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Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy
Marcos' main instrument in implementing his authoritarian rule was the
military and the national police (Hernandez 2002: 27-28). He had to hold its
support and extended favors and privileges to the organization particularly to
the military leadership. It became a rather common practice to extend the term
of office of the chief of staff beyond his retirement age. The military
organization was restructured to accommodate the promotion of a growing
number of officers to the various grades of the rank of general. The established
rules on the appointment to executive positions of the civil service were in
effect revised to appease the military establishment and the police
organization. The policy appeasement led military officers to be appointed to
positions in the civilian bureaucracy—bureau of customs, bureau of internal
revenue, government owned and controlled corporations, the Foreign Service
corps, and local government units, among others. The domain of military
authority has expanded into the civilian bodies of the government.
It was not very difficult for military leaders to see that Marcos depended
on the armed forces for the continued survival of his authoritarian rule. It was
not also difficult for the military leaders to infer that they themselves, even
without Marcos, could also employ the same military force and install a
military junta. Indeed history has many examples of military leaders who
grabbed political power from the civilian leaders. Perhaps Julius Caesar and
Napoleon Bonaparte are the most well-known among them. The military
adventurism in our country can be seen in this light, although admittedly, there
are other important specific reasons behind this phenomenon in our
democratic transition (The Final Report of the (Davide) Fact-Finding Commission
October 1990: 16-19). Moreover, the military establishment, as a whole, had
been observed as supportive of the democratic transition. In times of the deep
division in the military such as during the coups of the 1980s, the majority of the
officers and men manifested their constitutionalist orientation by fighting the
rebel soldiers (see Abueva in Miranda 1997: 54).
Notwithstanding this reassuring characteristic of the military
establishment, its interventionist tendency has made it the gatekeeper in the
extra-constitutional transfer of Presidential power from Estrada to Arroyo
when it withdrew its support from Estrada. Moreover, recent incidents of
military adventurism indicate that the military has not returned and stayed in
the barracks. These incidents include the Oakwood mutiny in 2003, the break
with the chain of command of some Marines and Scout Ranger units in 2006,
and the 2007 attempt of the rebellious soldiers with some civil society
personalities to dramatize their demand for President Arroyo to resign. The
proclamation of a state of emergency in 2006, and the government's warrantless
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