EDSA 20

(Editor’s note: To mark the 22nd anniversary of EDSA I, the Philippine Daily Inquirer is running a series of articles focusing on the first coup attempt in the nation’s history, its impact on the military and the turmoil that the nation is currently experiencing. We begin with the reminiscences of the head of the Narcotics Command at the time.)

MANILA, Philippines -- Today, as I relive my personal experience during the four days of EDSA 1986, the most vivid images and sounds that emerge are of the nuns with rosaries facing the tanks with soldiers atop them.

There are the perspiring, agonizing faces of commanders from both the government and the rebel sides and the voice of Lt. Gen. Fidel Ramos.

Ramos, the vice chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and head of the Philippine Constabulary/Integrated National Police (PC/INP), is appealing to the commander of the government troops poised in Camp Aguinaldo to bombard and assault the rebel forces in Camp Crame across EDSA (Epifanio delos Santos Avenue) to hold his fire and think of the higher interest of the nation.

Prayers are chanted over “Radio Bandido,” seeking Divine Intervention and there’s the mournful strains of the Philippine Military Academy alma mater song.

It started like any ordinary day

For most of us in the military, Feb. 22, 1986, started out very routinely.

In the AFP Narcotics Command (Narcom) of which I was the commanding general, I noticed that instead of the usual Saturday inspections and troop information program, our marijuana eradication unit, which was the most combat-ready in Narcom, was drawing heavy weapons and boxes of ammunition from the armory.

When asked, the sergeant in charge replied that his commander, Lt. Col. Teodorico Viduya (PMA Class of 1971), had given orders to prepare for deployment on a marijuana eradication operation in the Cordilleras.

I did not consider it unusual, even though I knew that our previous request for helicopter support from general headquarters (GHQ) was not granted.

Then I went to the office of AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Fabian C. Ver at Malacañang Park to follow up our invitation for him to be our guest speaker on the third anniversary of Narcom on March 1, 1986.

Arrested RAM officers

Only the sergeant major was in the office. He informed me that I could not see General Ver that day as he was due to interview that noon arrested officers of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) who were involved in a coup plot against President Marcos.

Later in the afternoon, Ver was scheduled to join First Lady Imelda Marcos as sponsors during the wedding of one of the children of Maj. Gen. Vicente Piccio, the Philippine Air Force commanding general.

It was shortly after the Feb. 7 snap elections and the emergence of RAM, composed of young idealistic officers who were unhappy with the way Marcos’ favorite generals were running the AFP and the police with the “bata-bata” (buddy-buddy) system in bloom and personal loyalty to the powers-that-be were the main criteria for promotion in rank and appointment to juicy positions in the AFP/INP.

The professional corps of independent-minded officers of merit and performance languished in the lonely battlefields and in the “kangkongan” fields of the AFP and INP.

Tipping point reached

For weeks after the snap elections, the air was rife with coup rumors but I never had an inkling that fateful Saturday that the “tipping point” had been reached and the RAM plot to assault Malacañang and assassinate top Marcos generals had been uncovered and that many officers had been taken into custody by the Presidential Security Command.

Not knowing what was going on then, I had an early dinner with my family at our quarters in Fort Bonifacio and watched a war movie -- “The Delta Force” -- at Rizal Theater in Makati with my wife and children.

When we got out of the movie house at around 11 p.m., it was eerily quiet; no traffic and very few people walking around that busy part of Makati. When I reached home, I was greeted with so many callers on my military and PLDT telephones.

Defectors on the line

The first one was Col. Oscar Florendo, who briefed me about the defection of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramos that was announced during a press conference held earlier at Camp Aguinaldo.

A few minutes later, Ramos himself was on the line informing me that the Narcom Combat Group under Viduya was already under his control and tasked with specific missions with other PC/INP units.

My task was to gather all other Narcom personnel in Camp Crame and to call all my classmates and other officers in the other branches of the AFP to join us or, if they could not, to gather their troops in their respective camps and protect the Filipino people.

‘Yes, sir’

When I answered, “Yes, sir,” I knew those words were not empty. It was a commitment to a mutiny against the chain of command that was no longer responsive to the interest of the AFP and to the higher interest of the Filipino people.

Those were agonizing moments for most of us who were already senior commanders in the AFP and the PC/INP and who remained loyal to the chain of command until then despite the intense recruitment efforts of the RAM leaders who accused us of being “too senior to care, too comfortable to be concerned, and too rich to be involved.”

Our generation of officers was imbued with our traditional role of service to country and people. The chain of command -- from the Commander in Chief down to the squad leader -- is the link that binds us together as one body, always in concert, always in unity in the performance of our tasks.

This total obedience to the chain of command was part of our being as soldiers. To wrench ourselves away from this lifetime obedience to the chain of command and face fellow soldiers in violent confrontations with little hope of victory against superior, well-armed Marcos loyalist forces was very traumatic for me as my three children were still very young with my youngest child only 8 years old.

But that night, I brought out my family from Fort Bonifacio which was then the camp of the largest and most loyal Marcos troops and hid them in our small apartment in Makati.

