THAT HAS been the slogan of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) when it started out in the early 1980s as a rebel organization in the military aiming to topple the Marcos regime.

The rebels calculated that to announce that their goal, their dream, was the noble one of reforming the Armed Forces of the Philippines would be the best way to recruit officers and men to the mutiny. After all, its aim was to undertake a coup d’ état, the first time ever in the country’s history.

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IN A POMPOUS ceremony last Friday in Malacañang, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima was smiling ear-to-ear as he handed over to President Benigno AquinoIII checks of P29 billion representing dividends of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) turned over to the National Treasury.

In his speech, the President claimed that these were the result of his administration’s hard work. “As you can see, we are working overtime to bolster our abilities to give back to the Filipino people what they have given us,” he said.

He even insinuated that the huge remittances could not have been made under the previous administration since the GOCCs at that time were “the milking cows of politicians and their wards.”

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EVEN AS the Left and the opposition were very noisily claiming that it was a prelude to the imposition of    martial law, the Human Security Act (actually the anti-terrorism law) was passed in 2007. Its provisions enabled the Arroyo administration to contain terrorism.

One of the law’s key features, intended to create a strong institution that is alert and capable of fighting terrorism, is the seven-member Anti-Terrorism Council. Under the law, the executive secretary serves as its chair, with the justice secretary as vice chair. The other members of the council are the secretaries of national defense, foreign affairs, interior and local government, and finance as well as the national security adviser. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and even his successor who served at that post for only four months, Leandro Mendoza, convened the council every month.

Since President Aquino assumed power nearly seven months ago, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa has not called a single meeting of the council. Not even the warning in November by governments of the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of an impending terrorist act in the country in November convinced Ochoa to convene the council.

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THE QUAGMIRE of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3—which would have been our main gateway to the world—is a cautionary tale of an epic scale for our country. It dramatizes questions of paramount importance for our country and, perhaps, for many developing countries as well:

Which should take precedence in terms of state policy and action: the anti-corruption value or realpolitik? Should, or can a compromise be reached between these two different guides to action?

It’s amazing how many have so easily forgotten why the NAIA 3 contract of the Philippine International Airport Terminals Corp. (PIATCo), a consortium dominated by an obscure Chinese-Filipino firm and the German Fraport AG, was aborted.

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A FAVORITE feature of mine in this newspaper had been the occasional “Whatever happened to…?”, which followed up what happened later on to news—controversies, crimes, accusations—that had been reported.

It was a reality-check of sorts, as a follow-up often disclosed that seemingly shocking accusations, for instance, were exaggerated. Often, the whatever-happened-to follow-ups were disappointing, as for instance, it turned out that the only thing that happened regarding a crime story after two years was that “the case is pending in the court.” The feature was also a means to pressure authorities to fulfill their promises.

With the start of a new year, it would be useful to list down several “whatever-happened-to’s” of national interest, and revisit it every six months:

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REVERSING THE Sandiganbayan’s pending decision to let retired Brig. Gen. Carlos Garcia off lightly would be a major test of President Benigno Aquino III’s leadership. And by leadership in this case is not meant simply giving orders or blaming the Office of the Ombudsman, but finding ways and means to use the enormous powers of the presidency to ensure that justice is done.

I realize of course that many would sneer at this, but during the earlier years of the Arroyo administration, there was a determined, organized and no-nonsense campaign against corruption. It was less talk and sloganeering, but hard, quiet work. After President Joseph Estrada’s conviction and incarceration, Garcia’s case was the highlight of that campaign.

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THAT IS what in effect President Aquino told the world when he announced that his decision to boycott the Nobel ceremony was to convince China not to execute five Filipino prisoners convicted of drug trafficking. I hope I am wrong, but Mr. Aquino’s statements may have put the Death-Row prisoners closer to the firing squad.

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IN ITS brief five-month existence, President Aquino’s Truth Commission managed to show us three truths. The first is that the current administration is in a time-warp of sorts. It believes that June 2010 was another Edsa Revolt. The make-believe world of administration officials is that just as his mother toppled a dictator in 1986, the son had overthrown Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in May 2010.

What Mr. Aquino and his inner circle don’t seem to know is that Arroyo wasn’t kicked out as Marcos and Estrada were; she stepped down when her term ended and even ran for a lower post as a member of Congress. Her candidate lost in the elections, but so did the respected President Fidel Ramos’ anointed lose to a popular actor.

Because of that kind of mentality, Executive Order No. 1 that created the commission was nearly a plagiarism of his mother’s Executive Order No. 1 issued on Feb. 28, 1986. “Whereas, there is an urgent need…,” the mother said in his order in 1986. “Whereas there is an urgent call…,” the son said in his 2010 order.

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DR. MARIO Miclat’s “Secrets of the Eighteen Mansions: A Novel” (Manila: Anvil Publishing, 2010) reveals in rich detail many of the covert factors that contributed to the growth of one of our country’s biggest problems: the Communist Party of the Philippines.

The “18 mansions” are the buildings in a secret compound in Beijing where the Chinese Communist Party in the 1960s and 1970s housed delegations of communist parties all over the world to facilitate its clandestine aid to their own insurgencies.

Mansion No. 7 housed the living quarters and offices in Beijing of the delegation from the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founded and led by Jose Ma. Sison, aka Amado Guerrero. Miclat was a member of the CPP delegation who, with his family, lived and worked in that mansion starting in 1971. He returned to the Philippines in 1986, totally disillusioned with the party, which he says was a monster he “helped create, yet which devoured” him. He has since become an academic with a PhD and is at present dean of the Asian Center at the University of the Philippines.

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