General’s Leadership Under Fire : Ramos Part of Problem, Military Analysts Assert

Before the smoke had cleared from last week’s failed military uprising, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, chief of the armed forces, explained why he had instructed two of his most trusted generals to hold out “at all costs” in a building at Camp Aguinaldo that the rebels had seized as a stronghold.

The weathered, three-story building is general headquarters of the Philippine armed forces, and, as Ramos said after loyalist forces had retaken it, “That building is a very important symbol for us. . . . “

Today the building is charred and gutted, the result, Ramos said, of a fire the rebels set in an effort to smoke out his generals and the 114 men with them.

It symbolizes the deep wounds the uprising inflicted on the men charged with protecting President Corazon Aquino’s government and putting down a Communist insurgency that has gone on for 18 years now and taken the lives of 2,000 Filipinos just since the first of the year.

Even Ramos’ office was demolished in the abortive coup. And Ramos, talking with reporters Tuesday, conceded that one of “the main losers” in the coup was the military.

“There is no question that the problem of factionalism has been there,” he said, “and probably has become more serious than before.”

Earlier in the day, he warned in a statement that the military had been so weakened that it may soon be incapable of dealing with the Communist insurgents.

Since Aquino took office a year and a half ago, Ramos has been consistently but quietly urging her to put more public support behind the armed forces. He has likened the factionalism left after the revolt that overthrew Marcos to “a big boil on the skin, merely a symptom of a bigger disease.”

With Friday’s abortive coup, he said, the “boil has finally erupted, and the pus is out.” Now, he went on, “Maybe we should think about trying to treat the whole body.”

According to Western military analysts in Manila, the problem can be attributed in part to Ramos himself. And the leaders of last week’s uprising said in broadcast statements that their principal grievances dealt with Ramos’ leadership.

They said they sensed that the armed forces were again becoming a political tool of civilian officials and that Ramos was more concerned with shoring up the embattled Aquino government than with the welfare of his soldiers.

At the height of the fighting Friday afternoon between rebel troops in Camp Aguinaldo and Ramos’ forces across the street in Camp Crame, a Western military source said: “The only question is, will Cory (Aquino) get rid of Ramos when this is over. That would solve a lot of this. But I’ll bet she doesn’t.”

Since the coup, Aquino has had nothing but praise for Ramos. She thanked him publicly for “his great effort” in crushing the coup. And a top presidential aide said privately: “The fact remains that this guy has smashed every effort to overthrow this government. Six coup attempts, six victories. For that alone, you’ve got to give Gen. Ramos a lot of credit.”

But with each victory, Ramos has paid a price. Regarding the vanquished rebels, he has tried to balance punishment with reconciliation, and this balancing act has been regarded by men in uniform as weakness and vacillation.

Influential retired generals have recommended to Aquino that she replace Ramos with a stronger military leader. They want a man capable of instilling discipline in the ranks and purging the officer corps of its many factions.

Retired Gen. Luis Villareal, a former chief of Aquino’s civilian intelligence, warned the president as early as last February that frustration among the junior officers and enlisted men would worsen unless she made significant changes in the high command.

“It’s a long haul,” he told an interviewer in April, “to erase the 20 years of repression and bad habits acquired by the armed forces under Marcos. . . . The officers and men I have talked to are complaining about the whole leadership of the military. But you have to go deeper. Why? A military man wants to be part of an armed forces that can be respected and he can be proud of, and he sees nothing is being done, so he becomes frustrated.”

Yet Aquino did not replace Ramos. She replaced Villareal.

According to sources close to Aquino, she is well aware of efforts by her military advisers to ease Ramos out but is more confident than ever in his ability to unify the military.

“It has often been said that generals should make decisions only on the battlefield,” one said. “The president will decide who should be the generals.”

Such statements help explain the anger expressed by many officers during Friday’s uprising--anger directed not only at Ramos but at Aquino as well.

“What we would like to see is the day when a regional commander can decide who should be the provincial commanders in his region,” said Brig. Gen. Edgardo Abenina, the regional commander in Cebu, who sided briefly with the rebels. “President Aquino is making all these decisions on her own, and that is precisely what Marcos did, theoretically to keep the loyalty of his troops.”

Just how loyal the 150,000 men in uniform are, either to Aquino or Ramos, is a critical question. Several senior officers estimate that if the rebels make their next move very carefully, as much as 60% of the military will follow them.

Gen. Ramos made it clear Tuesday that he is continuing with his policy of reconciliation. He specifically denied leaks from the presidential palace that he has issued shoot-to-kill orders to the men hunting the rebels. And he restated his commitment to the rule of law, which insists on a fair hearing and a court-martial.

As for his performance as chief of staff, Ramos told a reporter: “(Judging) the effectiveness of the military leadership is not to be done by me. I leave that to you.”

But in the back of the officers’ club where the press conference took place, an officer who was involved in an earlier uprising shook his head with a pained look on his face and said to a reporter:

“Who knows? Next time you see me, I might be on the other side.”