Defense Minister Enrile tells his story: ‘I Knew Marcos could not assess our state of morale & condition of our defense if he could not talk to any of us’
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an interview with Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile who together with Chief of Staff General Fidel V. Ramos led the four-day military revolt that hastened the end of the 20 year-old Marcos regime. He was interviewed last Feb. 28 in his office at the Ministry of National Defense in Camp Aguinaldo. In his own words, this is his story of the four days in February when the whole world seemed to stand still as it took note of the stirring courage of the Filipino people in their nearly bloodless struggle to be free at last.
(First of Two Parts)
ON SATURDAY morning, I was at the Atrium Coffeeshop … and I was talking to some newsmen there, and then all of a sudden the telephone rang, Oh no, rather my aide asked me to go to the phone because Bobby Ongpin, Minister of Trade and Industry, was on the line. So I answered the phone and he told me if I could do something about his security who I understand was rounded up by the military police because they were conducting exercises with their firearms. And some of these people happened to be men identified with the ministry, because I requisitioned these men from the military command to be detailed to the Ministry and therefore in the records of the military command, these are Defense Ministry soldiers, but I assigned them to Minister Ongpin for his own personal security. When Minister Ongpin told me that these people had been conducting these night exercises for more than a year already, as a part of their training to provide their personal security. So what I did was I called my office and I talked to my Senior Military Assistant, Brig. Gen. Jaime Alfonso, and asked him to check why the men, the security group of Minister Ongpin were rounded up.
Then I went back to my group and continued my conversations with them. Minister Rono was even there. And then later on I was called on the phone again and I received information from Gen. Alfonso that per his verification, these men of Minister Ongpin were rounded up because they were conducting night military exercises within a restricted military zone under the control of the Philippine Marines. So that was it. Nothing happened after that. I went home for lunch. And when I arrived in the house, I took my lunch and I was talking to my wife when two of my security officers, Col. Gregorio Honasan, and Col. Eduardo “Red” Kapunan, both members of the Reformist Movement, asked me to have a chat with them.
And so I went with them to another part of my house and they informed me that they received reliable information that there was, that their group was going to, that Ver’s group had organized teams to round up the members of the Reformist Movement. And so we sat down and assessed the situation. And I asked them, what in their opinion we should do, and what the options were. And they told me that we could either disperse or regroup … or if we disperse, according to them, then we could be hit one by one.
The members of the Reformist, the whole organization of the Reformist Movement in the Metropolitan Area of Manila. About 400 officers …
We can either regroup or we can disperse, in which case they would hunt each one of us. Or we could regroup and take a stand and take our chances. And I said, “Well, if we regroup and take a stand, the possibility of an encounter is very high. And that if we will be assaulted, then we will either all perish but that or some of us will survive, but that the other side will also suffer heavy casualties. Or the possibility of, stand off is not far-fetched. So I decided that we must regroup and call everyone to assemble at Camp Aguinaldo. So I went up and put on my clothes. I took my firearms from my closet.
An UZI. And I put some things in my bag, and I instructed my aide to call Gen. Fidel Ramos. When I got Gen. Ramos, I told him about the information I received. And I said to him that I have no reason to doubt the veracity of this information because of a previous incident which more or less supported my belief, that information was correct. And I asked him if he would support us and join us. And he said, without hesitation, “I would be with you all the way.” And so I said, “If that is the case, join me at Camp Aguinaldo,” because I was proceeding there. The reason why I said I have no doubt about the veracity of information was that previous to that Saturday, I think about five or six days before, this was the time when the Bishops issued their so-called protest statement … and to support the call of Mrs. Aquino for a non-violent civil disobedience action. I received a confirmed information that a meeting was called at the palace of the senior generals, composed of Gen. Ver, Gen. Fidel Ramos, Gen. Josephus Ramas of the Philippine Army, Gen. Vicente Piccio of the Philippine Air Force, Commodore later on Rear Admiral Brilliante Ochoco of the Philippine Navy, and Major General Prospero Olivas of the Metropolitan Command. And in this meeting, they discussed certain topics among which were the case of the Reformist Movement. The suggestion with respect with the Reformist Movement was that they must now be disciplined and directed not to pursue their making statements in the press and that their leaders must be arrested. And the other topic that was discussed in the same meeting was that a contingency plan must be prepared to cause the arrest of certain leaders of the opposition both in and outside of Parliament. The members of the Parliament to be arrested, if I recall correctly, were Neptali Gonzales, Ramon Mitra, Homobono Adaza, Luis Villafuerte, Aquilino Pimentel, and others whose name I could not now recall.
