‘The VER boys including the father were pretending to be soldiers all these years’

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sunday Inquirer’s FE B. ZAMORA talked to Lt. Col. Gregorio Honasan in his office in the Ministry of National Defense last Wednesday, March 12, after he had dispatched a beauteous bunch of girls who came to see him. It wasn’t the first batch for the day nor, it’s safe to say, was it the last. As far as today’s pretty young things are concerned, they don’t need another hero; Gringo is here. All hail, the civil relations of the New AFP. Like the beauteous bunch, Fe herself had “ambushed” the interview-shy Gringo who refuses to grant interviews. And so on to more serious matters. . .

FE B. ZAMORA: There are some sectors who claim that they could have dismantled the Marcos dictatorship on Tuesday, Feb. 25 with the People’s Strike even without the Reformists’ revolt.

GREGORIO HONASAN: No, we don’t believe that.

FBZ: Those sympathetic to the New People’s Army accuse the Reformists of stealing the revolution?

GH: Stole? They have no revolution to speak of. We are very emotional about that because they have nothing to speak of. When the people were left with their mouths hanging open waiting for what they call revolution, they were nowhere to be found. They were probably in some secluded, comfortable place. But definitely not in the barricades. Not with us. I hope you can help us convey that. The Reform Movement would like to ask that basic question to those who advocated for the dismantling of the Marcos dictatorship for so many years. If they have any revolution to speak of, we want to know, the people want to know where they were during the four days. I want them to answer, not in vague terms, like we stole their revolution, that’s sour grapes. How can we steal something which wasn’t there? I’m not speaking for myself but for the Reformists.

FBZ: There have been accusations against you of human rights violation, some picturing you as a torturer and hitman.

GH: We, Red Kapunan and me, we have been in counter-insurgency ever since. We are used to black propaganda like this. It’s a risk on the job. As part of the MND security, we get special tasks. Take the Randal Echanis case. Remember this guy was operating in Region II, the Minister’s region. We captured him and he was detained. There are witnesses against him for murder. I got my meritorous promotion as colonel in 1984 for drug busting, not for arresting Echanis or detaining him. I don’t know this case about Dr. Johnny Escandor.

FBZ: How do you plan to counter this black propaganda?

GH: Now, the smear campaign against me is directed to Minister Enrile and General Ramos because the (Communist Party of the Philippines) Party will try to gain a lot of leverage, bargaining power by going on the offensive. Okay, so that if they escalate their operations, by the time the government offers either legalization of coalition, they will say, okay, we will stop but you remove Enrile and Ramos. That’s exactly what they want. But they can’t fool anybody now. They better be careful fooling with people power. And I think it’s our obligation to let the people in on what the reasons are.

FBZ: Some Americans are claiming what happened here was a showcase of U.S. foreign policy.

GH: When we even had to bargain for gasoline? (for the helicopters) Minister Enrile was offering to pay gasoline from his personal check but by the time the Americans resolved it, it was already academic.

FBZ: What more is to be done in the AFP?

GH: We are trying to consolidate and reorganize. We still have to dismantle the effects of what Marcos and Ver did which was basically the fragmentation of the AFP into many small manageable pieces. We are trying to consolidate all possible elements of the AFP and project it again as a solid, unified organization with a single task, a single purpose receiving guidance from the duly constituted legal authority.

FBZ: What will happen to the Reform Movement? Minister Enrile said it will self-destruct.

GH: Yes. The RAM will be phased out because we are now the new AFP. It’s an evolution of the Reform Movement. It is unified, fair-minded, morally aware Armed Forces which was what the Reformists aspired for.

FBZ: Are the Reformists satisfied with what’s going on in the AFP now?

GH: The Reformists are trying their best to institutionalize themselves by providing another input, for the newly designated chain of command so that even the reorganization, the choice of commanders and staff, would be based on the most complete data available at the moment. We are trying to reflect the sentiments of the lower ranks, so we are reversing it. We want the commanders to take into consideration whom the rank and file feel should be their leaders.

FBZ: Young boys idolize you, women think you are the greatest. Is this good for the AFP?

GH: At first we were trying to make a promise before the revolution that we would all go back to the barracks, go back to our old jobs. . . now we are faced with a responsibility to inform our people what the relationship should be so we can effectively attend to our work ahead. Even counter-insurgency, development of the military, is a total effort, not only the effort of the military. You need the participation of all government sectors. The private sector, the business sector, the people in general. We cannot survive or even
effectively perform our mission without the people’s support.

FBZ: There is much curiosity about how a macho like you feels about having a woman president and Commander-in-Chief.

GH: Her being a woman does not change my loyalty to her as Commander-in-Chief. I have no hang ups about being the recipient of orders that emanate from her down the chain of command.

FBZ: There is one observation that one of the reasons for the revolt was that the AFP’s masculinity was touched by this frail and fragile woman victimized by Marcos.

GH: Well, yes, but it’s not the main issue. First of all when she was not yet our proclaimed president, we wanted to make sure that she was kept safe from harm because that is the essence of a democracy: a strong opposition.

FBZ: What exactly do you mean by keeping her safe from harm? You sent her security?

GH: We advised her on security matters, provided her with our own.

FBZ: So it’s true that you’ve been meeting her before…

GH: No, not really.

FBZ: She sent an emissary?

GH: No, we got in touch with her. We initiated the contact with her and those tasked to secure her.

FBZ: You did it personally?

GH: No, the Reform Movement.

FBZ: When was this?

GH: Just before the elections.

