A continuing preference for ex-generals

OLD soldiers never die, they just fade away. So goes a line from an Army ballad that General Douglas MacArthur used in his famous retirement speech before the U.S. Congress in 1951. In the Philippines though, soldiers, or aptly generals, don't do a MacArthur — bid goodbye to their military careers and simply fade away. They get appointed to powerful, if not lucrative, posts in government.

Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., former director general of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and erstwhile public works secretary, reaffirms that dictum a second time, following his appointment as secretary of the Department of National Defense (DND). He is only the second police chief, after former President Fidel V. Ramos, who headed the Philippine Constabulary (PC) during the martial law years, to occupy the post since 1986.

This preference for generals is being blamed on a policy set by then President Corazon C. Aquino in 1986. In a paper released late last year, the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), a public policy center, pointed out that of nine individuals who have occupied the DND position in the post-Marcos era, six were former generals of the Armed Forces of the Philippines or PNP chiefs — Rafael Ileto, Ramos, Renato de Villa, Fortunato Abat, Eduardo Ermita, and Angelo Reyes.

The only civilians who interrupted the line of succession by generals were former senator Orlando Mercado (who served under President Joseph Estrada), Avelino Cruz Jr., and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself, who served in an acting capacity after Cruz left.

Compare that to the period between 1939 and 1986 when eight of 16 defense secretaries were civilians, some of whom were lawyers and legislators. The other half, though military officials who either came from the defunct PC (now the PNP) or were World War II veterans, had prior civilian careers before being called to active military service as a result of the war, for which they eventually earned their military ranks.

Obviously, Ebdane's assumption as defense secretary has gone against the wishes of his resigned predecessor that a civilian be named to the Cabinet post, going by the recommendations of the Davide and Feliciano commissions that investigated two major coups to delve into the causes of incessant military adventurism in the country.

But Ebdane's appointment is hardly surprising at all in a government agency that is the office of choice for military appointees, aside from similar top revenue-generating agencies of government — the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), Bureau of Customs, and government-owned corporations and special economic zones.

Moreover, this is a government that has shown itself to be more "military friendly" — rivaling even Ramos — than the other post-Marcos administrations, judging from the way it has continued to pack the Cabinet and the top civilian bureaucracy with "civilianized" ex-generals and other senior military-police officers.

As gathered from news reports, CenPEG has counted about two dozen retired high-ranking military officials presently serving under the Arroyo government. They include five former AFP chiefs of staff:

• Gen. Angelo Reyes, environment and natural resources secretary;
• Gen. Benjamin Defensor, ambassador-at-large for counter-terrorism;
• Gen. Narciso Abaya, president of the Bases Conversion Development Authority;
• Gen. Roy Cimatu, special ambassador to the Middle East;
• Gen. Efren Abu, special envoy to the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area;

and four PNP chiefs:

• Police Director General Leandro Mendoza, transportation and communications secretary;
• Police Director General Arturo Lomibao, administrator of the National Irrigation Administration;
• Police Director General Roberto Lastimoso, Metro Rail Transit Authority director;
• Police Director General Edgardo Aglipay, chief of the Philippine Retirement Authority.

Other former generals and police officers on the list are:

• Gen. Ermita, executive secretary;
• Gen. Pedro Cabuay Jr., presidential assistant/National Security Council deputy director general for counter-insurgency;
• Gen. Ernesto de Leon, ambassador to Australia;
• Gen. Honesto Isleta, presidential assistant on strategic information;
• Gen. Dionisio Santiago, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency director general;
• Maj. Gen. Glenn Rabonza, Office of Civil Defense executive director;
• Brig. Gen. Angel Atutubo, Manila International Airport Authority assistant general manager for security and emergency services;
• Brig. Gen. Thelmo Cunanan, Social Security System chairman;
• Lt. Gen. Edgardo Espinosa, Manila Economic and Cultural Office managing director;
• Police Deputy Director General Florencio Fianza, Philippine Racing Commission acting chair;
• Police Senior Supt. Reynaldo Berroya, DOTC assistant secretary;
• Police Chief Supt. Enrique Galang, Bureau of Immigration executive director;
• National Capital Region Police Office Chief Vidal Querol, ambassador to Indonesia;
• Police Gen. Thompson Lantion, DOTC spokesperson and Land Transportation and Regulatory Board chairman.

