It’s Aquino Vs. the Military : She Must Learn to Lead Her Troops, Not Merely Issue Orders

“8 Million Ways to Die” read the movie marquee in the Philippine city of Legaspi last November. That could also describe the odds facing the Philippine soldier.

A few miles outside Legaspi on the main highway to Manila, chance became reality last March for 15 soldiers killed by the Communist New People’s Army in a daylight ambush filmed by an American journalist for NBC News. Despite this attack, a priest said that the people were still “more apprehensive of soldiers than the NPA.”

“We are fighting communism, and we feel that the influence of communism has grown very fast in the past 11 months,” said the Philippine colonel commanding last month’s abortive coup.

The frustration evident in that coup attempt and one last July, as well as coup rumors in November culminating in the forced resignation of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, are symptoms of a disease that may ultimately cause Philippine President Corazon Aquino’s downfall.

The disease is the military’s alienation from the rest of Philippine society and the government’s failure to take more seriously the military’s fear of communism.

Alienation has been a problem at least since 1901, when Americans created the Insular Police Force (becoming the basis for the present Constabulary) to replace GIs fighting Filipino resistance to American colonialism. Alienation increased after Ferdinand E. Marcos declared martial law in 1972, imprisoning thousands--including Aquino’s husband, Benigno.

The military, drawing its recruits mainly from northern Luzon and especially from Marcos’ home province of Ilocos Norte, is viewed outside Manila as an occupying force. In rural areas a soldier may be the only government representative seen by the people. The hostility takes its toll on military morale, and this makes the soldiers more isolated.

The military is also alienated by Aquino’s apparent attitude and approach to the communist threat. Although an Aquino adviser told me that Aquino “herself has felt that people are afraid of communism,” too often she and her closest aides appear more fearful of the military.

A government commission is now investigating the military’s abuse of human rights during the Marcos years, but no one investigates similar abuses by communist rebels. Aquino threatens mutinous soldiers with court martial, but releases the founder of the outlawed Communist Party from prison. These events, while understandable, are salt to the military’s wounds.

Having fought one communist insurgency in the 1940s and ‘50s, the military has an almost paranoid perception of the communist threat.

Marcos’ approach to the military was co-option. His political career was based on appearing to be the military’s patron. Never mind that, once president, he kept the military weak--favoring only a few court favorites with promotion and only the palace guard with equipment--the perception of his concern was what counted.

On the other hand, Aquino’s approach appears to be to alienate, not to co-opt, the military. Her attitude is comprehensible--given the years during which the military imprisoned her husband, played a role in ensuring Marcos’ dictatorial rule and took part in her husband’s assassination. But, while comprehensible, it is not good for Philippine democracy.

Nor was it her initial approach. Last March at the Philippine Military Academy she saluted the military, saying, “Welcome home, my soldiers.” In May at a Cebu military camp she said, “Before, when we were in the opposition, the military was our enemy. But it is different now . . . . We need to forget the past.”

This burgeoning relationship has soured in the face of coup attempts and the military’s frustration at the government’s inability to form a comprehensive counter-insurgency policy. As Gen. Fidel Ramos, armed forces chief of staff, noted to me last October, “We don’t have the legal weapons to effectively counter the insurgency.”

The military’s frustration was clear in a little-noticed “statement of concern” issued Oct. 22 by senior military commanders, including Ramos. The generals said “that there is an urgent need for all agencies of government and the concerned private sector to plan together, to act together, to move forward together, to achieve together, to survive together and to progress together within the framework of a total national strategy.”

But, in an implicit warning, the generals also observed that “the New AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) stands squarely in the center of the various sectors of our society, exercising its constitutional and statutory mandates to protect our people and insure the integrity of the republic.”

So far the government has ignored the military’s call for a national counter-insurgency strategy and instead has focused on the military’s implied threat, little understanding that the military, not people power, protects it from revolution. With the new constituion, problems with the military may just be beginning. For instance, the constitution mandates major military reorganization, including the abolishment of such units as the Civilian Home Defense Forces.

This “we-they” mentality between the palace and the military has made Aquino’s rule less secure--not more so.

Typical is the reaction of her executive secretary, Joker Arroyo: “The government is in control of the military. It is the military which has no control over itself.”

Aquino has learned to salute but not to lead. Leadership is not the same as giving orders. Orders aren’t always obeyed, as she just found out when she ordered the military to retake TV stations occupied by rebellious troops. Leaders are always obeyed. Aquino has to start learning to lead her military, or it won’t continue to die for her.