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The Unfinished Revolution of Jose Almonte
The former National Security Adviser has lead a long and storied life, and has been called "some sort of James Bond and Napoleon Solo combined."
by
Mia Gonzalez
Jan 25, 2018
Jan 25, 2018
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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.
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 His black curls have been replaced by a white buzz; his face seems more predisposed to grinning than scowling, giving him the appearance of a concerned grandfather rather than a retired public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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Almonte says there is not enough time to detail his three-year stay with the Viet Cong but only that it got “so complicated” that in 1967, General William Childs Westmoreland, Commander of the Military Assistance Command (MACV) in Vietnam, told Almonte that US forces had captured documents proving that he stayed with the Viet Cong. “He asked me to just ride the B-52 and we’ll bomb them to Stone Age. I refused. I said, ‘Why?’” When Westmoreland demanded to know why he refused to obey him when he was an ally, and that what he was doing was an act of betrayal, he told Westmoreland that he had trained with the Special Forces in Fort Bragg, where the general was a commanding officer. Westmoreland’s statements were written along the camp’s road in big bold letters, and he picked one as his personal guide.
“I said, ‘Sir, that is what you taught us: The word of the soldier is his bond. My word is never to betray the Allied Forces under you and never to betray the Viet Congs, whom I am now with. So whatever you do is alright but I cannot comply.’ He was so shocked by my statement. He embraced me like a father and said, ‘Okay, okay,’” says Almonte.
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Almonte concludes, “My mystery is because I think I’m so open,” he says, laughing. “And that is the enigma.”
In 1979, he joined the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) upon the invitation of disgruntled young officers led by Colonel Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan. Honasan, now a senator, says that Almonte struck him as “deeply spiritual” when they first met. He says Almonte told the young officers that the Armed Forces “is not a private security agency or a pretorian guard of any sitting administration but the Armed Forces of the people.”
“He did not force himself upon us. He told us about the fundamental core values of the military profession which led us to decide what we had to do as a reform movement. In fact, he was one of the influential personalities who shaped our reform agenda,” the senator says.
Almonte believes no job is difficult unless it meant a reversal of commitment, which he encountered when he joined the ouster movement against Marcos. When he worked for the Marcos regime, Almonte wanted the New Society to succeed because it seemed admirable though the means to achieving it was debatable.
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“I had to give him [Marcos] some good will, some amount of patriotism, of sincerity on his part unless he proved otherwise. So in that sense, I worked with him but with all those constraints, qualifications. Now, trying to bring him down then was not easy because it’s a reversal of commitment, although the commitment is to the nation not to him, but it was through him. So that is a difficulty. But I look at it as a challenge,” he says.
Almonte was among those who wanted Marcos to remain in the country to stand trial and be convicted. He still believes that letting him go on exile was a lost political opportunity. “It could have tested the collective sense of justice of the Filipino people and to me that is crucial in nation-building…. That should have been the first demonstration of the nation similar to the impeachment of Rene Corona,” says Almonte.
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When Ramos became president in 1992, Almonte became his National Security Adviser and Director-General of the National Security Council (NSC). Among the first executive issuances of Ramos was Administrative Order No. 2 which “reoriented” the activities of the NSC Director-General and the intelligence community “towards attaining broader national goals” including social and economic development. AO 2 gave Almonte the authority, finally, to practice what he had long preached, and moved to promote equitable growth by dismantling monopolies in key sectors such as telecommunications, inter-island shipping, banking and insurance.
“The effects of their reforms are now visible,” says former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga Jr.
Paderanga first met Almonte in 1987. “I was intrigued because my immediate impression was that he was incisive, deep and quite knowledgeable,” he says.
“He gave FVR the big picture,” says veteran journalist Marites Vitug. Like others, Vitug was also initially intimidated by Almonte and thought he was “sinister.” But this changed when she and fellow journalist Glenda Gloria interviewed Almonte for a story on socialite Rosemarie “Baby” Arenas during the Ramos administration. “He was quite open and talked to us after the story came out. He doesn’t take things personally….After he stepped down, I realized that he did important things. And that he wasn’t sinister; he was a good person,” says Vitug.
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Asked what he would want to see happen in his lifetime, Almonte says he would like to see more reforms similar to the dismantling of the PLDT monopoly, which would make more opportunities available to the people. He admits that doing this can cause disparity since those who can take advantage of the opportunities would be the best-equipped, risking a wider income gap. But he believes that the next generation “would resolve the other problems generated by the opportunities now.”
“It’s just like medicine with side effect. Kahit na may side effect, at least hindi ka mamamatay. Then if you recover, that’s the time you take care of the side effect; a poor analogy but this is what I would like,” he says.
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About halfway through the nearly three-hour interview, Almonte finally makes a pitch for something close to his heart, his “four conditions” for bringing out the best in the Filipino. Anyone would feel unpatriotic not to take note of it. It is a message he wants to inject in the minds of younger people whom he believes can still make a difference. This is apparently why he agrees to meet with bloggers and anybody else interested in hearing his vision for the nation, hopeful that his message would get across to the youth.
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“The old men never mind….Those people like me, we’re all fertilizer anyway,” says Almonte, who turns 82 in November.
