The nature of the beast | as easy as ABC

“To protect the people, Sir. Not the government…the people.” This was the reply with conviction of one marine when I, as one of the judges, asked if he believes that it is right for the military to mount a coup against the government. In our Constitution, civilian authority is supreme over the military and that is why the President commands the Armed Forces of the Philippines. But their principal mandate is to protect the “people and the state (country).”

Screening the best and brightest to find the Ten Outstanding Philippine Soldiers (a Metrobank Foundation and Rotary Makati flagship running for 15 years) was a privilege and an eye-opener. These men and women in uniform could be in the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines. They are bright and they believe that it is their destiny to serve the country. These folks could easily earn so much more outside the military and as part of private enterprise. Some are very savvy in information technology (IT), some are surgeons who operate in extreme scenarios, and some are pilots who fly planes and helicopters under fire. They are strategists, intelligence (spies) and foot soldiers at the same time.

“I wake up every morning prepared to die” is how one creative air force plane technician assigned in Mindanao narrates it. Despite their lives being on the line, and with meager salaries as consolation, you can sense that they never feel sorry for themselves. For them, this is the purpose of their existence, why they were born.

With that kind of purpose, we can appreciate that the technicalities of the Constitution about them being under the command of the president is not the end of the story. When they collectively feel that the people and the country they swore themselves in to protect are under threat by the President of the government, they act – for better or for worse – emboldened by the historical significance of the military coup in 1986 that ended decades of dictatorship.

This is why the criminalization of coup d’état did very little to discourage and punish military officers and personnel engaging in such activity. Because coup d’état is a crime in our laws, criminal intent must be proven. How then can you say there is criminal intent if the true intent of the soldier is to protect the people and the country? Thus we witnessed transitions from being the prosecuted to being the elected to senatorial positions. Two of them, and both, in fact, even running for vice president in this year’s elections.

There are questions in the silent majority’s mind. Why do perpetrators and beneficiaries of the proceeds of the dictatorship, or those who were previously booted out for corruption, become glorified, admired and elected back into high government positions? Shouldn’t they instead be languishing behind bars or be made to account for and return ill-gotten wealth and corruption proceeds? This is something that I myself need to be a student of.

Almost 45 percent of the electorate are aged 34 and below, which means they were born after martial law. Twenty percent were born after EDSA 2, the second occasion when a president was booted out. Sixteen percent of the electorate are 18-19 years old, still studying or are fresh graduates. If they lacked the education and the details of more recent historical events that could have been cultural turning points for the Philippines, it could be because our historical textbooks and educational instructions ignored that our history is now so much more than just 300 years of Spanish occupation, 50 years of American colonization and four years of Japanese occupation. Where are the details of 20 years of dictatorship, and ousted corrupt governments, EDSA 1 and EDSA 2? If our history books treat recent historical points as a mere page, it is because they were not written by the victims, by those who suffered and those who fought.

The structural test of a democracy is the independence of the three branches of government. Trembling as the thought maybe, it is a brutal reality that even in a Philippine democracy, history taught us that there is effectively a fourth branch of government – the military. They are not brainless puppets. Their loyalty is to a legitimate government but their heart beats strongly for the people they are sworn to protect. If it is unsettling to accept this idea, some level of comfort can be had by recognizing that the ultimate protector of our country is the Philippine Constitution. It is the collective sentiment of the Filipino, one that is based on a strong bedrock of democratic principles, from its preamble to its last transitory provision. It guarantees individual freedoms under a rule of law, and it is what we impose on ourselves as a people, or we would not have a country.

Insofar as our impassioned choices for candidates are concerned, my attitude spins off from the timeless doctrine of free speech. Thus, I may not agree with your opinion or on who you are about to vote, but I will defend to the death your right to make that choice as I want my freedom to make my own choice defended, too. If on the day after tomorrow, someone tries to set aside our Constitution and overpower our democratic rights, he who attempts to do so will be ousted, as it is in the Filipino’s changeless nature to fight for our most cherished freedoms, regardless of the cost, regardless of the pain.

God bless our country tomorrow, and the day after.