By Nelson Navarro
Manila Standard
July 15, 1992
Remember Danny Lim?
Chances are that you do. but if not, let us say he was the bright and articulate young captain of the elite Scout Rangers who, along with the Marines, staged the heart-thumping Siege of Makati during the failed December 1989 coup.
Tough but scholarly-looking, Lim won many brownie points as a no-nonsense commander who kept discipline in the ranks and who eventually helped defuse as escalating confrontation that many feared would have reduced the country’s financial center – and capital itself – into another smoldering Lebanon.
Some commentators and observers couldn’t help singling out the then 34-year-old West Point graduate as the eloquent rallying symbol of the aborted military rebellion, the sixth such attempt in three years, that came close to toppling the Aquino regime if not for the timely “persuasion flights” of US Air Force jets.
Like hundreds of his colleagues in uniform, Lim paid a high price for his role in the coup attempt. Since the rebels’ famous return march to Fort Bonifacio, he has been shunted from one military jail to another, awaiting trial for mutiny and some 77 counts of murder and frustrated murder that could theoretically keep him behind bars for the next 1,552 years.
Very little has been heard of Danny Lim since he abruptly disappeared from public view some two-and-a-half years ago.
But with the newly-inaugurated Ramos administration trumpeting yet another bid for “national reconciliation” with all rebels from the left, right and center, Lim appears to be slowly making his way back to public consciousness as the impassioned spokesman of his now half-forgotten generation of military rebels.
The sweet talk of amnesty has so far failed to impress the former country boy from Solano, Nueva Vizcaya, now engaged in the simple joys of poultry farming inside the 808 Custodial Company Detention Center in Fort Bonifacio.
“It is not the solution or the answer to our national problem,” says Lim of the current proposal to pardon the rebels.
Amnesty, in his view, should only be “the natural consequence of a more comprehensive peace process” and not some publicity stunt or act of mercy to detained rebels who just want to get out of jail and get on with the rest of their lives.
“The government does not even need to grant amnesty,” he emphasized, “if it pursues a new governance that makes a real difference in people’s lives. For a start, it must show that it means business by putting at least one big fish in jail.”
Otherwise, he says, the people will remain cynical, and there will be no end to the threat of a future coup attempts.
“They (the military brass) can say all they like about the RAM being reduced to a splinter group or a harmless nuisance,” he says, “but they might be in for another big surprise. That’s what Biazon (former Chief of Staff, now senator) once said of the rebel movement just before the last coup proved him wrong.”
Does this attitude mean Lim and his colleagues remain hostile towards President Ramos, the former Armed Forces chief of staff and defense secretary, who in the last May 11th elections lost the military vote to Miriam Santiago and Danding Cojuangco by a humiliating margin?
For the time being, says Lim, the rebels prefer to abide by the hopeful spirit of the 100-day “honeymoon period” that the whole country accords all new Presidents.
But what he has heard of Ramos, he is far from happy about.
Lim is frankly skeptical of the President’s recent offer of “total and unconditional amnesty.” This otherwise conciliatory move means little, he says, when taken along with Ramos insistent demands calling on the rebels to “accept responsibility” for the destructive consequences of their rebellion and to offer a “biding pledge to keep the peace.”
Any presumption or admission of guilt is out of the question for rebels like himself, says Lim.
“I have personally acknowledged my participation in the coup," he says, “Whether it was right or wrong is another story. As a soldier, I believe I was defending my country from its enemies, who happened to be those serving in the government.”
However, as the defeated parties, he grants that, we are not in any position to dictate the terms” to the administration.
“What’s really more important is that they practice good government,” he says. :”If they do so, they will make us extinct and unnecessary. We will just stay in jail and fade away, but that is fine with us if it will be good for the country.”
Yet, for all his doubts, Lim admits that he is keeping his own fingers crossed that some kind of honorable settlement could somehow be brokered between the government and the rebel groups.
If and when he is set free, he vows that he will say good-bye to military life and start all over again in the private sector with his wife Aloysia, a Makati car-rental executive, and their baby girl, Aika, who was born during his detention.
Leaving the military that has been the center of his universe for all of his adult life will not be easy for the much-decorated soldier whose career once looked so promising that there was some talk he could one day become President.
The youngest of five sons of a Chinese immigrant from Amoy and a Boholana woman, Lim first entered the Philippine Military Academy and then went on to the US Military Academy. Only one Filipino a year is allowed to enroll in this prestigious of all military schools in the world. Lim was the lone Filipino of Class 1978. The select group of Filipino Westpointers includes General Rafael Ileto, Thelmo Cunanan, and of course Fidel Ramos.
All Lim had to do to rise to the top of his profession, so he was repeatedly told, was to avoid unnecessary trouble and complications. Take the safe road, he was often advised. Hitch your wagon to some rising politician. Never rock the boat.
“Do you know the Code of Honor at West Point?” he wistfully asked his visitors last week. “Never lie, cheat, steal or tolerate these evils.”
He has always abided by this code and regrets nothing, Lim proudly adds.
