ORTIGOZA: Soldiers shot officers because they hazed them

Military and police officers during warfare were treacherously shot at the back by their men because they hazed them, Lingayen Mayor Leopoldo Bataoil said.

The former police general and advocate of No To Hazing, told this writer that maltreatment is not confined alone to the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio City but even in the field with soldiers and policemen.

“Haze iyan to accomplish a mission. There were several cases on the parts of PMAers and Non-PMAers they were shot at the back by their soldiers,” he said.

He said to deter non-officers, who are sergeant to private, from failing in the next mission, officers physically hurt them.

Physical here was not how former Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos, a West Pointer, has done to the putchists who failed to oust then President Cory Aquino when he asked them to give him 50 push ups in exchange of the amnesty offered by the government.

Physical is that one-sided punches given by boxing icon Manny Pacquiao to his defenseless opponents or those chopping kicks unleashed by Jacky Chan to the villains in the flicks.

“You’re to accomplish a mission just to expect them to follow you. You’re going to earn their respect and love and obedience. If you’ll be able to get that level of loyalty by not hazing them,” remarked by Bataoil, a former nine years’ congressman, to this writer.

The former solon said he and Cavaliers of the PMA Alumni Association (PMAAA) had a dialogue with the brass and cadets of the PMA in Baguio City on how to thwart hazing after the brutal death of Cadet Fourth Class Darwin Dormitorio at the hands of his upper classmen.

Bataoil, a member of PMA Class 1976, told this newspaper that he was accompanied in that trumpet call by former congressmen Romeo Acop (PMA Class 1970), Samuel Pagdilao (PMA Class 1979) and Gary Alejano (PMA Class 1995) and a young Army Captain Ferdinand Quicho (PMA Class 2011) who was the Cadet Captain of his class.

***

When I was in college and was the editor-in-chief of our school paper, a relative an Army Captain who was not proficient in English, would come to our house through the Army issued British made dark green Land Rover with countless of his men wielding their M-16s, M-203 grenade launchers, M-14s, and M-60 machine gun. The machine gun, by the way, is fed by  7.62 millimeter bullet used by our air force’s Huey helicopters.

“To’ can you edit my complaint (against) my corrupt commanding officer,” he told me about his superior – a major who pocketed some gas and food monies.

In our huddle, he told me a “No-no” in punching a non- commissioned officer who was either a sergeant or private.

“It was a lesson learned by many of us officers not to verbally or physically hurt a soldier in front of his wife or children. He will run amok and kill you,” he said.

***

In the early 1980s, when I was in high school waiting for a military plane (it was either a C-130, C-123. C-47. Fokker, Nomad, or whatchamacallit (Except Walis Tingting from Capiz, I rode em’ all teh he he) bound to then Nichols Air Base (the old Yankee name of Villamor) in Pasay City, some air force sergeants at the outpost going inside the air base of Awang Airport in Dinaig, Maguindanao were talking about an Army colonel, assigned in the huge military complex of  Camp Brig. Gen. Gonzalo H. Siongco there in Awang, being peppered to death with an M-16 bullets by his private at the latter house.

“Nag pa tubil kasi sa misis ni private. Nasundan ni mister kaya hayon pinagbabaril (The colonel had pumped gas to the wife of the private. The private knew the colonel had sex with his wife thus he was shot to death),” one of them enthralled us.

I did not know if the lustful colonel died lying on the naked young pretty spouse of the private just like our mayor in Pangasinan, an octogenarian, who died naked with his likewise bared young secretary.

It was reported that the hysterical early 20s lass narrated to the police about an incident in a motel in the Urdaneta City when his paramour was hit not by the 5.56 mm bullet’s M-16 assault rifle used by that cuckold private but by a much lethal heart attack that did not give his old lover’s veteran politico, son of a gun, a second chance to continue his patronage politics with his constituents.

***

Here was a controversial maltreatment committed by a three-star general when he slapped two privates in the middle of a war.

Because of the fuss given by the press and Congress on that brouhaha, the swashbuckling pompous legendary general I called “Slapping George” was recalled from his post by the then Army Chief of Staff (the present equivalent of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Chief of Staff).

Here’s Wikipedia on that historical incident: “In early August 1943, Lieutenant General George S. Patton slapped two United States Army soldiers under his command during the Sicily Campaign of World War II. Patton’s hard-driving personality and lack of belief in the medical condition combat stress reaction, then known as “battle fatigue” or “shell shock”, led to the soldiers’ becoming the subject of his ire in incidents on 3 and 10 August, when Patton struck and berated them after discovering they were patients at evacuation hospitals away from the front lines without apparent physical injuries.

Word of the incidents spread, eventually reaching Patton’s superior, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who ordered him to apologize to the men. Patton’s actions were initially suppressed in the news until journalist Drew Pearson publicized them in the United States. While the U.S. Congress and the general public expressed both support and disdain for Patton’s actions, Eisenhower and Army Chief of Staff George Marshall opted not to fire Patton as a commander. He was nonetheless sidelined from combat command for almost a year”.

***

Let’s go back to the Philippines after our brief visit of Sicily, Italy. When I was in elementary grade my father would beguile me about his fellow Ilonggo a general named Rodolfo Canieso (PMA Class of 1956).

When wet behind the ears Army soldiers that included those hastily recruited draftees were withdrawing and running away from a firefight in Liguasan Marsh in my former Province of Cotabato from those brave Moro warriors armed with Belgium made FN FAL or Fusil Automatique Léger assault rifles given by Libya president Muammar Gaddafi, a tough talking no-nonsense bastonero General Toto Rody Canieso, lininti-an gid, ordered his artillery men  to fire those 105 and 155 howitzers, used by the Yanks against the Vietcongs and the North Vietnam Army, so they could explode behind  the chickening out soldiers who were mostly Ilocanos. Canieso plan was for these weakling faint of heart soldiers to turn 180 degrees to fight to the death those 7.62x 51 NATO bullet fed FN FALs wielding members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rather than die brutally on the ordnances of those howitzers that could turn them into smithereens.

Gee whiz, I am confused now if that was still maltreatment or massacre mercilessly committed by Cannon Joe Canieso.

***

While we were waiting for President Rodrigo Duterte’s chopper to land at Sual Wharf in Sual, Pangasinan, Bataoil, he was still then a congressman, told me that the battle ensued in Jolo not in Liguasan Marsh. 
Then President Ferdinand Marcos called via radio Canieso and asked why a lot of dead soldiers on the side of the government.

“He told the president that the huge death happened too at the side of the rebels. Normal lang daw sa giyera iyong casualties. Canieso said: “Mr. President do not worry about the casualties on our side. We can still bring a lot of Ilocanos from Luzon to fight the rebels to the end,” the solon stressed with a chuckle as some generals and colonels listen around us.

“Kinabukasan relieved na si General Canieso (from) his post,” Bataoil amusedly told me.

Why? Because Marcos was a saluyot or Ilocano from Ilocos Norte!

Darn, Kanyonero Canieso was like Patton who was relieved because of maltreatment.
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