(Very Important Prisoner)By Fe Zamora
Philippine Daily Inquirer
July 23, 2006
BRIG. General Danilo Lim has the heart of a civilian trapped in a soldier’s battle-scarred body.
“Maybe I should have not been in the military,” Lim told a friend who had visited him recently at his heavily-secured military quarters at the Philippine Army Officers’ Village (Paovil) in Fort Bonifacio. “I cannot be a fence-sitter; never was, never would be,” Lim was also supposed to have said.
Outside his leafy abode, a group of soldiers man a makeshift checkpoint; another group had set up a sentry at the back, beefing up the guards at the Paovil gate, just 20 meters away from Lim’s house. Such airtight security arrangements have earned Lim the distinction of being “most important prisoner” in recent coup-prone military history.
Lim has been under military custody since a videotape of himself announcing his withdrawal of support from President Arroyo surfaced in a news program. The tape was to have been used on Feb. 24, when soldiers marching out of their camp were supposed to meet with civilians out in the streets to commemorate the Edsa revolt. It was proof, claims Malacañang, of a Leftist-Rightist plot against the government that justifies Arroyo’s proclamation of a state of emergency.
The charges that Lim would lead the conspiracy have surprised those who know him only as an indulgent father to his only daughter, Aika.
Just five years ago, Aika Lim dragged her father to the Cineplex in Glorietta. The older Lim had already forgotten what it was like to watch a movie. “I haven’t been inside a movie house since 1973,” Lim told the Inquirer then. Transformed from security-conscious officer into a dutiful dad, Lim was having a good time when Aika nudged him to take a closer look at their seatmate. It was Phillip Salvador, the movie actor whose tumultuous love affair with Kris Aquino had been the staple news in those days. Lim was amused, but Aika was adamant. She wanted her Dad to get Phillip’s autograph.
PuttyLim, the hardline Army captain who negotiated that the rebel troops be allowed to return to barracks, weapons and all, can be putty in his daughter’s hands. An only child, Aika was a baby when Lim was detained for the December 1989 coup. A former detainee recalled several officers doing “infantry” duties in jail, among them Lim.
Another detainee, an alleged communist leader from Southern Luzon, Vic Ladlad, would be Aika’s godfather, a relationship that transcended the ideological divide between Lim and Ladlad. When Aika starred in her school’s musical production in 2001, Lim unabashedly invited media friends to watch the play. The souvenir program also showed ad placements from military organizations that could only have come from the solicitation of a very supportive father.
A consistent honor student in Solano, Nueva Vizcaya, Lim was a freshmen at the University of the Philippines in Diliman when one of his classmates, Renato Heredia, came to class with application forms for the Philippine Military Academy (PMA). It was 1972. Martial law had just been declared. Lim said he signed up for the heck of it. “There were many who had signed up, so I joined the line,” he said. The successful examinees either had brothers at the PMA, like Heredia, or had fathers who were PMA alumni or military officers.
Second highestLim, the youngest of five sons of a Chinese migrant worker from Xiamen and a hardworking businesswoman from Bohol, did not top the exams, but the topnotcher backed out, pushing Lim, who had the second highest score, to the top slot. Lim was sent to the US Military Academy in West Point in 1974.
“I would have wanted to be a doctor, but it was too expensive,” Lim said. He did not want to burden his mother or four brothers, either. Lim’s father died when he was 5 and his mother raised the brood by herself. Since his older brothers finished college on scholarships, Lim felt he too had to get by on scholarship.
Fortunately, Lim found academics, especially the math subjects, a breeze at West Point. The regimented military life also suited him, as he adapted to it seamlessly. Even his marriage was something of a record, according to another classmate. Lim’s wife, Aloysia, was actually his neighbor and classmate from elementary to high school. “But there was nothing there then,” Lim once told the Inquirer. “(The attraction) came later.”
Upon graduation from West Point in 1978, Lim was sent to Jolo to head the all-Igorot Forward Recon Unit. The unit was often sent out to patrol the enemy lairs, chalking up seemingly endless encounters that had their senior officers shaking their heads in disbelief. A former pilot who sometimes airlifted the wounded recalled in jest that the Igorot troops never realized what they were getting into because Lieutenant Lim kept them drunk with gin.
