Asia Times: Philippines: Narco-politics and righteous spies


	August 29, 2001	atimes.com

Editorials

Philippines: Narco-politics and righteous spies

Roilo Golez, National Security Adviser to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, said in March that the illegal drugs trade in the Philippines was worth 260 billion pesos (about US$5 billion) a year, with the bulk of the drugs coming from China. That's a hefty sum for a country with a GDP of $80 billion and GDP per capita of around $1,000. And it is an amount of money that can buy most anything - including presidents, Senators, Congressmen, judges and the media, says Colonel Victor Corpus, chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Appearing before a nationally televised August 17 Senate committee hearing looking into his charges that former president Joseph Estrada, his wife (and Senator), Luisa, and his national police chief - now Senator - Panfilo Lacson, had stashed away some $730 million from organized crime in bank accounts in the United States, Canada and Hong Kong, Corpus reiterated his accusations and added, "They are paying a lot of people, including judges and the media ... I believe this has to be known by the public so that the public will become aware that there is a danger of the Philippines becoming another Colombia. That money might soon rule this country because if those big amounts are used to buy votes, are used for elections, you can just imagine that we will have drug lords for our public officials ... You [the Senators] can either help in stopping him [Lacson] or join him."

Even in the Philippines, used to blatant corruption in highest places, wild accusations and wilder conspiracy theories (unhappily frequently true), Corpus' revelations proved sensational. But several Senators, irked by Corpus' statement that the documents of alleged secret accounts of Lacson were obtained unofficially and were not admissible in court, initially directed their anger at the military intelligence chief.

"The danger in your thinking, Mr Corpus ... which worries me is that you can play God with the reputations of people," said Senator Aquilino Pimentel. Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a former armed forces chief, said, "You cannot go about destroying the institutions in this country. You cannot go about destroying and disregarding democratic and legal processes because one man says he is on a crusade to cleanse our society and whoever gets hurt be damned."

Senator Noli de Castro, a former TV broadcaster, responded to claims by Corpus witness Angelo "Ador" Mawanay that he had delivered Lacson money in 1999 to de Castro in person "inside his Pajero [four-wheel drive vehicle]" with the laconic answer: "I have no Pajero.'' Mawanay was later taken into custody by Senate staff and ordered to prove his allegations.

Since then, Corpus has presented other witnesses against Lacson and Estrada, but the promised documentary evidence on secret bank accounts has not been forthcoming, prompting some Senators to call for an end to the hearings. And that's where things stand as of this writing ... except that on Monday the office of the president chimed in. "The president believes that the Senate investigation should proceed expeditiously not only for the sake of transparency but also since the nation would want to know the truth about the very serious allegations raised in the hearings," her spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao told reporters. As the president controls the majority in the Senate, apparently the show will go on.

So, what's really going on here, what's at issue? Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson is no innocent little lamb. Nor, in all likelihood, is he the devil incarnate Corpus, former Philippine National Police-Intelligence Group head Reynaldo Berroya and others make him out to be. As head of ex-president Estrada's Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Taskforce and later as chief of the Philippine National Police, Lacson was praised for his resolute action against drug dealers and kidnappers of Filipino-Chinese. But he has also been dogged by allegations of conducting summary executions of gangsters, illegal wiretapping, bribery, and rebellion. But whichever is right (and probably some of both), as a high-profile new opposition Senator who knows where the skeletons are buried and a potential presidential candidate, he is certainly a political threat to the Macapagal-Arroyo administration. Investigating him, tying him up in corruption allegations and charging him with criminal offenses will cut him down to size.

And who is Victor Corpus? A 1967 graduate of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), he was an instructor at the PMA (and teacher of Lacson, PMA class of 1971) when - in 1970 - he decided to join the New People's Army (military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines) and led an NPA raid on the PMA armory. In the CPP, he rose to the rank of central committee member before turning himself in in 1976. Reinstated in the army by then president Corazon Aquino in 1987, he rose to the rank of colonel and - according to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo - in early November 2000 became the key go-between of his boss, armed forces chief General Angelo Reyes, and herself (represented by her senior aide Colonel Charlie Braganza) in the developing plot to overthrow Estrada. No great surprise then that he was appointed military intelligence chief on January 23 (three days after the Estrada ouster), replacing untrustworthy Lieutenant-General Jose Calimlim, who had held the intelligence job concurrently with his position as vice chief of staff.

Is this, then, the explanation for the Corpus crusade? Is he just a hired hand, turned loose to get Lacson, a dangerous political enemy of the president?

Unfortunately for Philippine democracy and the progress of the republic, it's not that simple. Like the former spymaster (and national security adviser) of ex-president Fidel Ramos, retired General Jose Almonte, Corpus in all likelihood, is a genuine crusader for a better Philippines, appalled by the corruption and injustices of one of the world's most inequitable societies run by a dozen or so oligarchical families and their political hangers-on. In a recent interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer he said, "I did all of these [things, referring to his communist days, his whistle-blowing on a coup attempt against Aquino in 1987, his present campaign] ... my only guide is I follow what is in my heart. What you feel, you do. What you think is right, then you do it."

Similarly, a bit more articulately, Almonte said in a March 1999 interview, "The dignity of the individual is paramount - and the supreme value is the courage to do what is right."

The problem, of course, for a democratic republic is that in their careers Almonte and Corpus - in the name of righteousness and moral superiority - do not shy away from playing self-appointed prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner at the same time. In the name of justice and equality, they conspire to set up presumed criminals, distort or "enhance" evidence, play the stock-in-trade spy-war games of intelligence officers, overthrow duly elected governments if needs be - in short, as Senator Biazon accuses Corpus, connive to undermine and destroy the very institutions and the rule of law which alone, not as sufficient, but as necessary conditions, can guarantee the social advancement they desire. Their frustration is understandable, their motives may be impeccable, but their self-righteousness and choice of methods are utterly destructive.

We will not prejudge the outcome of the Corpus investigation, of the Senate hearings or of the legal proceedings that may follow. We will merely point out the obvious: Colonel Corpus serves an administration which - by its own detailed admission (see, for example, the February 21, 2001, speech by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at the Council on Philippine Affairs) - came to power as the result of a military-civilian conspiracy to overthrow the nation's duly elected president. The last thing this administration needs is another tainted power play on however high alleged moral grounds. What is needed is the down-to-earth defense of constitutional principles and the rule of law by Senator Biazon (and hopefully some other Senators) against above-the-law zealotry.

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