It’s a toss up between generals Ferrer and David for AFP chief of staff

MANILA, Philippines - How does a new president solve a problem like Gen. Delfin Bangit?

Here is an officer who’s been there, done that, who’s risen from the ranks largely on account of his ties with his longtime boss, who’s survived the treacherous fields of military politics, and who now holds the unenviable title as the current but bypassed chief of staff of the Armed Forces.

One can imagine the pieces of advice whispered to the ears of president-elect Benigno Aquino III. It’s a foregone conclusion, Bangit should go. Campaigning on change and reform politics, Aquino has no choice but to shun this general who has shadowed and protected Gloria Arroyo for nine years, not including the period he served as her aide when she was vice president. Bangit, I imagine the Aquino advisers as telling him, is the epitome of patronage politics in the Armed Forces.

This makes sense, except that Aquino should realize he is faced with a nuanced situation, which requires more than a knee-jerk response from him. Lawyer Edwin Lacierda, the incoming presidential spokesman, hit a raw nerve in Camp Aguinaldo over the weekend when he echoed Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s initial proposal for Bangit to resign immediately. What could have been a quiet, manageable transition for Bangit has since turned into a psywar. (The Aquino camp should already stop managing state affairs through the media; the campaign, after all, is very much behind us.)

The complication springs from the fact that Bangit’s scheduled retirement is in July 2011 yet. If he quits now, he will be the most senior ‘floating’ general in the Armed Forces. But Aquino can rightfully argue that’s not his problem. The original sin was committed by Mrs. Arroyo, who decided to appoint Bangit instead of a general senior enough to be retiring soon after the new administration has settled down. So Bangit—and his handlers—should have been more circumspect at his Monday press conference, when he accused the Aquino camp of dragging the military into politics. The military would not be in this situation now if not for someone who treated the institution like her fiefdom.

A reasonable man, Bangit knew this was coming. But look at it from his perspective: as chief of staff, he made sure the Armed Forces stayed clean in the last election and proved all doomsayers wrong. For this, who could blame him for entertaining the thought that he has earned the right to be retained, even for only a short period?

From his body language and statements before elections, it’s obvious there was a part of him that quietly wished he could change his fate. Helikely figured that if he played his cards well in the May elections, the new administration might just begin to see him in a new light. It didn’t help that he was surrounded by peers who made him believe this was something realistic, not delusional.

And then it looks like he went a step further to push his luck. By the stroke of his pen, he granted temporary liberty to a staunch anti-Arroyo soldier, ex-Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, who ran but lost a senatorial bid under the Aquino-Roxas ticket.

According to a source privy to meetings between the camp of Lim and the military shortly after May 10, it was a senior general close to Bangit who met with them and agreed—on behalf of the chief of staff—to allow Lim to be released to the custody of another general. It was a quick, no-frills nego. Before everyone involved in the talks knew it, the high command had already signed Lim’s papers.

The least that Bangit probably expected was for the Aquino camp to give him a graceful exit and not diss him in public.

Previous presidents have had a smooth transition for their chiefs of staff. In the case of the late President Corazon Aquino, she named Gen. Lisandro Abadia chief of staff (CS) a year before the 1992 presidential race, an officer young enough to complete the traditional three-year term for a CS. It helped that Abadia was equallly acceptable to Ms. Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, who retained his services.

Then President Ramos, on the other hand, chose to extend the term of his last chief of staff, Gen. Clemente Mariano, to four months to ensure a smooth transition for his successor—or up to June 30, upon the inauguration of Joseph Estrada.

Estrada, of course, was ousted with the help of his own chief of staff then, Gen. Angelo Reyes, thus President Arroyo didn’t have to do her math at that point. When Edsa 2 happened and Mrs. Arroyo assumed power, Reyes had a few more months to go before retiring.

Which brings us again to the original sin. The outgoing president had the choice to extend ex-AFP chief of staff Gen. Victor Ibrado, whose scheduled retirement was March 10 this year. Recall that there was a strong lobby for his extension. Because of a Mariano precedent in the Ramos-Estrada transition, an Ibrado extension would have been acceptable.

But Ms. Arroyo chose not only to appoint a new CS but to pick a controversial one. The CA-bypassed Bangit, after all, bypassed other senior generals when he was named to the post, among them Eastern Mindanao Command chief Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, who is said to be among those being eyed now by Aquino as the next CS.

The other reported contender for the post is Northern Luzon commanding general Lt. Gen. Ricardo David, who is based in Aquino’s homeprovince of Tarlac. Ferrer and David are both 1977 graduates of the Philippine Miltary Academy, although Ferrer is the more famous one, given his track record in Mindanao.

Thus amid the white noise emanating from Camp Aguinaldo, Bangit and the entire Armed Forces high command know the die is cast. Over his favorite brandy, he can tell friends that it was good while it lasted.