Who’s who

Early Sunday morning after Mass, I joined my troops in Camp Crame in a rebellion of conscience with the Filipino people. Later on that day my two older children -- Rommel, 20, and Rian, 13 -- joined me in Camp Crame, where they were able to feel the pulse of the Filipino people encamped around the area, feeding and protecting the rebel soldiers inside.

I saw the Ayalas, the Lopezes, the Cosetengs, the Rufinos in their elegant clothes and with their portable toilets mixed with the toothless, unkempt masses from the squatter areas of Metro Manila interspersed with well-organized groups of Kasapi, NUCD, Socdem, Atom and many religious prayer groups.

However, toward noon I received instructions from the office of General Ver to report to him and join other AFP commanders to pledge support to President Marcos. Narcom then was an AFP specified command.

I was directly under the AFP chief of staff. As my task then under the rebel command was to convince other unit commanders of the AFP to join the rebellion and to monitor movements of loyalist forces who were expected to attack the Crame forces, I decided to comply with the order.

Last photo-op

However, I was late as the other AFP commanders were already with President Marcos in Malacañang for that last photo-op. I was met by a senior aide of Ver who confronted me with the announcement by Ramos on the radio that I had already defected and that Narcom troops with other rebel units were deployed to defend Radio Veritas when Metrocom troops under Col. Rolando Abadilla were ordered to destroy the radio station sympathetic to the rebel cause.

Even when confronted by a news reporter who was present in Camp Crame when Ramos made the announcement, I just denied it and said it was just psywar by the rebel camp. Fortunately, Ver arrived, which ended the discussions.

Ver was happy to see me and immediately asked me if I could liaison with Ramos for both of them to talk and discuss the situation. He added that he had asked Abadilla to talk to Enrile in behalf of President Marcos. Our short talk was interrupted by so many telephone calls from AFP Regional Unified Commanders (RUCs) pledging support to President Marcos and to Ver.

After telling me that the Enrile-Ramos mutiny had no support from the majority of AFP field command as culled from the reports he received from the field, Ver told me to hurry back to Camp Crame and relay his message to Ramos.

Battle of phone calls

When I was ushered out of the office, I passed by the operations center where I saw on the operations map the long list of units already aligned with the rebel camp. Maybe the operations officer posting the figures took the psywar pronouncements of Camp Crame hook, line and sinker, or he was just not receiving reports relayed to Ver by his RUC commanders.

When I returned to Camp Crame and relayed Ver’s message to Ramos, he just smiled and asked so many questions about what I saw in Malacañang. As with Ver at Malacañang, our discussion was interrupted by so many telephone calls coming from AFP units pledging support to the Enrile-Ramos rebellion. It was beginning to be a battle of telephone calls.

However, the telephone calls and the TV images of the mass of humanity encamped at EDSA must have had tremendous impact on the entire AFP officer corps, as we began to receive through the Narcom gate of Camp Crame, groups of lieutenants, captains and majors from various AFP commanders deserting their units to join the rebellion.

True bonding

Some of them were armed, but mostly they were without guns -- just armed with the spirit to fight alongside the Filipino people in a crusade to overthrow an oppressive, abusive and corrupt regime. We could feel the true bonding of the soldier with the Filipino people.

But before dawn of Monday, when the crowd at EDSA had already thinned out and the loyalist troops were already in Camp Aguinaldo with their mortars and guns sited in the golf course and sighting Camp Crame as their target, and as Brig. Gen. Artemio Tadiar of the Philippine Marines prepared his final assault on Camp Crame, and Ramos had given the orders to vacate the upper floors of the PC/INP headquarters building and take positions on the ground floor and basement to prepare for an artillery and mortar attack, Radio Bandido aired Ramos’ appeal to the Marcos troop commander to hold his attack and think of the higher interests of the Filipino people.

Prayers, PMA song

The rebel commander, in a calm and soothing voice, talked to the battle-hardened Tadiar, who was a personal friend and a respected professional soldier, about their service together in many campaigns against communist and Muslim rebels and the esprit the corps that bind soldiers together.

It was the hour before dawn, or maybe just minutes, but for us who were listening it seemed like eternity. And when the words stopped, the chanting of prayers began and finally the lilting, soaring notes of the PMA song wafted mournfully from Radio Bandido.

Closer than brothers

All of us graduates of PMA were touched to the core of our being. As PMA graduates, we belong to a fraternity closer than brothers -- forged in the crucible of combat and sustained by one passion -- love of country and nurtured through the years by a code of honor.

As our alma mater song continued to fill the air from the radio during that hour before dawn, images of a lifetime of soldiering together swam before an eye. And when the first light of dawn shone over Camp Crame and the guns on Aguinaldo remained silent, I began to feel the presence of the Almighty in all of us.

And with the light of dawn came the whirling sounds of the helicopter gunships of the PAF Strike Wing under Col. Antonio Sotelo who touched down gently on the Camp Crame parade ground to join the Filipino people in the fight against the Marcos regime.

The rest were nonevents dominated by ersatz heroes and politicians.