Category: military

angelo reyes: selective memory

THE POVERTY OF WORDS
Theodore Te

Listening to the public hearing called by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to investigate the toxic deal entered into by the Ombudsman and the Special Prosecutor with former AFP Comptroller Carlos F. Garcia, I realized the poverty of the English language in expressing the sense of anger, outrage, and disbelief that I felt while listening to Angelo Reyes, former AFP Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense, and a former comptroller Jacinto Ligot publicly claiming convenient memory loss in relation to charges that Reyes and other AFP Chiefs of Staff received retirement money running to as high as Fifty Million Pesos and monthly stipends of about Five Million Pesos.

“Angry”, “Enraged” and “Appalled” fail to scratch the surface in describing the emotions running through me as I listened to a public airing of dirty linen in the AFP hierarchy by its former budget director. There were no words then and there are none now, at least in the English language, to describe the anger, the rage, the utter sense of disbelief at the moral depravity of these “officers and gentlemen” in their cavalier treatment of people’s funds.

Handing out the people’s money to Generals to welcome them into the fold or send them off into yet another cushy job was apparently a way of life for them, and the monies that they handed out were not petty cash. These ran into the tens of millions, and not for one occasion but were given monthly! In what government manual these comptrollers saw the justification for being able to hand out money like that I will never know; I work for the government and I have yet to see a government manual that will allow me to hand out the people’s money like it was a personal expense account.

Never mind that the money that was being handed out could have been used for soldiers’ welfare; never mind that it could have gone to basic, minimum, and much needed protective gear and equipment like combat boots and field rations; never mind that it could have gone to housing, let alone better housing; never mind that it could have gone to better use for our soldiers in the field.

Mind only that the money lined the pockets of those few, those exalted, those influential, those connected enough to make it to the top tier of the AFP hierarchy; mind only that they think they are “entitled” to this money because they have stars on their epaulets while our soldiers gaze at the stars in open battle fields wondering when the wars will end; mind only that even as their pockets, wallets and bank accounts are filled to bursting with these amounts that they conveniently forget receiving such amounts.

The King’s (or Queen’s) English is such a beautiful language, yet on this occasion I find it so poor, so mendicant, so totally insufficient and inadequate to express what I, and I am certain many others, feel while listening to an account of plunder that would stir even the most jaded of hearts to anger.

Filipino is a much more beautiful language. It conveys feelings, emotions, passions and desires with greater profundity than English. Reflecting on how I felt, I thought that perhaps nakakagalit, nakakapoot, nakakapanlumo could better capture what was stirred in me by the revelations at the hearing yesterday.

I do not profess expertise in either English or Filipino and thus may correctly, under these circumstances, profess to be a “man of few words.”

And so I sit here, trying to conjure up words like nakakagalit, nakakapoot, nakakapanlumo to express how I feel more profoundly than being “angry”, “enraged” or “appalled”; and the realization strikes me that while these filipino words indeed scratch the surface, they nonetheless fail miserably at conveying the depth of anger of a soul reduced to simmering silence by the stark poverty of words.

pia hontiveros vs. admiral angue

caught strictly politics last night and was amazed at pia hontiveros’ total lack of objectivity re rear admiral feliciano angue’s complaints.   a lot of whining daw, signifying nothing?   hmm.   her husband is in the military, ‘no?   methinks she protests too much.   angue reminds me of senator trillanes back when he was griping about corruption in the military and the grievance committee wouldn’t act on his complaints.   reminds me too of fvr when he finally broke away from the marcos government on grounds that promotions in ver’s afp were not based on merit but palakasan.   where there’s smoke there’s fire?   senator now congressman once afp chief rodolfo biazon seems to think so.

the plot thickens

a conspiracy theory has it that ces drilon unwittingly walked into a trap sprung to give the armed forces reasonto start another all-out-war in mindanao, win pogi points with gma who in turn wins pogi points with george w. bush, and, incidentally, discredit mayor alvarez isnaji who’s running for governor in the armm elections.

it would explain why the situation was resolved so quickly, without serious harm to ces and co. but i have a hard time wrapping my mind around such a theory mainly because it would have hinged on ces or some bigfish like her being dumb enough to make kagat the bait of an exclusive interview with a surrendering abu sayyaf. it would also mean that the orenas needn’t have come up with ransom money, as ces and co. would could have been released anyway in time for gma’s trip to mindanao. unless of course the idea was to harass ces’ kapamilya, abs-cbn, into coughing up the millions, pero the kapamilya balked, strictly adhering daw to the no-ransom policy, so that ces’ true pamilya had to raise the first five million. unless of course abs-cbn is the source of the two duffle bags of money that pnp chief razon knew nothing about daw?

and then again maybe abs-cbn was part of the conspiracy? this would explain whythe police, and maria ressa, stopped ces from answering questions at her first presscon in zamboanga, questions that were only for razon to answer daw?

will we ever know what really happened? will anc ever tell us what it knows? will we ever believe anc again?

oh, and dan mariano of manila times has one last question : who’s footing the bill for that ten-day suspense serial that had us all glued to radio and tv for the latest news?

