Defense chief

Twenty-three years ago this month, Voltaire Gazmin lost five of his men in the bloodiest attempt to topple the government of Corazon Aquino.

Two were part of the so-called kitchen detail of the Presidential Security Group (PSG). The three others were close-in security of the president’s only son, Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, who was himself seriously wounded in the attack.

As the coup got underway in the wee hours of Aug. 28, 1987, Gazmin rushed from Malacañang’s Gate 4, near St. Jude church, where the two PSG members were hit, to the house on Arlegui street that President Cory had chosen as her official residence.

There Gazmin gathered together members of the presidential household for a security headcount, and noted one missing: the commander-in-chief herself. Never late for appointments, Cory Aquino had taken her time combing her hair, explaining to Gazmin that she had to look “presidential” even in the midst of crisis.

Gazmin recalls that incident to illustrate his former boss’ composure under fire. Days later, she would sue The STAR for libel after columnist Luis Beltran wrote that she hid under her bed at the height of the coup.

It was the sixth coup attempt in a span of just 18 months from the people power revolution. Fifty-three people were killed, many of them bystanders.

With that kind of threat against their principal, the PSG did not take chances. Even if the guards saw the bratty members of the Malacañang Press Corps at least six days a week, journalists risked being hit by a burly close-in security man’s elbow if they tried to get too close to Cory Aquino without prior clearance, even when she was merely walking the few meters between the Palace and her office at the Premier Guest House.

The commander of the PSG rarely smiled and did not engage in small talk with the press. In all the years that I covered Malacañang, I must have exchanged only a handful of sentences with the taciturn Volts Gazmin.

As the first Aquino presidency winded down, Gazmin hosted a get-together with the press corps at the PSG compound, across the river from the Palace. He explained why he had to be uncompromising when it came to the president’s security. And then he entertained us with a song-and-dance number in which he belted out only one word: “Tequila!”

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Today Gazmin is a different man, and not just because his hair has turned silver and he is often in a suit and tie. Over lunch the other day, he was all smiles and droll humor, happy to reminisce about turbulent times.

Perhaps age has mellowed him; in three months he is turning 66. Before he was recruited back into government, Gazmin said he was busy with “apostolic work” – playing with his three apos or grandchildren. Perhaps stints in the foreign service have taught him the virtue of smiling.

Of course the smile is helped along by the fact that the only son of his former boss is now president of the republic. And the son has just appointed Gazmin as secretary of national defense.

As many people know, Gazmin came to know the Aquinos when he became the custodial officer of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. at Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija. It was martial law and Gazmin, a member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA)’s Class ’68, was an Army first lieutenant who was put in charge of the nation’s most prominent opposition member. Gazmin would later ask Ninoy to stand as ninong or sponsor at his wedding.

In 1985, Gazmin was working as vice president for operations of Mindanao Steel, in the border of Iligan and Misamis Oriental, when opposition candidate Corazon Aquino launched her challenge to the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos.

Gazmin wrote her a note, saying if she needed protection, he was ready to serve.

She did summon him for protection, but after the people power revolt, to ask him to head her presidential guards. Gazmin readily agreed. At her funeral last year, he was one of the pallbearers.

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The other day I asked Gazmin if the coup virus has been eradicated from the Armed Forces of the Philippines. His reply: “Sana wala na (Hopefully it’s gone).”

He has started visiting military camps around the country, explaining his plans for the AFP, and reassuring the troops that the Class ’78 PMA “mistahs” of retired Armed Forces chief Delfin Bangit were not being marginalized.

The defense department is also reviewing its procurement process. Gazmin said that from the moment a soldier makes a wish for a particular item, it takes 988 steps before he gets his wish. But cutting down that process must not be at the expense of transparency and accountability, he said.

Gazmin knows his department is competing with other agencies for priority in funding. If the AFP could only get the original amount committed for its modernization, it would be enough, he said. Of the P369 billion over 15 years that was committed under the modernization law passed in 1995, the AFP has received only P32 billion.

He said the AFP welcomes foreign military aid, but only if there are no strings attached. US troops in Mindanao? The AFP needs their intelligence-gathering equipment, which only US troops can operate, Gazmin said.

Amid concerns over extrajudicial killings, Gazmin would only say that if proof is presented and a formal complaint filed by activist groups, the AFP would cooperate and produce accused soldiers in court. He thinks the AFP has reason to hold on to the so-called Morong 43.

Gazmin is familiar with the complexities of fighting insurgents and terrorists, having been assigned in conflict areas at various points in his military career.

After the end of the first Aquino presidency, he was appointed defense attaché to Washington, but he asked to be recalled two years later for promotion purposes. In 1995, he became brigade commander in Basilan, where he said Abu Sayyaf founding chieftain Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani was his neighbor as the group started gaining notoriety.

Today, as the defense chief of Cory Aquino’s only son, Gazmin sometimes forgets that he is no longer the head of the presidential guards or even a soldier.

His most immediate hurdle at this point is the Commission on Appointments. If he is rejected, he can always go back to “apostolic work,” Gazmin said. With a smile.