As early as 6 p.m. on Thursday, February 23, some leaders of organizations working for the removal of President Arroyo got text messages from their contacts in the military. Senior officers and their men would be marching with civilians and priests the following day to the People Power Monument on EDSA.

Former University of the Philippines President Francisco “Dodong” Nemenzo of the Laban ng Masa said that the soldiers’ idea was just to “march like they were joining a parade; it’s not a real coup.” The soldiers’ plan, he said, was to use that unarmed troop movement to persuade the top military leadership to withdraw support from the President.

“The strategy was to win over the chain of command from [Armed Forces chief of staff Gen. Generoso] Senga down. Instead of going ahead and operating secretly, what Danny Lim did was to report to Senga that they were going to move the next day. They were confident that they could get Senga on their side, but this led to [Lim’s] isolation,” Nemenzo recalled.

Three days later, in the afternoon of Sunday (February 26), Nemenzo said he was informed that “something was going to happen,” although he didn’t know the details. True enough, Marine Col. Ariel Querubin caused a standoff at Fort Bonifacio shortly later, calling on civilians and fellow soldiers to rally for Marine commandant Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda, who had been relieved of his post.

The advisory came early enough, however, and so Nemenzo’s group was able to gather a “backup” crowd at the UP campus in Diliman. He said that given Friday’s setback, he was expecting that the soldiers would be more aggressive and could shoot at each other inside the camp, so supportive civilians shouldn’t be there. The UP campus became the alternative place of assembly.

Obviously, the President’s civilian critics and disgruntled groups in the military have been talking. The more serious implication for Arroyo is that her enemies have consolidated their forces to a great extent.

A former ranking government official, who asked not to be named, said Arroyo herself asked for it because she “has hijacked the Constitution.” The source, who is tasked with winning the support of the Catholic bishops for the anti-Arroyo campaign (our sources in the Catholic Church confirm this liaison), said the President had blocked all legal and democratic efforts to settle the question on her mandate, clear her name of serious allegations of graft and corruption, and effect a peaceful turnover of power to a rightful successor.

 Desperate Means

NEWSBREAK talked to at least 15 personalities who are either involved or privy to these talks. All of them admit or indicate that encouraging, if not aiding, military intervention in breaking the political impasse has become increasingly acceptable to civil society groups.

Although there are debates within and among the 10 or so anti-Arroyo groups on this issue, nobody is openly shooting down the idea, including the military’s chief nemesis, the communists. In fact, our sources say, discussions have reached the level of whether the military’s participation will be limited to just “opening the door,” meaning removing the current administration; to “choosing who can enter the door and take seats,” meaning who should compose the transition government; or to sit down in the council.

The idea has come this far: middle-class professionals, some businessmen, and a number of Catholic bishops are no longer dismissive of it. At the very least, they acknowledge that regardless of what civilians will do or not do, whatever the outraged elements in the military decide to do is “beyond our control.”

Guillermo Luz, executive director of the Makati Business Club, said that the business community doesn’t want to see or support anything unconstitutional in forcing Arroyo out of office. He acknowledged, however, that “the government has shut down all the options...[and has therefore] forced people to look at more desperate means.”

He added: “The distrust for this administration has become so deep that an alternative most people do not like suddenly becomes attractive to them. The sentiment now is that the alternative is bad, the status quo is worse. When you are in that situation, people see things from a different perspective.”

The consultations between some civil society leaders and the military started right after the failed Oakwood coup of July 2003, although some left-wing leaders had held talks with military rebels as far back as after the 1989 coup against the Aquino government.

It was the rebel soldiers who reached out to civil society, acknowledging that they could not win public support if they were complaining mostly of military concerns that most citizens couldn’t relate to, and that they couldn’t succeed without civilian support.

This much the Oakwood mutineers admitted to NEWSBREAK in a previous interview and in a letter sent to bishops and other groups in January this year. In that letter, they said: “We failed...because we arrogated unto ourselves the role of leading the struggle of our people toward change, when such a struggle could only be won by them and with them...when the battle is theirs as much as ours.... This is the greatest lesson of Oakwood: that our place is beside the Filipino people.”

Those interviewed by NEWSBREAK refused to say which leaders were talking to which officers, and clarified that in their consultations, there wasn’t any formal mechanism, like a core group officially representing each camp. “Life happens on the way to a revolution,” a source from the moderate Left explained. “It depends on who knows who.”

Leaders of civilian groups said that they accommodated the soldiers because they wanted to understand their grievances and what they were prepared to do to address those grievances. They realized that the roots of the soldiers’ gripes were the same as the roots of the civilians’ beef against the Arroyo administration.

The talks grew more serious and frequent starting October last year, when the soldiers presented to civil society leaders the program of government they thought the country needed in the event Arroyo is removed. The civil society leaders were asked for inputs and to finetune the reform program of the proposed transition revolutionary government.

 Magdalo and Young

The parties got engaged with groups or factions that shared their political persuasions or that espoused the same strategies for their oust-Arroyo campaign. Thus, the rebel soldiers were divided between the Young Officers Union-New Generation or YOUNG, and the Magdalo.

