Beneath it was written: “On top of my carabao is me and on top of me is my hat.—a Southeast Asian citizen.”
The reporters, mostly veterans and a few newbies including myself, wondered what the “cerebral” National Security Adviser Jose Almonte meant but even their collective curiosity could not compel anyone to ask him. Feigning knowledge seemed better than admitting ignorance to a man who knew how to put people, including journalists, in their proper place.
Sometime during the Ramos administration, Malacañang reporters received a Christmas card from a Palace official that left all of them stumped. On the card was a portrait of a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, riding a carabao.
Fifteen years later, I sit across the 81-year-old Almonte at the dining table of his modest Greenhills condo-office for this interview. His black curls have been replaced by a white buzz; his face seems more predisposed to grinning than scowling, giving him the appearance of a concerned grandfather rather than a retired public servant with a fascinating and action-packed past worthy of a hit HBO miniseries. Though he encourages me to ask about anything— compensation for a long-ago slight to Palace reporters who covered him—his well-guarded private life discourages prying.
When I ask what he aspired to be, growing up in Albay before and after World War II, he prepares to respond but stops almost immediately. He says, “You know, this is the first time I’m interviewed this way. I was very eloquent telling you what is the problem of the nation. But this one is new.”
The office is tidy and simple, befitting the image of a man known for not helping himself to the trappings of power. This, Almonte says, is something people find hard to understand, given the duties he performed for the administrations of President Corazon C. Aquino and especially President Fidel V. Ramos.
He traces it back to his upbringing in Albay. Born in Barangay Estancia in Malinao, a third class municipality, Almonte was a “son of the soil” as he called it, but he never felt his poverty because of the deep spiritual upbringing that his parents made possible even without a chapel around. “My parents were very God-fearing, and just to instill the love of God or the fear of God at the same time is more than enough for me to be guided accordingly. Without telling me anything beyond that, just that there is a Superbeing was more than enough for me to restrain my natural impulses because just like any human being we are all tied to the world,” he says.
Almonte says that even as a child he already sensed that he had to do something to change the situation. “It’s quite mystical. I cannot say that as a young kid, but I knew that the situation has to change. That has been my sense,” he says. What he called a “simple act of selfless concern” gave him a chance to pursue his goal. The late Colonel David Abundo of Philippine Military Class ‘54 wrote to him and encouraged him to enter the Academy so he could get a college education.
Almonte experienced culture shock at the PMA, but unlike other plebes, it was a pleasant surprise. He was provided all his needs and enjoyed good food. Even hazing was a breeze for someone who grew up in very tough conditions. “Of course life [in the PMA] is very hard with hazing etc., but I’m used to a hard life… ‘Yung iba nga umiiyak, ako naman nagtataka. Kasi sa akin hindi mahirap ‘yon. Mas mahirap ang pinanggalingan ko,” he says with a laugh.
After he graduated in 1956, Second Lieutenant Almonte found himself in Gitingan, on the border of Laguna and Quezon in the Sierra Madre mountains, leading a platoon against insurgents. There he began an enduring friendship with then Captain Fidel V. Ramos that saw them through a people power revolution that overthrew their Commander-in-Chief, and a presidency where they strived to put the Philippine house in order by dismantling monopolies in many sectors that would continue to impact the economy.
In Gitingan, the two young officers discussed fundamental questions that bothered them. Why were they ordered to kill the people who had paid for their education, and why were those people rebelling against the government in the first place? “The rebels that we were hunting were the poor Filipinos. We, the soldiers, who were sent to hunt them and kill them, were also poor Filipinos. For whom are these poor rebels, poor Filipinos killing each other? Is it for the common good? Or is it to protect so-called vested interests?”
The nagging question kindled his war against vested interests which continued to burn as he went through military and civilian offices from the Macapagal administration to the Marcos regime.
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"Panganiban likened his friend to 'some sort of James Bond and Napoleon Solo combined, but without the wine and the women.' Which state spy comes close to the real JoeAl?"
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From 1962 to 1965, he was Assistant Chief of Intelligence of the Presidential Security Unit assigned to President Diosdado Macapagal and his family. He was also Special Assistant to the Executive Secretary where he helped the Philippine government “chart a more independent course in its foreign policy.” He was involved in laying the groundwork for the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.
It was during the Marcos regime that Almonte gained his legendary reputation as someone “sneaky, shadowy, mysterious and enigmatic.” Like many others, former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban had this fleeting first impression of Almonte, which he admitted at the launch of Almonte’s book, We Must Level the Playing Field, in 2007. Panganiban likened his friend to “some sort of James Bond and Napoleon Solo combined, but without the wine and the women.” Which state spy comes close to the real JoeAl? Almonte says he is neither, and tells me a necessarily abridged version of how he gained that notoriety.
Ferdinand Marcos won the presidency in 1965 on the campaign promise that he would not send Philippine combat troops to fight with U.S. forces in Vietnam, but he realized he could not govern well without U.S. help. Marcos had to compromise and agreed to send the Philippine Civic Action Group to Vietnam (Philcavg) to provide medical and engineering services.
Captain Almonte was assigned to go to Vietnam as a counterintelligence officer ahead of the Philcavg, which was sent to War Zone C in Tay Ninh. It was believed that the 2000-man contingent might suffer casualties of as much as 25 percent so it brought 500 Philippine flags, to be draped on the coffins of fallen soldiers. If that happened, the Filipinos would support combat action for Philippine troops in Vietnam, which Marcos would have to do to ensure his re-election in 1969, says Almonte.
With this in mind, Almonte decided on his own to embed himself with the Viet Cong as Captain Almonte, to keep the Philcavg from suffering casualties. “I did not join them like Napoleon Solo or James Bond where infiltration is in disguise. I was not in disguise. I was myself,” he says. Almonte convinced the Viet Cong that it would be counterproductive for them to fight with Filipino troops who were there for civic duties. And so, the Philippine flags remained mostly unused until the end of Philcavg’s duty.
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