Manila Mutiny: Aquino Policy Focus of Crisis

Moments before the attack was to begin on a besieged Manila television station just after 1:30 this morning, a sergeant in the assault force kicked the curb in front of him.

His eyes narrowed as they followed the light trails of more than a dozen tear-gas grenades arcing into a complex that had been commandeered nearly 48 hours earlier by disgruntled soldiers.

“Two of my best friends are in there,” said the strike-force sergeant, who had been told that in just a few minutes, his unit would be ordered to mount an all-out attack on the modern, two-story concrete building.

“We will follow orders, of course,” he said. “But there will be a price. In six months’ time, maybe a year, maybe there will be no more government.”

The sergeant pointed toward the main bulk of the assault force.

“You see,” he said, “most of us out here agree with the men in there. We are brother soldiers, and everything they have said is true. We do not like to kill each other.”

Moments later, the order came from headquarters to call off the attack. Just as the tear gas was flooding the Channel 7 compound, nearly 100 junior and senior officers representing the Philippine army, navy, air force and marines--all of them graduates of the highly professional Philippine Military Academy--had confronted the military chief of staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, in his office early this morning and warned him that an assault on the rebels would risk a much wider military revolt.

It was a critical turning point in a three-day drama that has paralyzed the young government of President Corazon Aquino. What began as an apparent attempt by military rebels still loyal to deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos to destabilize or possibly topple Aquino’s government suddenly became a military crisis that threatened to tear apart the already deeply scarred Philippine armed forces.

The principal issue was no longer Marcos or Aquino. It was communism and the failure of the Aquino government to develop a coherent policy to combat the nation’s bloody, 18-year Communist rebellion, which has left more than 2,000 Filipino soldiers and civilians dead just since Aquino took power 11 months ago.

And in its resolution of the TV station seizure, it appeared that the military had forced policy on a civilian president whose control over the 200,000-member armed forces is now more dubious than ever. On Tuesday, the president had ordered her troops to take the station by force. Forty-eight hours later, they still had not moved.

‘Young Officers’ Prevailed

The main reason, according to top military commanders, was the “young officers” who had prevailed upon Ramos.

“Our plan was just to stop any activities that would lead to bloodshed,” said Eduardo Kapunan, a navy captain close to ousted Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile.

Privately, though, several other members of the group said their leaders bluntly told Aquino’s chief of staff that he and the nation’s civilian government would clearly risk a large-scale military rebellion if government troops stormed the television complex.

Gen. Rudolfo Biazon, a top military commmander who helped persuade the dissident soldiers to give up, said that anti-Communist fervor--their principal rallying cry--runs from top to bottom through every service in the armed forces.

“The Communists are the enemies, “ said Biazon, commandant of the Philippines Military Academy. “We are the ones who get shot at. We are the ones away from our families. We know what it can do to a society.”

Referring to Col. Oscar Canlas, the leader of the 160 soldiers who seized the key, privately owned station at 3 a.m. Tuesday, one colonel who asked not to be named said that such a rebellion would be aimed directly at President Aquino herself.

Echoing the sentiments of the strike-force sergeant outside the television station, the colonel said: “The issue is no longer those men inside Channel 7. The issue is the failure of the Aquino government to fight the Communist insurgency effectively.

“The Communists have gained so much since Mrs. Aquino became president. She is listening too much to her leftist (Cabinet) ministers.”

Aquino’s talk-then-fight approach to solving the insurgency did lead to the 60-day cease-fire that began Dec. 10. But regional and local military commanders--even Gen. Ramos himself--have said the Communists have merely manipulated the temporary peace and achieved gains in organization and propagandizing far exceeding those of the government.

Peace Talks Foundering

Aquino also sponsored peace talks aimed at a long-term solution to the conflict, but the negotiations broke down last week after the military gunned down at least 19 leftist peasant demonstrators who tried to march to Aquino’s palace to demand land reform.

The 60-day cease-fire is scheduled to expire Feb. 7, and among the demands of the 100 officers who met with Ramos early this morning is an announcement by the president that she will not seek an extension of the truce.

“It’s time for the shooting war to start, and I personally believe that is what Col. Canlas is fighting for,” said the colonel who was among those calling on Ramos.

There are many signs that Canlas and his men are linked to a plot by anti-Aquino rightists to destabilize the government in the week leading up to next Monday’s vote, when Aquino wants the Filipino people to ratify a new constitution that she believes will stabilize her rule. The Channel 7 attack came almost simultaneously with failed assaults on key Manila military bases by other rebel units.

Intelligence reports leaked to The Times and other newspapers by military headquarters last week indicated that such a plot was likely to be put into action this week.