Reports last year had it that recently retired armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Genoroso Senga, has been offered to head the government TV station, National Broadcasting Network (NBN) while Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, also recently retired and tagged by the Melo Commission in the killings of activists, is likewise being eyed for a still-to-be-determined government post.

Not on the list are two police deputy director generals — Anselmo Avenido Jr., chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board, and Ricardo de Leon, whom Arroyo appointed as interim president of the Mindanao State University in 2005 — and two recent appointees from the Navy — Admiral Mateo Mayuga, designated national defense undersecretary in the wake of Cruz's resignation, and Rear Admiral Abraham Abesamis, named new National Telecommunications Commission chief replacing the resigned Ronald Solis.

Of the defense secretary's post, CenPEG says that under Arroyo, it has become central in extending military support to a presidential office tainted not only by corruption but more so by questions of legitimacy arising from allegations of electoral fraud in the 2004 polls. The electoral fraud was reportedly committed with the confidential support of military and police generals, particularly those whose names figured in the "Hello, Garci" tapes, including Ebdane himself who was at the time the police chief.

Ebdane denied the electoral fraud charges but last year, a confessed poll fraud operator even pointed to the police general as the one who led the "special operations" to alter the 2004 election returns that the former had supervised on an almost daily basis.

In his affidavit (see also his video testimony), Arsenio Rasalan disclosed that he was assigned the task by former regional elections director and election lawyer Roque Bello to “plan and execute a grand clandestine operation designed to head off” a potentially explosive crisis that would result when ballot boxes containing tampered election returns (ERs) in key Mindanao provinces were opened. Bello, Rasalan said, had been engaged by Ebdane, upon orders of the President, to help execute the plan.

A PCIJ report also revealed information shared by handlers of the K-4 coalition campaign that apart from its official quick count at the Olympia Towers, there was a shadow quick count done with the help of Ebdane. Apparently, the PNP had instructed some of its members to get copies of precinct-level election returns which were forwarded to the K-4 headquarters for senatorial candidates and their handlers to monitor.

On the count’s third day, however, the Senate tally was canceled. A consultant of a K-4 senatorial candidate was told the PNP received word to send the results straight to Malacañang. The consultant was then asked to call two phone numbers to check the count’s progress: one number was a phone at the Olympia Towers; the other was picked up by someone at the DND.

All things considered, however, a civilian Arroyo-loyalist, CenPEG maintains, is preferable to a military one, particularly in the context of a highly-politicized military. The public policy center warns that a military person is "most likely to be a captive of the existing powerful networks of interests in the military that see no urgency in addressing the problems of massive corruption and the unresponsiveness of the top brass and security officials to the resumption of peace talks with the National Democratic Front."

But as journalist Glenda Gloria wrote in "We Were Soldiers: Military Men in Politics and the Bureaucracy," what influences the way the administrations have treated the military vis-à-vis appointment to government posts is its access to arms. Rather than risk an armed confrontation with a politicized military, governments, she said, will choose to behave in the same manner.

By way of comparison, Gloria cited the experience of the Estrada and Aquino administrations, which had the least number of military appointees. "As a result, they suffered under the military. Aquino had to battle six coup attempts by rebel soldiers while Estrada was forced to step down when the military high command withdrew support from him."

The appointment of officers in civilian posts, said Gloria, is also "reflective of the rent-seeking character of the country’s influential sectors, which include the officer corps of the Armed Forces."

The danger here, with blurred lines between civilian and military tasks, lies in weakened civilian institutions that will have to deal with the equivalent of what Gloria referred to as a military "mafia" with its soldier’s culture, the top-down organization, the wide network, and most significantly, the access to, and training in, arms.

Given a military that is conscious of its power to broker political transitions, certainly, the country has not seen the last of the military appointees to the bureaucracy in Ebdane.