CORRUPTION-PHILIPPINES: &#39Coup Talk Could Be Diversionary Tactic&#39

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Stella Gonzales

MANILA, Sep 25 2007 (IPS) - Is there really a destabilisation plot against the government or are speculations about possible coups being floated to divert public attention from alleged irregularities involving the husband of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo?

Some people find highly questionable the claims about a supposed coup plot because of the timing: it comes close on the heels of new allegations of corruption against the government.

The military chief, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, said last week that six junior military officers had been relieved or reassigned for allegedly recruiting men in the destabilisation attempt. He said the officers, whom he did not identify, had been caught spreading mobile phone text messages urging soldiers to join the plot.

At the same time, three battalions of soldiers were also sent to Metro Manila to beef up government forces.

These developments came just as the Senate was conducting an inquiry into a 329 million US dollar contract between the government and a Chinese company for a broadband network project. An official of another company claimed to have been offered a bribe by government officials to stop competing with the Chinese company, ZTE Corp. He also said Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, told him to back off when he insisted on pursuing it.

&#39&#39Every time there is a big scam involving top Arroyo officials – and the presidential office itself – rumours are fielded about alleged ‘destabilisation plots’," said political analyst Prof. Bobby Tuazon, of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CENPEG).

&#39&#39I suspect that these reports of coup plots are cooked up by Malacañang [the presidential palace] with the intention of diverting public attention away from the scams that are now under investigation and possibly even pave the way for repressive counter-measures," Tuazon said.

He said media &#39&#39should be wary about coup rumours because these may have been concocted with some dubious agenda&#39&#39.

Renato Reyes of the activist group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), or New Patriotic Alliance, had a similar observation. "The coup rumours, whether true or not, are being used by the Arroyo government as a bogey to ward off further investigations into its own corruption."

"The reasoning is that if the Senate investigations and other inquiries continue, this will destabilise the country and pave the way for a coup. So to avoid instability and coup plots, the investigations should stop," Reyes said.

Both Tuazon and Reyes agree that there is a certain degree of restiveness in the military. Tuazon said this is particularly true among the young officers and some retired generals. "Such unrest is spawned not only by the non-resolution of corruption issues but by growing perceptions that the political crisis already needs a strong intervention," he said.

Reyes said coup rumours were a &#39&#39reflection of the instability of the Arroyo administration&#39&#39.

"Whether the administration admits it or not, the military has been politicised to the point that it is not solidly behind the ruling regime," Reyes said. &#39&#39If there are really movements within the military, this can only be attributed to the rottenness of the Arroyo regime. It&#39s the regime&#39s fault if the troops are restive.&#39&#39

Proof of the restiveness, he pointed out, are the occasions in the past when some military men &#39&#39aired their grievances against the corruption and misrule of the Arroyo government&#39&#39.

In 2003, a group of junior officers staged an attempted mutiny in the commercial district of Makati City to protest alleged corruption in the military. Those involved were detained and charged. One of their leaders was then Lieutenant Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes IV, who was elected to the Senate in the national elections last May.

In 2006, a group of marine officers and scout rangers were detained and charged for alleged involvement in a supposed coup plot against Arroyo.

Reyes pointed out that this alleged coup plot was Arroyo’s basis for declaring a state of emergency during which certain rights, like freedom of assembly, were curtailed. He said the new coup rumours might be similarly used to justify "iron-fisted rule" similar to the state of emergency or as rationale in the implementation of the country’s anti-terror law, the Human Security Act, where a coup d’etat, among others, is considered an act of terrorism.

As to whether a coup has any chance of succeeding at all, Tuazon said that he has counted at least 15 coup attempts since 1986, and all have failed.

"One can say that whoever is behind such coup attempts have not learned their lesson," Tuazon said. "I think that the only coup that became successful was the Marcos rightist coup of Sep. 21, 1972 which led to military rule."

He cautioned Filipinos to remain vigilant against a military coup because "this could pave the way for a return to authoritarian rule or be used to oust a corrupt president, only to be replaced by another of the same mould."