Promoting democracy, sharing RP experience

This is the second of two articles by former president of the Phillipines Corazon C. Aquino, based on a presentation at the colloquium and inauguration of The Habibie Center in Jakarta on May 22.

JAKARTA: Confidence-building with the Armed Forces of the Philippines was an arduous task. For 14 years, soldiers had been used with impunity by the dictator to enforce martial law, raising a wall of suspicion between civilians and the military.

Civilians saw the soldiers as the enemies of freedom, and the military looked at us, the civilians as coddlers of communist rebels, if not communists ourselves. They looked with distrust at my coalition government with its assortment of human rights advocates, landers who defended the human rights of martial law victims, and liberal politicians.

And in me, they saw only the widow of the regime's foremost victim, Ninoy Aquino, who was murdered by his armed guards.

I once asked a Colonel if it were true that the military believed I could never forgive them. He confirmed it but said it was understandable, since he knew that the widows of the military felt the same way towards the insurgents.

I told him, that modesty aside, I was no ordinary widow. For I was widowed of a man but remained wedded to his cause -- to unite the nation and bring it peace.

I resolved to tear down the wall of suspicion between us and set about in small and big ways, to build the trust that was necessary to bring our society forward. I decided to start with my fellow women.

I brought the wives of Cabinet officials and the wives of military officers together in tasks which showed each side's comparative advantage -- discipline and system on one side, flexibility and networking on the other.

Theirs was the vital task of providing goods and services to our less fortunate brethren in times of natural calamities. Those friendships created then have lasted to this very day.

Next, I worked on the youth. I saw to it that the cadets who were undergoing intensive schooling at the elite Philippine Military Academy were introduced to university students in Metro Manila to exchange experiences and challenges.

At first, there were deplorable results, but as they got to know each other better, they began to like each other ...

I made the military, police and civilian authorities work together as full partners in the Peace and Order Councils on the national, provincial, city and municipal levels. I put disaster relief operations under the military, because it had the reach, the manpower and the best capability to cope with emergencies at a moment's notice.

I ordered the deployment of armed forces engineering brigades to open up for development those areas that were forbidden territory due to the presence of insurgents. By giving the military a positive role in development, we were changing the attitude that the country was theirs for the taking, to the attitude that they were an integral part of the country they were serving.

I gave the military to understand that I would trust them to improve the armed services as they saw fit. But they had to trust me also in the deep and sometimes unexpected selection I would make of their top commanders. Although I sprung some surprises on them, they kept their part of the bargain, and allowed my informed intuition to triumph over their informed preferences.

On hindsight, I realize that the military had much to deal with during the early part of my presidency. Besides their suspicion of my political orientation and the eclectic composition of my cabinet, they hardly knew how to react to the fact that their new Commander-in-Chief was a woman and the widow of the best-known victim of martial rule.

But I, too, was confused, and I made some pretty serious errors of judgment vis-a-vis the armed forces. It was perhaps a conscious act of the disruptive elements in the military leadership to confuse me.

For example, on the recommendation of the Board of Generals, I promoted officers on the eve of their defection to the military rebellion, and overlooked officers who would rush to the defense of our republic in its hour of gravest peril.

The interventionist forces in the military capitalized on the confusion of the soldiers and tried to entice them to support their multiple coup attempts against my government.

To them, intervention had become a habit that they would break only after repeated debacles at the hands of their peers who obeyed the constitutional mandate to uphold civilian supremacy and the repudiation of the civilian population.

Finally we triumphed. Both the military and my government overcame our suspicions and mistrust. Near the end of my term, I could confidently order the armed forces and the police to ensure the freest and fairest elections my country had ever known.

Never before had they been given an order by the political authority to remain neutral during an election. And I am proud to report that they rose gallantly to the occasion.

I knew when I assumed office that poverty alleviation would have to be the primary concern of my administration. But the government was bankrupt, saddled with a huge foreign debt that seemed unpayable. And my financial advisers had impressed upon me that we had no choice -- we had to honor that debt.

We had to correct the inequities and distortions created by the monopolies and cronyism of the past regime, and lift the unnecessary controls on the productive sectors of the economy.

We stopped political interference in the credit decisions of the government financial institutions, so that they could play their proper roles in the reconstruction of the country.

We had to control inflation, impose market competition discipline across the economy, and throw safety nets under those who would be most severely affected by these austerities.

We drew up the Community Employment Development Program to create employment on a massive scale ... But as we threw cash down to a cash-starved economy, we found that not all the money was going down to the supposed beneficiaries. Some of it was sticking to the hands of officials farther down the line.

Clearly whatever assistance government could extend would not go far without a reliable system that would make it go where it was supposed to. Thus developed my relationship with non- governmental organizations (NGOs) ... The military was especially wary of them. They were regarded as seed-beds of insurrection ...

But the drafters of our 1987 Constitution saw the value of NGOs ... as a partner of government.

The NGOs would behave no differently during my administration, jealously guarding their independence and keeping a skeptical distance from government and the military. They held government accountable for every human rights violation, every failure to deliver public services. They defied any attempt at categorization and control.

On being asked what things strengthen democracy, I replied economic progress naturally. But of course this depends on external factors ... But there is a way to strengthen democracy that is within any country's reach: people's empowerment.

Empowering the people means enlarging their contact with government beyond elections to its daily workings -- so that the vast resources of one support the initiatives of the other, and the policies of government are refined by the insights of the people. I tried to do this by giving representation to the NGOs in the government's economic development councils -- in the regional, provincial and municipal levels.

I also introduced the KABISIG or Partnership movement between government NGOs and the government, which provided the funds.

I also directed the governors to submit plans for other KABISIG projects to the Presidential Management Staff so that we could enlarge the activities of the NGOs in partnership with both national and local governments.

We therefore put projects in the hands of those directly affected and thus developed in them a proprietary sense over these projects. That was pump-priming as it should be -- a little money going a long way and releasing a greater fund of energy, creativity and endeavor.

In the end, we built two things: sustainable programs and projects, and the people's capability to run them and their own lives. The second -- which empowered them more than they ever imagined was the more enduring and valuable result.

Today, thousands of NGOs are operating in the Philippines. I, too, have joined the ranks of NGO workers through the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Foundation founded in 1983, three months after the assassination of my husband.

After I left the presidency in 1992, I continued my work in people empowerment through cooperatives education and development, and the promotion of a culture of peace, tolerance and human rights via the Institute of People Power and Development of the Aquino Foundation.

Hopefully, before the end of this year, I shall inaugurate the Aquino Center in my home province of Tarlac in Central Luzon.

Like The Habibie Center, the Aquino Center will help develop Philippine society along democratic lines. We plan to hold conferences and seminars for Philippine cooperatives, NGOs and other organizations dedicated to further strengthening our democracy.