By Alejandro Lichauco
The Daily Tribune
12/18/2008

The fate of the GMA regime — whether it will meet the fate of Marcos and Erap or survive calls for its ouster — won’t be determined by the political opposition or even by the parliament of the streets. That fate will be determined by the outcome of the struggle between two ideologically opposed views raging within the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

What are those views?

One is represented by AFP Chief Alexander Yano. And the other is represented by Gen. Danny Lim of the prestigious Scout Rangers and currently under arrest for his alleged complicity in a plot to politically pre-terminate the term of this government.

At the height of the Dec. 12 rally against Constituent Assembly (Con-ass), there was wide expectation that the AFP, through General Yano, will formally announce that the AFP was withdrawing its support for the regime. In brief, that Yano will do an Angelo Reyes when the latter, as then chief of staff under the Erap government, turned against the nation’s Commander-in-Chief at the height of a militant protest demanding Erap’s resignation.

The declaration of withdrawal just didn’t come about. Instead, General Yano issued a statement reiterating the AFP’s allegiance to the regime on grounds that the Constitution as well as the democratic process requires that the AFP’s allegiance to the incumbent regime be maintained.

The Yano statement, which was reported in the Star was an explicit repudiation of the view that the regime is illegitimate and corrupt and, being illegitimate and corrupt, doesn’t deserve the support of the AFP which is mandated by the Constitution to protect the people and the State.

In arguing his position, Yano implied that Edsa ll was a mistake. It was a pointed reference to Edsa ll, when an incumbent president was forced out of office by the AFP withdrawal of support. Yano claimed that the AFP “has a already matured,” and that it “won’t allow itself to be used as shortcut or a quick-fix solution to resolve political and social issues.”

Yano, of course, can’t be blamed for taking that position in light of the growing popular realization that the forcible ouster of the Erap government was, after all really a mistake. What Yano was in brief saying was that for all the sins attributed to the current regime, the lesson of Edsa ll shouldn’t be forgotten. If it was a mistake then for the AFP to withdraw support for the sitting government of Erap, the AFP shouldn’t commit that same mistake today by withdrawing support for an equally sitting government of GMA.

You will have to admit that the Yano position has an appeal of its own to common logic. Yano’s position, of course, was bolstered by the fact that the Dec. 12 rally wasn’t a rally calling for GMA’s ouster. It was a rally protesting Con-ass.

Now, as to the opposite position. That position was stated by Gen. Danny Lim in a manifesto read for him by Bishops Tobias at a press conference two weeks ago.

Lim’s position was that GMA’s regime is illegitimate and that because of its corruption, the regime has “become the greatest continuing threat to the security, cooperative spirit, well being and sense of nationhood of the Filipino people.”

“A true leader,” Lim emphasized, — is a symbol of unity and a rallying figure especially in difficult times. A bogus leader is divisive and stays in power to the detriment of the good and the national interest.

Lim then proceeded to define the kind of leadership which he believes can save the nation. He called for a nationalist leadership that would challenge colonial masters and their local surrogates, abandon debt payments, push industrialization and sustainable agrarian reform.
‘There isn’t any question that is the Yano and Lim statements, respectively, issues have been joined. There isn’t any turning back and it remains to be seen which of the two opposed views and mindset will eventually command the support of the rank and file of the AFP, or at least those in positions of strategic command within the AFP.

There isn’t any question either that the opposing views of Yano and Lim represent a fundamental conflict between the traditional, conventional mindset of the military, on one hand, and the mindset of an emerging faction within the military resolved to bring about the fulfillment of Bonifacio’s unfinished revolution. It is a mindset reflected in the very name which that emerging faction has chosen to give itself: The Bagong Katipunan.

The fate of this regime will largely depend on the outcome of the ongoing struggle between the mindset represented by Yano and the mindset represented by Lim and the Bagong Katipunan. And the civilian sector will eventually have to make up its mind which faction and mindset to support.

In a sense, it can be said that the civil war which many have feared could eventually come about has actually started within the AFP.