked as a professional soldier. Although there was no military restiveness during the Ramos watch, the PSG have been in the forefront of the many presidential activities that took their Commander-in-chief to the most dangerous parts of the country without any untoward incident.

Under the leadership of Esperon, an elite unit of the PSG ran after and caught then Rep. Romeo Jalosjos who went into hiding after the court found probable cause to charge and later convict the solon for statutory rape.

Recognizing his extensive training and exemplary exploits as an intelligence officer, Ramos designated Esperon as the commander of the Task Force APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) in 1996 when our country hosted the annual meeting of the 21 APEC leaders in Manila and in Subic Bay Freeport in Olongapo City.

I lost track of Esperon when he moved over to the AFP Headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, and later former President Joseph Estrada was sworn into office in June1998.

I learned later that Esperon went back into combat command somewhere in Mindanao when Estrada declared an all out war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). He commanded the 602nd Infantry Brigade in Carmen, Cotabato during the military offensive against the Muslim rebels and led government forces in dismantling the MILF camps, including Rajamuddah in the Liguasan marsh complex.

President Arroyo pulled out Esperon from Cotabato in June 2001 to command the 103rd Infantry Brigade in Basilan. In the wake of the Dos Palmas raid by Abu Sayaff bandits who kidnapped several foreign nationals and Filipino workers of that resort, Esperon was pulled out from Cotabato in June, 2001 to command the 103rd Infantry Brigade in Basilan, the stronghold of this kidnap-for-ransom gang. He was responsible for the recovery of most of the Dos Palmas hostages who included Joel Guillo, an accounting assistant in the Torres Hospital in Lamitan when the ASG raided it.

When Esperon subsequently moved over to Fort Magsaysay, he took with him Guillo whom he placed under his protective custody when the latter turned state witness against the ASG kidnappers. He enlisted Guillo to the AFP. Guillo, who is now corporal in the Army, is set to attend the Officer Candidate School.

The PSG is an excellent training ground for many police and military officers who serve to protect the heart and symbol of our Republic.

During the Estrada administration, the former President also utilized the PSG in law enforcement duties and responsibilities. He designated Calimlim as head of Task Force Aduana to run after big-time smugglers. Estrada later named then Marine Col. Rudulfo Diaz as his PSG commander.

When she became President at the end of EDSA-2 People Power Revolution on Jan.20,2001, President Arroyo named Gen.Glenn Rabonza as her PSG commander. In less than a year she promoted Rabonza and named Esperon as her PSG commander in 2002. In February 2003, she named Army Col.Delfin Bangit to head the PSG. Last Wednesday, the Commander-in-Chief witnessed the turn over of command at the PSG now headed by Air Force Col. Romeo Prestoza, Bangit’s classmate in the Philippine Military Academy Class 1978.

But of these former PSG commanders, it is only Esperon who distinguished himself to succeed as the incoming AFP chief of staff once incumbent Chief of Staff Gen.Generoso Senga retires next week.

Why am I going back to this modern-day history to tell some of these stories? It is my way of giving my humble testimonial to the good deeds and gallantry of these officers and gentlemen, some of which need to be told if only to fend off lies peddled by their bitter critics and detractors.

This is especially sad in the case of Esperon whose only fault was his being namedropped, without his knowledge, by a big-talker named Virgilio Garcillano, the former Comelec commissioner in the "Hello Garci" election scandal. Esperon was then busy in his May, 2004 election duties as the Comelec-deputized Task Force commander to ensure the honest, orderly and peaceful conduct of elections in Mindanao. We have here a classic case of a name-dropping victim who became the accused in alleged electoral frauds.

He has yet to hurdle before the Commission on Appointments (CA) his promotion as Lt.General and commanding General of the Philippine Army. And like any other battles he fought in the military field, I’m sure Esperon will emerge unscathed in this political war he has to face in the CA as he prepares to perform the higher duties entrusted to him by his Commander-in-chief.

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