Wounded twiceBut Lim would himself be wounded twice from grenade shrapnels. After his second hospitalization in 1981, then Col. Arturo Enrile sought him out. “He told me, ‘I better take you out from here before you run out of luck,’” Lim recalled. From Jolo, Lim was transferred to the PMA, where he taught math subjects. He would also become the aide-de-camp to PMA Superintendent Brig. Gen. Jose Ma. Zumel, and administrative officer of PMA Superintendent Brig. Gen. Rodolfo Biazon in 1986.
In March 1987, a bomb exploded at the PMA grandstand, ripping off a roof and wounding several personnel, including then Col. Lisandro Abadia, the PMA commandant of cadets. Lim was among those suspected behind the incident, but this was never proven.
Before the incident, however, Lim had supposedly questioned the alleged anomalous deals at Biazon’s office. From the PMA, Lim was transferred to the Scout Rangers, the unit that he led in the takeover of the Makati Commercial and Business District in the December 1989 coup.
DoubtsThe Feb. 23 videotape seemed to be an apt follow up. Lim’s doubts about President Arroyo’s mandate started soon after the May 2004 elections, when rumors circulated in the military circle about how some senior officers had allowed the President’s allies to use the military camps in the cheating operations, particularly in Basilan, Sulu, Lanao and Cotabato areas in Mindanao. There were also rumors that some units from the Marines and the Scout Rangers had reportedly refused to cooperate with Malacañang’s allies in the military.
Compounding the situation was the alleged braggadocio of some officers who were supposed to have orchestrated the cheating operations, to the consternation of the young officers, including some Rangers who sought out Lim for advice. A senior colonel who talked to Lim then told the Inquirer that he was concerned about the Scout Rangers that Lim headed. “Lim does not believe that GMA won the elections. This is problematic,” the colonel said of his former classmate.
Fearless prognosisLim’s doubts were reportedly shared by many officers, with one of them expressing doubts that the President would be hounded by questions about her mandate. “GMA cannot govern,” was his fearless prognosis, as of June, 2004.
The cracks in the military armor surfaced after the June 6, 2005 airing of the “Hello Garci” tapes, the wiretapped telephone conversations between Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and several personalities, including Ms Arroyo and her husband, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo. The tapes seem to confirm allegations of fraud during the May 2004 elections, with at least four generals mentioned in the tapes as being involved. On July 8, 2005, a group of military officers had reportedly planned to withdraw support from the President, joining the group of senior cabinet members who had resigned en masse and urging Ms Arroyo to do the same for the sake of national unity.
But Lim prevailed over the disgruntled. Later that month, Lim’s group, the now-defunct Young Officers Union (YOU, also issued a statement of withdrawal from the 1995 peace agreement it had forged with the government. Lim denied the YOU statement. He also sent a text message to the Inquirer, to the effect that he was “under pressure from all sides.” In fact, Lim was under surveillance from the military and under intense courtship from the opposition. At the necrological rites for Capt. Rene Jarque at the Fort Bonifacio chapel in September 2005, Lim showed up by his lonesome.
Close tabsBut a civilian-clad soldier tailed him, always keeping within earshot of the general. Malacañang also kept close tabs of his activities, often inviting him to dinner at the Palace. By late January 2006, Lim had reportedly visited troops in Mindanao to sound them off about his plans to withdraw support from President Arroyo. An officer he talked with said Lim did not indicate he would “do something” anytime soon. “We talked and he said it was ’no go,’” the officer told the Inquirer. In less than a month, Lim would “go,” to the surprise of even his closest friends.
Since Feb. 24 when he was placed under house arrest, Lim has not been allowed to talk to the press. Some have managed to sneak in, however, accompanied by lawyers, priests and relatives. Former Inquirer reporter Andrea Trinidad-Echavez visited Lim one day in July. Lim had been Echavez’ sponsor at her church wedding to Dick Echavez in 2001.
According to Echavez, Lim was in good spirits, and seemed at peace with himself and the world. “He looks confident that all would end up well,” Echavez said. Having hit rock bottom after the 1989 coup, Lim knows only too well how to play his cards. “He’s a tactician. He’s been through a lot. What is happening to him now is chicken feed,” Echavez added.
Besides, people who’ve met Lim also know that the man would rather pay the price of taking sides than stay still, watching from the sidelines.
