By Alejandro Lichauco
The Daily Tribune
12/18/2008

The fate of the GMA regime — whether it will meet the fate of Marcos and Erap or survive calls for its ouster — won’t be determined by the political opposition or even by the parliament of the streets. That fate will be determined by the outcome of the struggle between two ideologically opposed views raging within the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

What are those views?

One is represented by AFP Chief Alexander Yano. And the other is represented by Gen. Danny Lim of the prestigious Scout Rangers and currently under arrest for his alleged complicity in a plot to politically pre-terminate the term of this government.

At the height of the Dec. 12 rally against Constituent Assembly (Con-ass), there was wide expectation that the AFP, through General Yano, will formally announce that the AFP was withdrawing its support for the regime. In brief, that Yano will do an Angelo Reyes when the latter, as then chief of staff under the Erap government, turned against the nation’s Commander-in-Chief at the height of a militant protest demanding Erap’s resignation.

The declaration of withdrawal just didn’t come about. Instead, General Yano issued a statement reiterating the AFP’s allegiance to the regime on grounds that the Constitution as well as the democratic process requires that the AFP’s allegiance to the incumbent regime be maintained.

The Yano statement, which was reported in the Star was an explicit repudiation of the view that the regime is illegitimate and corrupt and, being illegitimate and corrupt, doesn’t deserve the support of the AFP which is mandated by the Constitution to protect the people and the State.

In arguing his position, Yano implied that Edsa ll was a mistake. It was a pointed reference to Edsa ll, when an incumbent president was forced out of office by the AFP withdrawal of support. Yano claimed that the AFP “has a already matured,” and that it “won’t allow itself to be used as shortcut or a quick-fix solution to resolve political and social issues.”

Yano, of course, can’t be blamed for taking that position in light of the growing popular realization that the forcible ouster of the Erap government was, after all really a mistake. What Yano was in brief saying was that for all the sins attributed to the current regime, the lesson of Edsa ll shouldn’t be forgotten. If it was a mistake then for the AFP to withdraw support for the sitting government of Erap, the AFP shouldn’t commit that same mistake today by withdrawing support for an equally sitting government of GMA.

You will have to admit that the Yano position has an appeal of its own to common logic.

Yano’s position, of course, was bolstered by the fact that the Dec. 12 rally wasn’t a rally calling for GMA’s ouster. It was a rally protesting Con-ass.

Now, as to the opposite position. That position was stated by Gen. Danny Lim in a manifesto read for him by Bishops Tobias at a press conference two weeks ago.
Lim’s position was that GMA’s regime is illegitimate and that because of its corruption, the regime has “become the greatest continuing threat to the security, cooperative spirit, well being and sense of nationhood of the Filipino people.”
“A true leader,” Lim emphasized, — is a symbol of unity and a rallying figure especially in difficult times. A bogus leader is divisive and stays in power to the detriment of the good and the national interest.

Lim then proceeded to define the kind of leadership which he believes can save the nation. He called for a nationalist leadership that would challenge colonial masters and their local surrogates, abandon debt payments, push industrialization and sustainable agrarian reform.

‘There isn’t any question that is the Yano and Lim statements, respectively, issues have been joined. There isn’t any turning back and it remains to be seen which of the two opposed views and mindset will eventually command the support of the rank and file of the AFP, or at least those in positions of strategic command within the AFP.

There isn’t any question either that the opposing views of Yano and Lim represent a fundamental conflict between the traditional, conventional mindset of the military, on one hand, and the mindset of an emerging faction within the military resolved to bring about the fulfillment of Bonifacio’s unfinished revolution. It is a mindset reflected in the very name which that emerging faction has chosen to give itself: The Bagong Katipunan.

The fate of this regime will largely depend on the outcome of the ongoing struggle between the mindset represented by Yano and the mindset represented by Lim and the Bagong Katipunan. And the civilian sector will eventually have to make up its mind which faction and mindset to support.

In a sense, it can be said that the civil war which many have feared could eventually come about has actually started within the AFP.

By Alejandro Lichauco
The Daily Tribune
12/11/2008

On top of the rising hunger, you have political chaos. Or, if you will, on top of the political chaos, you have the rising hunger. Whatever, even the most fanatic devotee of civilian government and democracy will have to agree that the political system, elections and political pros — or what pass off as trapos — and that bull they call “democracy” — aren’t the answer to the hunger and the chaos. The longer the political system stays, the more chaos and the more hunger. And the more hunger, the more chaos.

Both the political system and the hunger must go, or the social fabric — or whatever remains of it — simply disintegrates, as in fact it is already disintegrating in slow motion fashion.

If the well-off think they can insulate themselves from it all, then they are plain crazy. We are in the grip of our own version of an ongoing French Revolution and you know how that revolution ended: In the guillotine for the nobility and the ruling class.

There’s only one answer to the hunger and the political chaos. And that’s the obliteration of the political system that has produced the types you see in Congress agitating for Constituent Assembly (Con-ass). The political insanity and insane arrogance that they represent are more than proof enough that the system must go because it is the system that has produced them and it is they who have produced the hunger. Only these people have succeeded to enrich themselves in a situation where everybody or just about everybody else is going hungry and getting impoverished.

What then is the answer?

History provides the answer. And history says that when you have the kind of demonic chaos and all-pervasive political evil that have our society in grip today, the only solution is a military nationalist solution. The kind of military nationalist solution represented by the Col. Nassers or Gen. Park Chung-hees or General Suharto or Gen. Chiang Kai-shek or even General Francos of the modern world.