Military sources outside the occupied complex said that six of the officers in Canlas’ occupation force were formerly assigned to the military intelligence security group under Col. Rolando Abadilla, who was also the personal bodyguard of Marcos’ son and was named in last week’s intelligence report on the coup plot.

And, even though Canlas denies any ties to what has come to be called the “Marcos loyalist movement,” he told the many reporters who entered the besieged complex to interview him Wednesday that he expected the open support of several political opposition leaders, among them Enrile, who was ousted by Aquino last year after months of harsh criticism by him, primarily for her counterinsurgency policies.

In the months since his ouster, which came amid unconfirmed rumors that he was plotting a coup against Aquino, Enrile and many military officers have said privately that anti-Aquino sentiment has been rising sharply within the military.

Thousands of local and national officials appointed by Aquino after she dismissed most of the leaders elected under Marcos have drawn the ire of the military, which labels them inept, lazy or left-leaning.

“The truth of the matter is, there is no government in the nation’s countryside,” said one major in the group that visited Ramos early this morning. “So the military is being forced to assume the functions of government.

‘Ringing the Alarm’

“It’s not our job to run the government. We have more than we can handle fighting the Communists. It’s time for President Aquino to wake up to this, and fortunately we believe that Col. Canlas is finally ringing the alarm bell for them.”

It was in this fertile ground of military dissent that Canlas, regardless of his original motives, already has become something of a hero to a large faction of the Philippine armed forces.

Perhaps it never could have happened, though, without the radio.

When the rebels took over the broadcast complex, Aquino’s defense minister, Rafael Ileto, ordered all power to the radio and television stations cut off, and the squad of 14 government soldiers protecting the site at the time is believed to have sabotaged the television transmitter.

But at about the time the angry strike-force sergeant was watching the tear-gas grenades being lobbed into the broadcast complex, Canlas’ men managed to get the station’s radio transmitter working with an emergency generator. And by the time the gas was flooding the station at 1:30 a.m. today, Canlas was on the air talking to millions of Filipinos. His few hundred civilian supporters outside the police cordon tuned in on their portable radios and turned up the volume, broadcasting the colonel’s voice to the 2,000 or so soldiers who were besieging the station.

‘Let’s Be Sensible’

“You can kill us if you want to, but it doesn’t have to reach that extreme,” Canlas told metropolitan Manila in Tagalog, the national language. “Let’s be sensible.

“We are not fighting. We will not do anything against you,” the colonel said, while in the background the 100 or so civilians who had holed up with his soldiers in a show of solidarity could be heard coughing from the gas. “We hope you will listen to our pleading. We do not wish anything other than the improvement of our situation, especially that of our military situation.

“Let us all maintain sobriety. And let us all join together to wish that democracy will live long in our country, here in our country, our beloved Philippines.”

All around the complex, soldiers listened intently. And throughout the city, in all-night cafes jammed with working-class drinkers and night-shift employees, Canlas’ voice could be heard.

“At the moment, there are still tear-gas canisters exploding in our midst,” said Canlas, who apparently, along with his men, was equipped with a gas mask. “It looks like the leadership of Gen. Ramos is determined (that) innocent civilians suffer. Many of the people here are hurting badly.

“General Ramos, stop making these people suffer.”

Canlas then put some of the civilians on the air, led by a popular screen actress, Alona Alegre.

Choking From Tear Gas

“We would be happier if you kill us by bullets, not tear gas,” Alegre stammered, choking and wailing on the air. “We have no more food. You have stopped everything, and now all you give us is tear gas.

“General Ramos, wake up to the truth. I thought you were more humane. Our beloved president, Mrs. Aquino, maybe you know now what is happening to us. You are the one who wants this. Please talk to General Ramos and tell him to stop this.”

Then Alegre addressed the soldiers besieging the rebel-held complex.

“To the soldiers outside, please give us support. Join us. Join us in fighting against communism and offering our lives to protect democracy for our children.”

The appeals did not last long. Within minutes, the tear gas stopped. Ramos had been meeting with the 100 officers who supported Canlas’ cause, and they had persuaded the chief of staff to call off the attack. Within an hour, negotiations began.

By sunrise, Defense Minister Ileto announced at a press conference that the siege had ended.

Somehow, though, it seemed that the strike-force sergeant outside the complex had known all along that there would be no assault.

“I don’t think Filipinos will kill Filipinos today,” he said. “We will find another way.

“But if the Aquino government does not listen to what is happening here today, if she does not realize that the Communists are taking over our country, this will only be the beginning.

“And then, I assure you, blood will flow.”