What coup? July 18, 2006

JUSTICE Secretary Raul Gonzalez’s intention clearly is to show how real the threat to the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government is and how devious the people making those threats are. He now has proof, he says, that some 20 businessmen financed the threatened coup last February, which could be more if you counted those that gave the destabilizers aid and comfort. Indeed, it’s not just businessmen who are into this. The meeting in Jose “Peping” Cojuangco’s house that Nelly Sindayen mentioned in her Time article, says Gonzalez, was also attended by two high-ranking government officials. “Imagine having Cabinet-level officials attending such a conclave. It means these people are traitors and that is punishable by law.”

In fact, all Gonzalez succeeds in doing is to show how deeply alienated the government he is serving is and how, contrary to their own propaganda, the business community is not solidly behind them. I really would wish he would name those who financed or supported or sympathized with Danny Lim’s cause. At the very least it would show that Donald Duck does not speak for the businessmen, he merely speaks for himself. To go by the exact same words he said during Joseph Estrada’s time, pleading with the coup plotters that included Arroyo to give Estrada one more chance, as he was certain the fellow could experience a change of heart, his support for presidents is generic: He has a template expressing undying loyalty to the Big Boss with only the name of the Big Boss left blank.

At the very most, it would give the public to see the difference in quality between those trying to prop up an illegitimate regime and those trying to end it. I ardently hope Gonzalez reveals the names of the presumably errant businessmen and Cabinet officials so that we may compare them to Donald Duck and him. The Cabinet-level officials who plotted to overthrow Arroyo are traitors who may expect to be punished by law? They are patriots who may count on the undying gratitude of their countrymen!

But truly Gonzalez makes a spectacle of himself every time he invokes the law, which has the sensation of Garci calling his detractors liars. Shouldn’t he really be saying, representing as he does the majesty of the law: “Imagine a presidential candidate plotting like that with Garci! It means she is a traitor and that is punishable by firing squad!”? But then he wouldn’t have been justice secretary to begin with.

But my question remains: What coup? Or in relation to the above, what exactly were the businessmen and Cabinet officials whom Gonzalez threatens to identify financing, aiding, or coddling?

Shortly after ABS-CBN Broadcasting came out with a video of Lim speaking his mind out during his withdrawal of support on Feb. 23, several TV stations interviewed experts about the history of military intervention in public affairs in this country, specifically the coup attempts. Most of the guests agreed that the politicization of the military, which gave them a “praetorian mentality,” was the prime reason for these attempts.

They missed the point. There is a fundamental difference between the coup attempts of the past and Lim’s action, and one that goes well beyond the technicality of the phrase “withdrawal of support.” Two things stand out in particular.

One, the coup attempts of the past, notably the ones led by RAM against Cory, were attempts to overthrow a duly constituted authority, one directly and freely established by the people and enjoying the support of the people. The plotters did not mean to conscript public support for their cause—Cory enjoyed that support—they meant to seize power by force and defend it against the people by force. Had they won, they would have needed to pacify a restive public with arms afterward.

Lim’s withdrawal of support, on the other hand, was an attempt to overthrow an unduly-instituted authority, one directly and forcibly mounted by fraud. Lim’s statement harped on the use of the military to cheat the voters of their vote. The plotters did not just mean to enlist the public to their cause, they counted on it. Had they won, they would have needed to pacify their countrymen from their joyous, ecstatic and drunken revelry.

Two, and more importantly, there is an easy way to tell a coup from something else. A coup is an overthrow of government, with the plotters expressly intending to take over government. It isn’t just an overthrow of power, it is a seizure of power. That was what the RAM coup attempts of the past were: They meant to seize power from “the politicians,” who had presumably betrayed the dreams of Edsa People Power. And that was what Arroyo’s electoral plot was: She meant to seize power for herself and for no other reason than that she liked it.

Nowhere in his statement did Lim say he was going to run the government himself. Indeed, as the newspapers and TV stations subsequently reported, his idea was to bring a transitional government into being composed of people other than him. Indeed, civilians rather than generals.

But that’s the part, too, that I am unhappy about. I’ve always argued that any attempt to oust the current government -- or end the current junta -- by people power or any other means can only be justified on the basis of snap elections being called afterward. Not by any formal council, transitional or permanent. If the issue is illegitimacy, then the solution is legitimacy. That can only be supplied by new -- and clean -- elections. Anything else opens itself to charges of hidden agenda, personal interest, selfish motives. Indeed, anything else voids the cause for which ending an illegitimate government was undertaken. Why end an unelected rule only to set up another?

But right now, I’m all ears. Pray tell us, Mr. Justice Secretary, who are the coup plotters in our midst?

http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=10358