Well, outside of Parliament the persons supposedly to be arrested were the so-called 50 advisers of Mrs. Aquino: Rene Saguisag, Joe Concepcion of NAMPREL, Dante Santos, Ting Paterno, Jaime Ongpin, Vicente Jayme, and others whom I could not recall, and some persons identified with the religious sector, both clergymen and non-clergymen. And as I said persons identified with the civilian sector in order to maintain order. There were also some names belonging to the cause-oriented groups like BAYAN and others, could not recall their names now, but this was the total scenario. And so because of that previous information, I was convinced that the reported impending arrest of the Reformist Movement was true. And so, as I said we came to this building and regrouped ourselves here.
Now when I came to this building, I asked my aide to call the U.S. Ambassador. I was able to get hold of him. And I informed Ambassador Stephen Bossworth that we are now grouped in this building because there was an order to round us up all. And he said, he will inform his government about it.
I also called Ambassador Kiyoshi Somiya of Japan and told him the same thing that I told Ambassador Bossworth; and he also indicated that he would inform his government about it. The reason I did this was in order that the world will know what was happening in case we would be annihilated. Then I called back my house and I talked to my wife and instructed her to contact Mrs. Apostol of the Philippine Daily Inquirer to tell her what was happening and to please contact other members of the media about it. I also then after that, called another friend to contact and warn some of my acquaintances in the Opposition and requested them to lend to us their political assistance. And at the same time, I instructed this particular friend to contact the foreign media about it. And so after I’ve done that, I instructed my men, my chief security officer, Col. Honasan, to establish our defense. And he did prepare a plan for defense in the area. I told them that we would fire the first shot if we would be attacked because I wanted to maintain a dialogue with whoever would be coming to challenge us.
At this point, we started with about 200 men, and swelled into about I guess a little less than 400 men…
Then at the same time, I called for the commander of the military police brigade who was at our rear command one battalion. This was Brig. Gen. Pedro Balbanero. He came to my office and I appealed to him to help us and that if he could not help us to stay neutral and protect our rear or at least serve as a buffer between the assaulting forces, if there were assaulting forces, and ourselves in order to prevent any possible violence. And he promised me that he would stay neutral and that he would prevent any outbreak of violence amongst troops within the Armed Forces of the Philippines because of this incident. So then, we waited for the arrival of the members of the press and the people who would challenge us.
Later on, Gen. Ramos took time to arrive at Camp Aguinaldo, because he was I understand also trying to be cautious about his movement, because he was not sure that he was not under surveillance at that point in time. But finally, he arrived at about six o’clock, we went to the session hall of the building, the ceremonial hall rather of this building, where the local and foreign news/media gathered and that was the first time we announced, we made public announcement about what was going on. Luckily, Radio Veritas was there, and we were interviewed. Incidentally, I would like to tell you that when I talked to my wife, I told her to call Cardinal Sin, and at the same time, call Eggie Apostol. And I think my wife was able to contact Cardinal Sin. So, when we had this press interview, I told them that we were in this condition because of that information that we received that the members of the Reformist Movement would be rounded up. And I appealed to our people over the airlanes to help us and also to our brother officers and military men and police officers and men, who believe in what we were doing, to fight for the rights of the people, to come to our assistance. We announced over the radio, over the media at this point, that we will never surrender, that if they will assault us, we will have to go down together, they will have to kill all of us. And so, after that both Gen. Ramos and I made that announcement. And we explained the reason why we could no longer support our former Commander-in-Chief. And the reason was that our honest belief borne out of our knowledge of facts: he was not the recipient of a mandate from our people during the February 7 election.
After that press conference, we waited and then people were coming in to us here in the Ministry. And one of those persons who came and stood by us all the way from the beginning to the end of this particular problem was the former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the man replaced by Gen. Ver, Gen. Romeo Espino. Also at this time, Brig. Gen. Ramon Farolan arrived and pledged his support to our force. And he made an announcement, he was resigning his position as Commissioner of Customs, and also his mission in the rank of Brigadier General of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and joined us.
After that, the next to come was Postmaster General Roilo Golez, who, all along I understand, believed in the cause of the Reformist Movement. He also publicly announced his resignation from the government. And so we waited.
About a little later, retired Brigadier General Manuel Flores, who is quite influential in the Reformist Movement among the retirees arrived. And asked us how was our situation. And I told him that our situation is pretty stable, but given the forces that would be arrayed against us, the danger of possible annihilation could not be discounted.
