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Philippines: Academic roots of
rebellion
By A Lin Neumann
If Philippine Navy
Lieutenant (Senior Grade) Antonio Trillanes IV had
prepared for last Sunday's mini-rebellion as thoroughly
as he did his research on military corruption, he and
his disgruntled colleagues might have stood a chance.
Trillanes was the apparent leader of the young
soldiers who strung explosives around a shopping mall
and proclaimed themselves seekers of reform and
redemption, the latest in a long line of abortive coup
attempts going back to 1987. Whatever happens to
Trillanes now that he is in custody as the public face
of mutiny, we at least know what was bothering him.
Trillanes had quite literally done his homework.
As a graduate student at the prestigious
University of the Philippines in 2001-02, Trillanes was
the author of two studies looking at corruption in the
navy. In his two-part study, Trillanes outlined a system
of corruption that extended from low-level bribe-taking
to assist arms smugglers in the rebellious provinces of
Mindanao to the procurement of equipment at naval
headquarters.
"The direct effects of corruption
in the navy on national development are staggering,"
Trillanes wrote in the first installment of his study,
done in October 2001. "It affects the economy through
the systemic rape of the funds entrusted to it. These
include losses from the ghost payroll, ghost repairs,
ghost deliveries, pilferage of fuel, overpriced
purchases, etc."
According to his academic work,
in the contentious waters of Mindanao, navy patrols
routinely accept bribes either to protect smugglers,
pirates and rebels or to look the other way, allowing
contraband goods to reach shore and rebels to move
unimpeded by naval forces. According to Trillanes, naval
corruption has played a material role in the ability of
rebels from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu
Sayyaf to continue operations against government forces.
"The big-time smugglers, pirates and bandits
(including the Abu Sayyaf) will never venture out into
the Philippine waters unless they are given 'clearance'
by the navy," Trillanes wrote. "They would not risk
losing their valuable merchandise, which include arms,
explosives, drugs and other contrabands, to a crusading
navy captain patrolling the high seas."
The
Philippine Navy, chronically short of equipment and
modern ships, has long complained that it can barely do
its job because it does not have the resources to
upgrade its fleet. Trillanes doubts that the excuses
hold water. "Through the years, the navy top brass have
always raised the issues of obsolescence and shortage of
operating assets of the fleet to cover for the navy's
ineffectiveness. But is this really the case? Or is it
simply caused by an institutionalized corruption that
exists in all levels and in all areas of the
organization?" The answer, the rebel officer clearly
believes, is to be found in the ranks of corrupt senior
commanders and their underlings.
Trillanes, a
1995 honors graduate of the Philippine Military Academy
(PMA), is the son of a military officer and is married
to an army captain, a 1997 PMA graduate. He sits firmly
in a tradition of idealistic officers who have come to
see themselves as guardians of the nation, especially
since the successful 1986 military-backed revolt that
toppled the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. To those who may
have read his thesis before the Sunday mutiny, his anger
would have come as no surprise - nor would the fact that
he eventually directed his wrath against the national
leadership.
At the conclusion of his first
study, Trillanes recounts an incident in February 2001
in which a well-regarded chief of the Philippine Navy
openly criticized corrupt procurement practices in the
Philippine Marines. The marines demanded that Rear
Admiral Guillermo Wong be relieved of command for his
remarks, and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo left
then-armed forces chief General Angelo Reyes to resolve
the crisis. Wong, rather than accept a demotion to
another position offered by Reyes, resigned his command
in a move that was accepted by Arroyo but widely seen as
a blow to military reformers.
Reyes is now
defense secretary, and chief among the rebel demands
during the mutiny was his resignation from office.
"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 that what General Reyes did was the right thing
was truly demoralizing to say the least," Trillanes
wrote in his study. "This was the first indication of
the type of leadership the AFP [Armed Forces of the
Philippines] would expect from its commander-in-chief."
Observers of the Philippine military say that
Trillanes' complaints are nothing new but that his
studies on corruption hold up to close examination. "His
scholarship and methodology are sound," said Sheila
Coronel, the executive director of the Philippine Center
for Investigative Journalism. Her center has published
similar studies on corruption in the military and other
branches of government.
The second installment
of Trillanes' thesis, written in March 2002, is a study
of procurement processes and is based on a random sample
of 30 civilian contractors doing business with the navy.
It is every bit as damning as his first effort.
Trillanes found evidence of corruption in virtually
every office involved in procurement. His respondents
said they most often paid bribes in order to "expedite
the processing of papers".
Sadly, the most
corrupt office, according to Trillanes, is the naval
branch of the Commission on Audit (COA), a government
watchdog agency that is supposed to guard against
corruption. One hundred percent of Trillanes'
respondents cited corruption in the COA.
As a
result of his study, published reports indicate that
Trillanes began contacting other members of his PMA
graduating class to air grievances and seek solutions.
When the rebels eventually acted - the government says
with the assistance of opposition politicians - they
called themselves "Magdalo", taking the name of the
first ship in the Philippine Navy when the infant
republic battled Spain before the United States invaded
the islands in 1898.
Word of disgruntlement in
the lower ranks reached the ear of the president and, on
July 13, Trillanes was given a meeting with Arroyo in
the presidential palace. He gave her a copy of his study
and detailed his complaints against the military
command, Arroyo told reporters on Thursday.
Based on his writing if not his actions,
Trillanes comes across as sincere, idealistic and deeply
worried about his institution. The charges in his study
are nothing new in the Philippines, of course. Observers
of the military and other government institutions
frequently comment on the depth of official malfeasance
at most levels of government.
But does this
justify trying to overthrow the government? There is
serious corruption in the Department of Education, said
Coronel, citing a study done by her center in 1999, "but
we didn't see teachers holding students hostage to
protest unpaid salaries and undelivered books and
chairs".
For now the failed rebellion leaves
behind nagging questions for the Philippines. If
corruption is as deeply entrenched as Trillanes and his
allies say, why has the government failed to act? To
what extent does corruption undermine the efforts of the
Philippines - a key US ally in the war on terror - to
battle rebels in Mindanao and elsewhere? Does the
dissatisfaction of a small group of elite young officers
herald the beginning of a new round of destabilizing
coup rumors and attempts?
The mini-mutiny
inspired by Trillanes' academic output may be something
of a wake-up call for Arroyo and her commanders. If the
officers have a point, and the evidence certainly
suggests they do, then the government is going to have
to clean house or face the consequences.
In the
Philippines, however, corruption, instability and dire
warnings are nothing new and experience suggests that
the country leaders will view this wake-up call, like so
many others, as just another excuse to hit the snooze
button.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
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