During the initial talks, the impression created was that YOUNG would work for a peaceful withdrawal of support of the entire military command-similar to what happened in 2001 that forced President Joseph Estrada to leave Malacañang. The civilians had to gather the crowds first; the soldiers abandoning their commander in chief would follow.

The Magdalo was inclined toward consolidating the support of superiors only up to a certain level of the command, and taking more aggressive actions. The civilians were expected to mass up in support only after the soldiers had moved. This was similar to the 1986 uprising that led to President Ferdinand Marcos’s downfall.

The YOUNG was talking primarily to representatives of the moderate Left, the middle class and certain members of the business community, and religious organizations, politicians, and supporters of ex-President Estrada who aren’t pushing his restoration to power.

The Magdalo was more in touch with the extreme Left, others in the moderate Left, retired military generals, the mainstream opposition, and Estrada’s supporters who are insisting on allowing Estrada to sit, if not head, the transition government.

We identified all these anti-Arroyo groups in our Feb. 27, 2006 issue (“Itsy-Bitsy Spiders and Little Ms. GMA,” or see: www.newsbreak.com.ph).

The Magdalo, which is influenced by their RAM elders, remained the core and muscle of the movement, while the YOUNG commanded crucial units (see diagram and “Failed Enterprise”).

 Talks with the CPP

The RAM elders and a member of Magdalo held talks with key officials of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The talks focused on how to oust Ms. Arroyo and how to bring about a new political system; both sides were against installing a military junta.

Without admitting it, Jose Ma. Sison, the CPP’s founding chair, endorsed such a meeting in our e-mail interview with him last March 6. “I don’t think that it is against revolutionary principles, strategy, and tactics for the CPP to talk [with military officers] seeking to cooperate with a broad united front in ousting Arroyo by withdrawing military support from this regime a la EDSA 1 and 2 and without carrying out a military coup.” Besides, the government itself is negotiating with the CPP, he added.

Asked if this wasn’t the ultimate contradiction, communists being in bed with military rebels, Sison said: “Of course, there is a contradiction. Some people can reasonably say on certain grounds that the CPP is not supposed to talk with such groups.” But, he stressed, “circumstances can change to necessitate or allow certain policy adjustments or political agreements not previously possible.”

Besides, Sison added, “in politics as in physics, opposite poles attract each other, whether they are still locked in combat or come to terms on some points beneficial to the people.”

In the early 1990s, underground YOU leaders-with the blessings of their elders in RAM-held talks with leaders of the communist Alex Boncayao Brigade led by the late Filemon Lagman and Nilo de la Cruz over issues such as the removal of the US bases and a “nationalist” program of government. This was an offshoot of personal ties that developed between military rebels and communist guerrillas who were detained then in one prison center in Camp Crame.

Sison denied knowledge of the talks (he has accused Lagman and De La Cruz of being military agents), but acknowledged that in jail, both sides “had ample opportunity to exchange ideas and views” about the country’s problems and how to solve them.

 Enter the Bishops

Indeed, the plan to oust Ms. Arroyo has brought together the most bizarre alliances.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, an ex-Marine and former AFP chief of staff who admits talking to the soldiers even as late as February 23, said that he had set the following conditions: “I don’t want to be part of any move that will lead to bloodshed, that will sacrifice the boys like what happened in Oakwood, and that will use brute force that will be rejected by the people.” (Biazon met with Marine commandant Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda on the evening of February 23; Miranda was to lead the Marines in the planned withdrawal of support on February 24.)

By December, most of the civilian groups were resigned to the fact that people power and military intervention should go together for a successful change of government. There was also the realization that the military couldn’t be sidelined because of all those working to bring down the President, “the military is the most organized sector.”

The Black and White Movement, for example, maintains that as an organization, it’s not coordinating with the military. However, its convenor, IT specialist Vicente Romano III, said that they are “trying to work with other groups” that include those who are embracing military intervention. In that case, he said, “we cannot be the show-stopper.”

Even Laban ng Masa’s Randy David, who is against “[inviting] the military to intervene in the political process,” acknowledged that there is “a growing acceptance of a political role for the military because of what happened in 1986 and 2001.”

In December, too, a number of Catholic bishops “started softening up on [possible] military participation,” according to a source from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) who is privy to the talks. This was after civil society leaders assured the church leaders that “the military role will be passive, they will just provide strength” to the civilian initiatives, and that “the military will not sit in the council.”

In addition, the CBCP elected a new president, Iloilo Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, who appears to be more independent-minded. (Our sources made it clear that the bishops were not talking directly to the soldiers. They named at least two civilian leaders who had been acting as go-between.)

At the time, the bishops were also ripe for reinvigorated lobbying from Arroyo critics. They had gotten “tired of Gloria,” said one source from the Church, “when their July pastoral letter, where the bishops stressed that the truth must be pursued, was ignored by Arroyo,” a second source from the CBCP said.

