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Now that the Land Is Calamity-stricken, Many OFWs May Not Oppose a Military Coup
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To make myself clear, never have I encouraged – and will never promote – a military coup in the Philippines in
my entire life. In the first place, I am merely a reserve buck private in the Philippine Army, having taken up just
the basic ROTC course in college. While I am one of the proponents of establishing a “Southern Naval
Academy” in my home Province of Sorsogon, the project is more of a maritime academy that is intended to
train Filipinos who want to join the merchant-marine corps, aside of course from training naval officers and
gentlemen.
But once again, one of my contacts in the Philippine military posed a hypothetical question, “Will Overseas
Filipinos, especially Overseas-Filipino workers (OFWs) and Filipino Americans, oppose a military coup and a
brief but orderly rule of a military junta – while the homeland is being prepared for clean-and-honest national-
and-local civilian elections?”
I replied of course again with a hypothetical answer: “From the looks of it, Overseas Filipinos, especially
OFWs and Filipino Americans, are really fed up with the corrupt civilian bureaucracy. Especially now when the
homeland is suffering from natural calamities, they abhor the continued corruption and the misuse of scarce
government resources to line up the pockets of some civilian leaders and their favorite generals – instead of
using them wisely as disaster-relief funds. If a short-term well-meaning military junta – as run by junior
officers – comes to power, very few of the Overseas Filipinos will oppose it provided in a year or two, the
soldiers return to the barracks and turn over the authority to civilians, who will be elected in clean elections.”
This writer wrote also in Part Six of this series, “The Young Turks, the rank-and-file and non-commissioned
officers (NCOs) – of both the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP)
– are all unhappy with the leadership and track record of President Gloria M. Arroyo and her equally-corrupt
generals. Philippine Marines are killed in Mindanao by Islamic militants and some of them were even
beheaded. There communist rebels inflict also numerous casualties on Filipino soldiers and police in the
Visayan islands and in Luzon. But reports say that the soldiers’ and policemen’s widows and/or surviving kin
are not given much death benefits or even a pension. Their military-issued boots wear out in less-than a
month, as the bulk of their acquisition cost is actually pocketed by officers.”
The professional soldiers and the police know that instead of using scarce government resources for building
flood-control infrastructures in Metro Manila, many Filipino legislators use the nearly 30-billion pesos per year
of congressional pork in lining up their pockets. President Arroyo, instead of using her Calamity Fund to
prepare for disasters, spend more-than 800-million pesos to add to her duly-appropriated travel budget.
In short, the Philippine military and police are fed-up with the civilian corruption that has become standard-
operating procedure in the homeland, as abetted by the Filipino generals. And Overseas Filipinos, especially
OFWs, now resent being made “suckers” by Filipino politicians, as explained in this article,
Many Overseas-Filipino Disaster Donors Must Stop Being Suckers
Some Filipino-American political observers even believe that a military junta that is run by nationalistic and
honest junior officers can run the country more-efficiently. For instance, the 30-billion pesos or more in
congressional pork barrel can be used for socioeconomic development, as the Philippine Congress may be
disbanded.
As I have said earlier in this series of articles, a coup d’etat is usually launched by junior officers. The
generals, especially the corrupt ones, are either jailed or executed by firing squad, along with the crooked
civilian leaders – if the coup becomes bloody.
Since I am not a scion of Michel de Nostredame (1503–1566), as usually Latinized to Nostradamus, I cannot
foretell the future. But then according to that Hollywood-movie theme song, “Que sera, sera.” Yes, what will be,
will be.
(To be continued . . .)
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