'We cannot afford another military intervention' - Trillanes

IN the aftermath of the July 2003 Oakwood mutiny of junior officers he led, Senator Antonio Fuentes Trillanes IV, then a Navy senior-grade lieutenant, wrote an analysis about the problem of military interventions, how these affect our country’s economic and political stability, and international image, and how government policies are faring in preventing them from recurring.

Military interventions, wrote Trillanes in 2004, have debilitating effects on our economic and political stability. "More than this, lives are often caught in the crossfire," he said. "Simply put, we cannot afford another one."

Read Trillanes's paper, "Preventing Military Interventions."

Last Thursday though, Trillanes apparently disregarded his very own counsel. Along with Brigadier General Danilo Lim and his co-accused Magdalo soldiers, he embarked on another failed exercise in military intervention. They walked out of the Makati regional trial court hearing their coup d'etat case and occupied the Manila Peninsula hotel for almost six hours, declaring the Arroyo government "illegitimate" and calling on "patriotic" members of the armed forces and the police, and the public, to join them in ousting her and in forming an alternative government.

Last year, the government also thwarted a supposed plot to withdraw support from the Arroyo administration led by Gen. Lim during a protest march commemorating the 20th anniversary of the first people power revolt that toppled the Marcos dictatorship.

What could have driven Trillanes to resort to another military intervention that he himself said should be prevented from occurring in the future? Some have speculated more on his desperation and frustration with the justice system, which has continued to try him and the other Magdalo soldiers unjustly, as they perceive, as well as prevented him from serving his term as incumbent senator despite a mandate of more than 11 million votes.

Whatever their intentions, the fact that another attempt occurred to summon the military to intervene can only point to the continuing failure to address the underlying causes of military restiveness. Yes, despite the findings and recommendations of two fact-finding commissions, the first chaired by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. that looked into the bloody December 1989 coup attempt, and the second headed by former SC Justice Florentino Feliciano that probed the Oakwood mutiny.