Corruption driving force
behind coup attempts

IT seems clear after reading the two term papers written by Lieutenant Senior Grade Antonio F. Trillanes about massive corruption in the Philippine Navy procurements system, why he and his co-officers decided to launch the coup attempt on July 27.

Trillanes wrote both papers in 2001 and 2002 as part of his Master's degree classes at the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism has placed them on its website for all to read.

In his introduction he gives a mini-history of the Philippine Navy, and how it has always been unable to project power. Instead, it has been only able to patrol national waters and enforce maritime laws when it felt like it. He then goes into the various forms of ship-based and land-based corruption in the navy. Most of the sea-based corruption involves active collusion with smugglers by either providing them with navy escorts as they sail into ports or to look the other way as they smuggle in vast quantities of cigarettes, clothes, electronics, weapons and many times drugs. Of course pay-offs are made to navy commanders to allow all of this to happen.

If some smugglers are caught who haven't made prior arrangements with the navy, they are often forced to pay out a portion of what they are smuggling to corrupt navy personnel in order to be allowed to pass, according to Trillanes.

Other forms of corruption in the Philippine Navy involve illegally selling government-supplied fuel to traders, overcharging the government for boat repairs and pocketing the difference between the paper cost and the actual much cheaper cost, and overcharging for supplies.

Trillanes' conclusion is devastating in its indictment of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's tendency to tolerate corruption in the name of political expediency. He bases this conclusion on the fact that the President accepted Rear Admiral Guillermo Wong's resignation in February 2001 after his no-nonsense anti-corruption stance didn't sit well with the Marines. When he had assumed his post as head of the entire Philippine Navy in December 2000, he began an anti-corruption clean-up campaign that of course alarmed all of those corrupt officers in the navy.

Wong was eventually offered a post in the Northern Philippines by then Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Angelo Reyes, which Wong turned down for being an obvious demotion.

"For a President and Commander-in-Chief, whose government was supposed to be founded on such slogans as 'New Politics', moral regeneration and good governance, to say what General Reyes did 'was the right thing' was truly demoralizing to say the least," writes Trillanes in his paper. He concludes by saying that the corruption problem in the Philippine Navy is "grave", and that this can only be overcome "if the next crusading Flag-Officer-In-Command will be fully supported by a Commander-in-Chief who possesses strong leadership qualities and who will not allow political concessions and political indebtedness to be the basis of his/her decision-making as regards AFP matters. This way the whole AFP Officer Corps will not get the impression that they are being treated as an organization of untouchables who can easily get away with anything."

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THE LEADER of countless coup attempts in the past, Senator Gringo Honasan has gone into hiding for fear that the government would have him arrested for being one of the coup plot leaders.

It would seem that only in the Philippines, with its penchant for forgiving almost everyone for crimes committed against the people or the government, that a bloody coup leader could reinvent himself and become a respected senator. But that is exactly what Honasan has managed to do. Despite his success at holding office, many in the Philippines have never really fully regained confidence in the rebel-turned-senator.

Despite his vehement protestations of having nothing to do with the latest coup attempt, it is becoming increasing clear that he was indeed involved, and was probably one of its masterminds. The government's star witness, Major Perfecto Ragil, claims that Honasan led the junior officers involved in the July 27 coup attempt in a "blood compact" on June 4. I burst out laughing when I read this in a wire story, not believing how juvenile Honasan and the officers were. Who do they think they are? The Hardy Boys?

Honasan has built his political platform on his National Recovery Program (NRP), whose main aim is to tackle the rampant corruption in the Philippine government. According to Ragil, at the blood compact meeting a cut was made below each man's left armpit and all those present pressed their right thumbs on the cut and then onto a copy of the NRP prayer. Thus their bloody thumbprints were used to seal their commitment to implementing the NRP if the coup succeeded.

I'm sure they must all call themselves "brother" and "brod," and with Honasan's dashing good looks it's no surprise that he has taken on the role of being their messianic leader who will deliver them from corruption and all things evil. With the level of all-encompassing corruption corroding the entire Philippine government, I'm extremely sympathetic to the legitimate grievances of the rebel officers.

Instead of court-martialing the 45 officers who led the nearly 300 officers in the July 27 coup attempt, President Macapagal-Arroyo would do better to examine herself and the government that she leads. This massive mountain of corruption cannot be allowed to grow forever. A clean-up operation should have been started long ago, but sadly it seems that the President doesn't have the political or moral will to fight the horrible cancer that is eating away Philippine society. It's "sayang talaga" that a president who seemed to promise so much for a better Philippines has turned out to be someone who tolerates and looks the other way when it comes to corruption.

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