Then, Col. Rolando Abadilla arrived, to inform me that the President would like to talk to me. Abadilla is the head of the MISG, Metropolitan Command, under Gen. Prospero Olivas. He told me that the President would like me to call him at the palace. And I told Col. Abadilla, it is too late for us to talk about this. We have burned our bridges, we have already taken a stand. And I know that if we now surrender, we would be defenseless. And then later on he left and informed the palace about our position. And while we were here and people were coming, he came back once again to tell me that the President still wanted to talk to me. But I repeated my answer, knowing that the President has certain ways of dealing with certain situations, always to his advantage. You see, I had been with him for 21 years and it was to me a matter of application of things that I have learned in dealing with problems concerning him. That mattered to me at that point. And so because of this impasse, Col. Abadilla said, “If you do not want to talk to the President, will you kindly talk to Gen. Ver.” And so I said, “Sure, I will talk to Gen. Ver.” And they called up Gen. Ver. And when Gen. Ver was on the line, he said to me that “Sir,” he said, “We were surprised about this turn of events.” “Well,” I said, “I was informed that you were trying to have us all arrested,” and he said, “that was not true, that’s not true,” he said, “there were no such plan, there were no such order.” But given my own experience of my long association with these men, I could not take any chances. And so I said to him, “well, anyway, the die was cast, we have broken the shell of the egg, the only thing now that will happen is to stir it,” I said, the only thing I would like to request you, if you want to have a dialogue with us is not to initiate any attack against us tonight, so that we can wait for the morning to come so that we could talk about this problem. And I told him that we have established a perimeter defense in Camp Aguinaldo, and that if they will approach us, we will consider the approach as an aggressive approach and we will have to fight back. And so I suggested to him not to send any troops to approach us because the men under me were determined and were ready to die to a man if need be to defend themselves. And I emphasized to him that we are in a defensive position, not in an aggressive posture. And then he said, that may I also ask you to commit to us that you will not attack the Palace tonight. And I said, “You have my solemn word, that we will never attack the Palace. We have no aggressive intention against the palace,” I told him.” And we will confine ourselves in this camp until daybreak and after that, we can talk.” And so that was the whole conversation.
I would say that was about nine o’clock or thereabouts. Then we positioned our men in every level of this building and the surrounding area and then I asked the MP Brigade to use themselves as a buffer to man the gates in order that nobody will infiltrate to attack us in the night. In the meantime, people were coming into this building. The newsmen stayed with us. They asked if they could stay with us, and I said that we would be happy if you would stay with us but it would be inconvenient for you because we have no facilities, and they said, “We don’t care about convenience, we just want to be around.” At that point, I received information that they were positioning artillery pieces to shell, to fire at us, to bombard us from the University of Life compound. And so I informed the foreign media who were here all milling around staying below to take the second floor just in case we will be shelled. But then at this point, people were coming in, and they were telling us that there were millions, hundreds of thousands, of persons in the streets protecting us. And there was a call by Veritas to the people to please help these men and protect them. And it was quite funny that we, in the Defense and military organization who should be protecting the people were being protected by them.
And so the night went on. We waited for any possible attack. We stayed sleepless and nothing happened until daybreak. When daybreak came, it was quiet, no movement whatsoever, although we were receiving intelligence reports that they were planning to assault us here. And I understand my former boss was quite irritated and angry at us that I did not maintain contact with him, I kept out of the phone because I knew that he would not be in a position to assess our state of morale and condition of our defense as long as he could not talk to anyone of us; and they would hesitate to take aggressive action against us.
There were people being sent to us. And in fact, he was saying it on television. He was on television saying, “Imagine they do not even want to answer my phone calls.” But you see I did not want him to get any inkling of our state of morale or any idea about our defense situation.
Our state of morale at the moment was quite high because we were all committed to lose our lives for a cause. That I think made the difference. As this you see we made this emblem, as an emblem of the Reformist Movement, and that in case of danger, we would wear this. This is to symbolize our intention really is to die for the Republic because as you see this is actually the flag of the republic. Oh, this was made a long time ago, as a part of the symbol of the Reformist Movement, whenever they meet together among themselves.
By the way, in the night, there were many people who were here, and many of them were priests and nuns which heartened us a lot, and they were giving us rosaries, I have plenty of rosaries! and crucifixes. When daylight came, Father Nico, a priest in Magallanes, along with Father Bernas and Jimmy Ongpin, and others came to see us here and then we held mass at the social hall. It was officiated by Father Nico. And during this mass, if I recall correctly, the Gospel that he read to us was the Gospel of the Exodus. The Liberation of the Israelites from bondage. And we all attended this mass, we took communion, except those manning the perimeter. The officers and the leaders of the movement and then after the mass, Gen. Farolan and I were asked to kneel by Father Nico and Father Bernas, president of the Ateneo University. And they gave us the blessing and they poured holy water on us.
Gen. Ramos in the meantime went to the other side at Camp Crame. After the press conference, he left me here and left for Camp Crame to establish his own defense. We wanted to control both camps. Then we stayed here the whole day of Sunday, waiting for the attack. But at this point, the whole EDSA between Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame was already blocked by people, there was no way by which they could approach it except to kill people, civilian people. They could have used artillery to avoid killing people outside but they did not. That is their error. They hesitated. They did not know the condition of the area. I think this is a lesson that must be learned. There is a lesson that must be learned here in terms of military decisiveness. During the first 12 hours of this problem spelled the difference of victory and lack of success, because they did not initiate the actions immediately.
(TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK)
