An ‘Acoustics’ Rebellion Sends Aquino a Message

Barely a month ago, Gregorio (Gringo) Honasan, who led the aborted August, 1987, coup against Philippine President Corazon Aquino, broke a long period of silence to tell a few local reporters he met secretly in metropolitan Manila that his forces were planning another coup and that they were just waiting for the right time.

Few paid much attention to his comments. The government had discounted the threat Honasan and his supporters posed long before his escape from captivity last year.

After the latest coup attempt, begun on Dec. 1 and not contained until Thursday, it would appear that everyone, beginning with the military Establishment, underestimated the strength of Honasan’s forces and his capability to stage a coup.

Honasan, 41, was a national hero in 1986 when he helped lead a civilian-military revolt that ousted dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. He turned against Aquino two years later for her failure to deliver on promised reforms. With abundant charisma, the young colonel gained wide support from the younger generation of idealistic officers who called themselves “reformists,” as well as from a rank and file tired of low wages and government neglect. Honasan also had powerful backing in the person of his patron, Juan Ponce Enrile, Marcos’ former defense minister and now Aquino’s arch political foe.

Those men formed the backbone of the Reform the Armed Forces of the Philippines Movement, or RAM, the Honasan group instrumental in toppling Marcos--and in almost succeeding at two attempts to overthrow Aquino. Today RAM has grown into a full-blown political movement.

The signals were all there. As in the last coup attempt, Honasan no doubt timed this one to ride the crest of anti-government sentiment. Many Filipinos have expressed mammoth dissatisfaction and frustration over Aquino’s perceived failures, not only on the political front but also on a day-to-day level. Continuing graft and corruption, high prices amid low wages and the government’s inability to provide such basic services as transportation and electricity have all fueled the disaffection.

The coup leaders planned their strategy well. They aimed for the jugular, the Philippine Air Force’s wing command, and took over key installations. After Aquino called for U.S. military help and U.S. F-4 jets scared off rebel air attacks, rebel negotiating leverage was weakened and many surrendered.

Just when things appeared to be nearly contained, on the afternoon of Dec. 2 several hundred members of the elite Scout Rangers of the army pulled out of Fort Bonifacio, the largest reserve camp in the metropolitan area, and drove or walked five kilometers across plush residential suburbs to the Makati commercial center.

The fact that the rebels could strike at the heart of the country’s economic center, with thousands of foreign visitors and residents as virtual hostages, was perhaps the biggest and most bizarre shock of all. It happened as the rest of metropolitan Manila was returning to normal. I had friends and media colleagues trapped for nearly six days, terrified by the fusillade as loyalist troops exchanged fire with the rebels. Many civilians, unable to escape, expressed anger at the government’s inability to stop the fighting.

The bullets were real, although they seemed to hit everything except intended targets. I live about two kilometers from where most of the Makati shooting took place, but two bullets struck our garage just as my family was evacuating the area for safer territory in central Manila.

Despite the heavy fighting in the area, neither the rebels nor the government troops wanted all-out confrontation. They merely wanted, as one rebel said afterward, “to prove a point.”

There was a minimum loss of life and property in Makati (but over six days, the rebellion over all left an estimated 100 killed and 600 wounded). It appeared to some journalists, however, that they were being used to witness a tragicomic charade, stage-managed and orchestrated by some of the country’s best military minds. While real wars were being waged in other countries, this was an “acoustics war,” as was the last coup attempt--a show of might and force that successfully brought home the message.

The attempt has left behind a devastated country with staggering problems that a weakened government may now be incapable of solving. (The rebels, for all their bravura, appear to have given little thought to their political agenda; they lost the propaganda war by failing to keep the civilian populace informed of their demands, resulting in popular indifference to their cause.)

There is no doubt that the coup had civilian backers. There has been much speculation about the involvement of Eduardo Cojuangco, Marcos’ most powerful crony, who recently slipped back into the Philippines after fugitive years in California. Military officials said privately that there are links between Honasan and Cojuangco. Honasan’s connections with Enrile are likely to be another target of investigation. Vice President Salvador (Doy) Laurel, who broke with Aquino in 1987, refused to condemn the attempted coup and there is talk in Congress about impeaching him.

Aquino herself admits the costs of the rebellion are “staggering”--a deeply divided military, a shattered economy and her credibility greatly undermined by dependence on American military assistance when the situation turned critical. One American banker said it will take five years or more before the country regains foreign-investor confidence--this for a nation already burdened with a $27-billion foreign debt. Despite an upbeat economy, recent gains have barely touched the lives of the majority of people.

Above all, Aquino has to regain the confidence of many Filipinos who feel betrayed by the leader they helped bring to power in February, 1986. The president began that process on Friday, when more than 100,000 supporters turned out to cheer her at the site of the 1986 “People Power” triumph. And Aquino must also address the issues raised by the RAM officers and soldiers who waged the rebellion. Given another opportunity, the soldiers will again fight for what they believe--military supremacy over civilian rule, a legacy of the Marcos years.