Masterminds of the abortive coup

Masterminds of the abortive coup

Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

Both Malacanang and Camp Aguinaldo have sounded the alarm over
the involvement of certain politicians, with Interior Secretary
Joey Lina even naming ex-coup leader and now opposition senator
Gringo Honasan. Even Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia, Armed Forces vice
chief of staff and military spokesperson, described the group of
rogue junior officers as "Honasan's faction." But senators have
crossed party lines to defend Honasan, or at least give the man
who led the two most destructive coup attempts in the 1980s the
benefit of the doubt.

Until Lina produces the evidence he says links Honasan to the
mutiny, we are left to note resemblances between the military
adventures he staged and Sunday's mutiny.

To be sure, from one point of view, Honasan's fingerprints
seem to be all over the place. The coup attempts of February
1986, August 1987 and December 1989 were fatally flawed in both
concept and execution. The coup leaders had an insufficient idea
of the vital strategic centers that must be controlled, and they
failed to muster enough disciplined soldiers to carry out their
already limited plans. Above all, their plans did not factor in
the need for people's support.

Sunday's mutiny -- perhaps as in February 1986 an aborted coup
-- was marked by the same defects. The failure to take public
support into consideration was especially telling. Instead of
drawing public sympathy, the mutineers' defensive maneuver --
taking over the Glorietta mall and the Oakwood hotel -- was
guaranteed to put their motives in the worst possible light.

The idea that the mutiny was merely a "peaceful" attempt to
raise the officers' grievances, as mutiny leader Lieutenant
Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes IV insisted several times to
reporters, was so diametrically opposite the reality that the
public could see for themselves on TV that it completely
undermined the mutineers' credibility. But then, credibility is
something to worry about only when you care about what the public
thinks.

Some of the grievances the military mutineers have raised are
legitimate, but the method they have chosen to dramatize their
concerns is illegal, immoral, inept-and ultimately un-Filipino.
We denounce the mutiny in the strongest possible terms.

Taking over parts of the Glorietta commercial complex in
Makati City, the country's central business district, may have
been a defensive maneuver yesterday on the part of the
disgruntled junior officers, whom the President ordered arrested
on Saturday night. But their action has harmed both their cause
of action, and the country at large.

As of noon Sunday, the world's news channels and news websites
were full of images of heavily armed soldiers keeping watch over
booby-trapped buildings, beside stories with such headlines as
Armed men seize Manila mall. The damage to the country's image
will be weighed in the next few days, but we can be sure that the
impact will illustrate the truth of a new axiom: The road to
public relations hell is paved with disgruntled officers' good
intentions.

The mutineers' cause has also sustained a mortal blow. Raising
serious issues-including systemic military corruption, connivance
with the enemies of the state, state-sponsored terrorism, and an
alleged Macapagal administration plan to declare martial law in
August -- the mutineers have failed to present evidence aside
from the testimony of their personal experience. By staging a
mutiny and taking over a commercial center, however, the officers
have knocked these issues off the pedestal they had themselves
jerrybuilt. Now the issue facing both the administration and the
nation is more stark: If military officers commit a crime,
shouldn't they be punished to the fullest extent of the law?

The public has lost patience with, and the government has
learned the ineffectiveness of, the 100-pushups brand of
punishment. While the Macapagal administration must look into the
officers' grievances, the chain of command must subject the
mutineers to the maximum penalty under the law.