Thousands of police and soldiers were mobilized for operations to secure the news team’s freedom. Manila-based officials broke off their regular schedules and flew to the far South to coordinate the operations. The government was not about to let itself be seen as complacent-even if the victims belong to a media organization hostile to the administration.

The massive movement of security personnel and equipment was done at great cost to the state. Who will foot the bill?

In countries with efficient rescue services, the parties that call for help are often required to pay for the cost of emergency response. This is one aspect of the 911 shows on television that is rarely mentioned. However, the logic is unassailable.

The upkeep for emergency response units comes from public funds, which in turn are sourced from taxpayers’ money. The cost of deploying those units should therefore be borne by those who directly benefit from them-unless, of course, they are indigent. However, a network like ABS-CBN can hardly be described as needy.

indeed. tinataga tayo ng lopezes sa koryente, karma-karma lang kung sila naman ngayon ang tagain for the operations that resulted in the release of their star correspondent. they can always make bawi by making a documentary that will tell all, and i mean ALL, in the spirit of the public’s right to know, na mantra ni maria ressa once upon a time not too long ago.

the edsa tradition

a friend texted after reading my blog on the trillanes trip: “OMG the blogger wants blood!?! how demanding!”

not at all. i was just trying to point out (maybe i failed) that trillanes was doomed yet again unless he was on non-violent mode and willing to die for his beliefs a la ninoy-cory-butz, seeing as the arroyo police was on shock-awe-and-destroy mode a la marcos-ver.

let’s not forget that what was remarkable, and what deserves re-creating, about edsa one was not so much the military rebellion as it was the non-violent action of the people, stopping tanks with their warm bodies and ardent prayers, which “disarmed” so to speak, and rendered non-violent too, the marcos military.

cardinal sin “forgot” this noong edsa dos. and juan ponce enrile, miriam defensor santiago, and tito sotto “forgot” this noong edsa tres. this is why when historian rey ileto asked me, soon after edsa dos and tres, what differences i saw between “the original EDSA and its pale reflections,” i could only agree. pale reflections, indeed. poor imitations, in fact.

the edsa tradition would have been better re-lived by edsa dos if cardinal sin had not stopped the youth from moving the action to mendiola. noong edsa uno, day 3 pa lang, unarmed militant groups were already gathering in mendiola; coryistas marched in from edsa the next day. the mission: to scare marcos, make him think violent mobs were at the gates, on the verge of breaking in. in fact, non-violent pa rin ang strategy. some stones and bottles were thrown at the marines guardingthe palace gates and barricades but not to hit or hurt, only to provoke the soldiers to shoot their guns in the air and thus freak out the marcoses.

but during edsa dos, cardinal sin was so afraid that violence would break out, remembering only the violent entry into and looting of the palace. in fact all that violence happened only after the choppers had lifted off with the marcoses and the marines had withdrawn. and had ramos and gringo/the new armed forces bothered to send troops to the palace along with the people (it’s not as if they didn’t know marcos was leaving), the transition would have been completely orderly.

and so, had the edsa dos crowd been allowed to march to mendiola a la edsa uno, with the mission in mind of peacefully, through sheer numbers, pressuring erap into signing an unequivocal letter of resignation drafted by the people, then that particular issue would truly be closed. instead, erap freaked out only enough to leave the seat of the presidency, but not to resign the office.

as for edsa tres. imagine if the edsa tres “mob” had been better informed by their leaders about edsa 1986, in particular how the non-violent strategy worked to neutralize the armed forces and freak the marcoses out. imagine if the masses who marched to mendiola marched peacefully instead and surrounded malacanang in a giant sit-in, filling the streets, stopping traffic, with priests saying mass and nuns leading the praying of the rosary24/7… the armed forces would have been helpless, gloria would have had to negotiate, the erap question could have been more quickly and more clearly resolved.

our problem is, we’re fixated on a rebel military as the key to mobilizing people power. our problem is, we don’t see, or we forget, that by the time enrile and ramos defected in february ’86, people power was already mobilized, it was already day 7 of cory’s civil disobedience campaign, coryistas were on non-violent revolutionary mode, the boycott of Marcos-crony businesses was peaking, and the economy was reeling from bank runs and capital flight. there was no doubt by then that cory’s strategy, to compel the business community to force marcos to step down, was succeeding. in fact it was succeeding so well, the military reformists just had to get into the act, and that’s when people power was diverted to edsa.

in other words, change is not up to the military, change is up to us. cory showed us the way, if we would only see.