FBZ: Is it true that you took the entrance-exams at the PMA twice, and that you failed the first time?

GH: No, my father thought I took the exams, but I did not. Well, you can avoid highlighting this because this is something very personal between me and my father. You know he started off by asking me what’s wrong with having a four-year scholarship and 30 years steady job? That’s what got me in. When I was in the PMA, I wrote him a letter asking him if it’s normal during the first year to reconsider choosing a military career and he said yes, but let’s wait until you are in the second year before you ask this question again, during my second year I had adjusted already.

FBZ: There is a fear that Marcos might come back. Are you ready for a showdown?

GH: He could not even have a showdown with us for one week when he was in power, how could he come back and have a showdown with us when he is a thousand miles away confronted with problems of relocation?

FBZ: Or, any of the Ver boys?

GH: The Ver boys were never professional soldiers. The Ver boys, including the father have never been. . . they have been pretending to be soldiers all these years.

FBZ: If you didn’t have the back up of Ramos and Enrile then, would the RAM have gone on with their plans?

GH: Yes because in the long term, just by starting it, we would have won already. Because we were out really to drive home the message to any elected leader of the country, or any group which claims political ascendancy, that never again would the AFP be divided into factions. It was a long-term organizational objective, and by doing so we would have started a long overdue martial tradition. See, we have no military tradition to speak of, all these were aped from the U.S. Even the PMA is a clone of West Point. So, we are trying to super-impose an American system over an oriental set-up.

FBZ: But you are discounting a fact here; U.S. intervention.

GH: Well, the U.S. can watch, they can advise, but they cannot influence a culture. That’s morally unacceptable. During the four-day revolution, all the Americans did was watch us resolve our internal problems. That should be their role. If they are friends, real friends, the Americans should limit themselves to advice that is well thought of, that takes everything into consideration, not brag about how much influence they had over the prevailing situation, or what they did to help.

FBZ: Would you favor the dismantling of the American bases here?

GH: I am not in the position to evaluate this because of my limited perceptions, I have not really studied that. But if the defense posture represented by the bases will also enhance the defense posture of the Philippines more than anything else, more than the defense posture of the United States, then we should look at it in terms of mutual interests.

FBZ: I’ve seen you work with Minister Enrile during the revolution and I noted that you are more than just his security chief. Is this a right observation?

GH: Yes. You see, I do not anymore distinguish official relationship with him from the personal because, for most of us here in the Ministry, he has been a father. He has made sure that our self-respect remained intact, he has made it very hard for us to engage in even petty corruption and even as military officers detailed to him, we can look back to years of very productive association with him.

FBZ: This sounds familiar. Isn’t that how the Marcos-Ver relationship started?

GH: No, definitely not. Because the moral standards of the Minister are way beyond Marcos and Ver combined. Of course, this is a very biased opinion because we have served him, we have watched him administer his own area in government and we have not seen anybody come close, including our former president.

FBZ: What about your father, the late Col. Romeo Honasan.. .

GH: That’s another reason. Minister Enrile and my father are so similar in their perceptions, inspite of the uncompromising image, these people, my father and the Minister, have retained a lot of their humanity which only shows when they are not under the public eye, and you have to have had the pleasure and the professional satisfaction of working with them over the years to be really associated with them, to appreciate that. You cannot get it in an interview, you cannot get it in one sitting. It is a cumulative sort of thing, until the image is formed, and it sticks.

FBZ: How much has your father influenced you in what you did during the revolt, in your visions for the AFP?

GH: About a month before he died, he told me, you know I have only two requests from Divine Providence. One is to see your only sister getting married and to see the changing of the guards, because he said it is a moral obligation of every self-respecting Philippine Military Academy graduate to effect the changing of the guards when it is morally proper to do so. He never saw either. He missed it by a few months.

FBZ: Lt. Col. Red Kapunan who is very close to you, before and during the revolution, saved your life once, in Mindanao…

GH: Red Kapunan, just like most of my classmates assigned in the Ministry, now more than ever because of what we’ve been through, we have developed a special bond that is only derived from taking risks together, sticking your neck out for each other and our long association since in the academy days. We are even closer probably than brothers because you begin to develop a higher level of confidence in the fact that these are not fair weather friends.

FBZ: A topic now among the officers corps is the promotion of Col. Adelberto Yap of the Air Force.

GH: We cannot blame the Commander-in-Chief for that. It was just that she was given the wrong input at the wrong time, not taking into consideration what’s best for the organization. In principle, this is exactly what we fought for, the highly personalized system of patronage which unfortunately Ms. Yap seems to have forgotten. She is now enjoying the benefit of the hoax (Ms. Yap once said the Reform AFP Movement was a hoax). Col. Yap is a low-profile, low key officer, not thru his own doing, though no fault of his own, he has
inflicted harm on the AFP.

(As we go to press, President Aquino rescinded the Yap promotion. — ED.).

FBZ: Are there corrective measures for cases like these?

GH: What can an AFP which subordinates itself to a civilian authority represented by the Commander-in-Chief do, especially when presidential prerogatives are exercised? We have no choice but to accept it, but if we were allowed to make suggestions, before such decisions were made, if Ms. Yap did not railroad the situation too much, it would have been more palatable for all of us. It should be the President’s move now, not us.

FBZ: How would you describe yourself?

GH: I am a classmate of Tito Legaspi and Red Kapunan and everybody else from Class ‘71. I’m just an ordinary professional soldier trying to do his job. This is the only life I know. I go a little sleepy and hungry sometimes, but I’m very comfortable this way.