The rebel soldiers, or at least their supporters or advisers, got the message. This was evident in their January letter to the bishops that stressed how the military wanted to maintain civilian supremacy in the ongoing campaign to remove the President and in the post-Arroyo government.

 Common Program

Former Sen. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, in an interview two weeks before the preempted mutiny of February 24, insisted that he wasn’t involved in any attempt against the government, but that he knew what the new generation of rebel soldiers wanted.

“We are not really qualified or interested in governing by ourselves, so the parameters would be any intervention must be driven by the highest sense of patriotism and duty. Second, it must effect a change from one civilian authority to another, a collective transition mechanism, then we can hopefully call for credible, peaceful, and honest elections,” Honasan said.

Before the events of February, various civil society groups had contributed to a “common program” with the rebel soldiers. The consensus was to make a go for the “withdrawal of support” campaign. Bishops, in fact, were initially promised that a “military-enabled civilian transition government” should have been in place by January 2006.

Sources who sat in the meetings said that during the discussions, the soldiers and the Leftist ideologues acknowledged that they could not run the government; they were there to provide some framework for the new government. Groups like the Black and White Movement and Bangon Pilipinas, which have links with professionals, the middle class, and businessmen, would be the ones to recommend experts in various fields and agencies of the new government.

Joel Rocamora of the Institute for Popular Democracy and Akbayan doesn’t find this alliance alarming. “As citizens, the Left and the soldiers can talk about the ills of their country. There’s nothing wrong with that. We should stop objectifying the soldiers and the Left,” because they have the capability to break out of their mold and modify their mindsets when the greater good calls for it, he said.

As far as Rocamora knew, “nowhere did [the groups] talk about a coup” in the strictest sense of the word, meaning plotting an active seizure of power on the part of the military.

Despite the common goals for reform, the groups differed in the details and timetable of achieving them. There was also the realization, ironic as it may sound, that “the closer you are to constitutional options, the farther you are from pushing for substantive reforms,” said former Education Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, who’s also the immediate past president of the Liberal Party.

 Black-Box Approach

To keep the discussions going, one of the civil society leaders suggested that they put the reform program in a “black box”: if there’s no Congress, Supreme Court, or any other institution and process that could legally block the initiatives, which agencies and institution need to be reformed, what kind of reforms are to be undertaken, and who can implement them?

The black-box approach became the inspiration for those talking to the bishops. One of the last two issues that the bishops wanted to resolve before considering the issuance of a statement finally calling President Arroyo to resign was whether the Arroyo critics and the military would do anything unconstitutional or extra-constitutional.

“This is how the argument was framed. The President has shut down all the constitutional options. In that situation, the military can invoke their constitutionally mandated role as protector of the people, and that role can extend to aiding the civilians in introducing the necessary reforms,” one of those talking to the bishops said.

The military’s action is then considered intra-constitutional or within the framework of the Constitution.

While the military is playing that role and reforms are being undertaken, all the inconsistent parts of the Constitution-be it the Commission on Elections, Congress, and the Supreme Court, which the President is perceived to have in her pocket-will be suspended. The Constitution becomes fully operational once the institutional reforms are completed.

In addition, the soldiers pointed out to their point person, they will always “obey the legal orders of a duly constituted government,” two excuses that they think can be considered valid given the question on Arroyo’s legitimacy.

The other remaining issue for the bishops was whether calling for President Arroyo’s resignation was consistent with Catholic teachings, apparently a cautiousness born of the conservativeness of the new Pope. This was resolved by going back to the foundation of the Christian faith, which was a sinless and blameless Jesus Christ dying on the cross for the sins of mankind. “So asking Gloria to make the supreme sacrifice of resigning, even if she thinks she’s not guilty, to save her country from complete breakdown, was consistent with the teachings of the Church,” the source said.

Civilian groups believe that the bishops have been convinced by this argument, but NEWSBREAK has not been able to confirm this with Church sources. The groups aren’t entertaining the illusion of getting the entire CBCP to back them up, but one of them said “20 bishops” would be a force formidable enough. They claim to already have 15 with them.

 No Guarantees

After the preempted mutiny of February 24 and Querubin’s failed call to arms on February 26, those we interviewed said the “basic principle of civilian supremacy” was reaffirmed, but fears remained that the aggressive factions in the military would decide to act independently of the civilian groups, in alliance with the armed Left.

Worse, one of those being consulted by the soldiers said, the restiveness within the military could just boil over and force soldiers to shoot each other, something that the soldiers wanted to avoid, thus their solicitation of civilian support to make President Arroyo heed calls for her to step down.

If and when rebel soldiers take matters into their own hands, then the civilians might be facing the very issue they wanted resolved at the start of their dalliances with the uniformed men: how do you restrain them once they’ve seized power?

“In politics and in romance, there are no guarantees,” Rocamora conceded, but those struck by passion nevertheless take the plunge.

The challenge then goes back to the civilian groups to produce the crowds that would tell the President that the country has had enough of her, a feat that has been elusive since the most serious scandals started shaking the administration.