The military nationalist solution explains the Asian economic miracle. South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Thailand only 50 years ago were far worse off than the Philippines today. But look where they are now. Thanks to Gen. Park Chung-hee, Gen. Chian Kai-shek, General Suharto and to the chain of military governments that governed Thailand for 30 years beginning in the 1930s. All these nations rose from literally nothing to become NICs, or newly industrialized countries, of Asia. If they had taken to the “democratic” path of the Philippines, they would still be in the garbage heap today.

But is a military nationalist solution in the Philippines possible at all? Of course it is, and it is long overdue. Lurking at the corner and nestled in the very breast of the Armed Forces are idealistic, patriotic and nationalistic young men and women just waiting to emerge from the garbage heap of the traditional military establishment.

The Armed Forces, true enough, as an institution have degenerated along with the degeneration of the political system. But unlike the political system, the Armed Forces has a clearly defined class of redeeming elements typified by the likes of Gen. Danilo Lim, Colonels Querubin, Faeldon and Miranda, Capt. Antonio Trillanes and the late Captain Jarque. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Lims, Faeldons, Mirandas, Trillaneses and Jarques in the Armed Forces today and they don’t have any counterpart in the political system.

Along with these patriotic rebels in the Armed Forces, most of whom are junior officers, you have at the upper level the likes of Generals Yano and Luna, rare senior officers whose reputation and integrity remain unblemished. And they now occupy top, strategic positions of command.

One suspects that it is these “liberators” whom the five bishops saw when they called for a new government. And these “liberators,” as the bishops described them, are just around the corner.

In time, sooner or later, and sooner than later, these “liberator” will surface and step into the forefront to redeem the institution they represent — and to redeem the entire nation as well.

For they belong to the only institution in the world — the Armed Forces — whose members are pledged to die for country. There isn’t any other institution in the world which exacts that pledge from its devotees.

So, people of the Philippines — those in hunger and starving particularly and who constitute the overwhelming majority — don’t despair. That’s exactly what those Con-asses want you to do. Despair. It is they instead who should despair — if their sight hasn’t been completely blighted by their corruption to see a new dawn coming.
General Lim said it all in a statement calling for a new government and read for him by Bishops Tobias and Yniquez a week ago. “This country’s” he said, “needs leaders of heroic and nationalist stature who would champion genuine independence in every aspect of our national life… abandon obscene foreign debt payment, push industrialization, sustainable agrarian reform and ensuring food independence.”

It took raw courage for Lim to say that in the isolation of his prison cell. But he said it, as Ninoy did. And there are hundreds of Danny Lims just waiting to emerge with the new dawn.

A Message to the Filipino People

BGEN DANILO LIM AFP
27 November 2008

We are a nation divided. Peace, unity and development continue to elude us because we have a president bereft of moral or legal authority to lead. She had, in fact, become the greatest continuing threat to the security, cooperative spirit, well being and sense of Nationhood of the Filipino people.

A true leader is a symbol of unity and a rallying figure especially in difficult times. A bogus leader is divisive and stays in power to the detriment of the common good and the National interest.

GMA continues to inflict herself on our hapless people. In the process, scarce government resources are squandered to buy for her dubious loyalties, institutions are prostituted to project a sham imprimatur to an immoral governance, public service has evolved into a buffet of graft and corruption, and morals, values, accountability and responsibility have been reduced to mere flamboyant phrases. She destroyed the very concept of truth as the foundation of every act of government.

We find the country today in deep turmoil. Oppression, corruption and injustice rule the benighted land. Internecine struggles threaten to dismantle the republic. Widespread poverty robs people of their dignity and drives many to prostitution and virtual slavery in foreign climes. Hunger incidence is at an all time high and the country’s human development index is at an all time low. No wonder, an atmosphere of destitution pervades among our normally resilient and patient people. All of these were brought about by 8 years of unelected, hopelessly corrupt leadership and a slew of failed liberal economic and peace policies.

Long starved of good governance, the Filipino people should act now to reclaim their dignity, remove the pretender from power and steer this nation on the path to greatness. I echo, loud and clear, the call for radical reforms and restructuring. The call of the times is for us NOT ONLY TO LISTEN BUT TO MARCH.

November 30, a few days from now is National Heroes Day. Let us recapture the visions and ideals of our heroes and martyrs and give justice to their golden dream of National independence.

This country needs a leader of heroic and nationalist stature who would champion genuine independence in every aspect of our national life. He or she must be committed to challenging colonial economic masters and their local surrogates, abandoning obscene foreign debt payment policies, pushing industrialization, agriculture productivity and sustainable agrarian reforms, ensuring food and energy independence, and formulating a sound economic strategy anchored on the declaration that this country’s patrimony and all of our abundant resources are solely for the Filipinos to develop and benefit from. The current President is the antithesis of that leader. For her personal aggrandizement, she was willing to sacrifice the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by dismembering the Republic in the case of the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) and the baseline issue, west of our archipelago.

The latest Malacanang sponsored machinations are designed to extend GMA’s discredited regime. Secretary Dureza’s prayer and the feigned reaction revealed it all. With no semblance of delicadeza, no less than her son is doing the rounds, spearheading a signature campaign that would eventually actualize their foul design. With a subservient congress which frustrates the impeachment process at every turn and some Supreme Court justices willing to do their biddings, then their coast is clear, our political fate is sealed. I dread the thought that our best bet is for GMA to die of old age.

Now is the time to grip hands and act! Enough is enough!

(This statement was read at the KME presscon by Bishop Tobias)