He asks his secretary for a copy of his Christmas message last year. It is his prescription for nation-building on a sheet of paper measuring four inches by five inches. His face lights up. He speaks with such urgency that I feel as if I were the last person to hear it.
“Look at the Philippines from 1946 when we recovered our independence up to today. That’s 67 years. Was this nation really able to implement its Constitution and its laws fully? Hindi. We bribe the courts. We prostitute our politics. The system is so weak. It has no strength to prevent it. How could we change the environment so that we change that situation where the nation is paralyzed to even implement its Constitution and its laws?”
One condition, he says, is for the government to end the internal war in the country, against the communist insurgency and the remaining Muslim secessionists. “If we cannot end this, we cannot develop. Let me illustrate to you: If Lincoln did not take the risk in 1868 in emancipating the slaves in America, America may still be in war up to today. Will they be a superpower? No. That is why Lincoln, he was assassinated for these things but he is credited as one of the best presidents of America, one of the few best,” Almonte says.
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The second condition is to complete all the land and non-land reforms needed, and the third, to end the stranglehold of vested groups on the Philippine State and its regulatory agencies which has dampened the competitiveness of the Philippines in the region.
“In reality, we have elections. But afterward, Malacañang is captured by the funder, by the elite. So you have a state that is under the control of the oligarchy. You have a state that is captured by the oligarchy. That’s the problem,” he says.
The fourth condition, he says, is something that Mr. Aquino has already started with his death knell on the wangwang culture. It is to live by the values that our heroes fought and died for. “Why is a Filipino not definitive on defining who is a Filipino? Why is he ambiguous in the understanding of a Filipino? My analysis is that the Filipino is confused because the nation, their leaders, the educational system perhaps, did not put the necessary emphasis in ensuring that this nation live by the values that our heroes, our martyrs, fought and died for. These are the values of honor, of human dignity, of justice, of liberty, of compassion. Our leaders, do they exhibit this?” Almonte says there have been cases when Philippine leaders “demonstrated very embarrassing behavior that derogate on these values.”
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One example, he said, was in 2004, which prompted U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to vent out his frustration to “any Filipino” through Philip Kaplan, the US Ambassador to Beijing, who chose to meet with Almonte. According to Kaplan, Powell was angry at President Arroyo for pulling out the Philippine contingent from Iraq after she had personally assured the U.S. official that she would not under any circumstance withdraw the forces—an assurance that Powell had earlier conveyed to President George W. Bush. Powell had to apologize to Bush and said that in his 40 years of service, he had never met someone like Mrs. Arroyo who not only lied to him, but was also a head of state and a woman, says Almonte, recalling Kaplan’s words.
Mrs. Arroyo was pressured to go back on her word to save 46-year-old truck driver Angelo dela Cruz, who was kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents and threatened with execution unless Philippine troops were withdrawn from Iraq a month ahead of schedule.
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Almonte, who was still talking with Mrs. Arroyo then, did not agree with Bush’s policy in Iraq but he advised the President that since she had decided to support the Bush administration, it was a matter of “national honor” to stand by that commitment. He said dela Cruz had said that he had accepted his fate and only wished the repatriation of his remains to the Philippines. “I said we can make a monument for him using 1,000 sacks of cement—that would be bigger than the Rizal monument. We’ll put it in his hometown and we will make him the icon of the OFWs. Just do not withdraw the troops because that’s our national honor,” he says.
At the time, Mrs. Arroyo was being accused of poll fraud by the camp of Fernando Poe Jr. and was under threat of people power. She had to make a popular decision. “It just shows you that Gloria sacrificed a national value that our heroes died and fought for—national honor, national dignity. For what? For her political expediency. Do you see what I mean? What do you teach the people with that?” he asks.
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He says Mr. Aquino had to cater to China because of the botched Quirino grandstand hostage rescue in 2010. The Philippines joined China’s “boycott” of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway, in 2010, where jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was an awardee.
“Imagine, my friends from outside called me and said, ‘Joe, we can understand other presidents who did not send delegations on China’s behest to Oslo but we cannot understand your President because he is the son of a martyr for democracy; human rights. And the son of a political saint, the mother. He embodies both the mother and the father. What he did is entirely something we cannot understand.’ What value do you teach there? You see my point?”
Almonte says Philippine society cannot produce a reformist president without his prescribed conditions but concedes that Mr. Aquino seems to be trying, at least.
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"He was frustrated with the impatience of young journalists who wanted simple answers to complicated issues, especially on matters of national development. Now, his ultimate target audience is the youth and he is willing to clarify his answer many times over to drive home his point."
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When he was no longer a Palace official, businessmen would call Almonte to complain about alleged corruption during the Estrada and Arroyo administrations. But since Mr. Aquino took over, he has not received such calls.
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“Not asking commission [from businessmen] is very good, and that is to the credit of the President. That is why the businessmen are so happy. That’s why he is being given—not we—it’s the President who is being given this very high rating, Almonte says.
What he would like to see from Mr. Aquino is for him to become the “last cacique” which he says will happen once Hacienda Luisita, the Cojuangco family estate, is parceled out to its beneficiaries.
“He can do anything. Not only because he’s very popular; it’s by accident of birth. He’s a cacique. And he is the one who can end the cacique regime,” Almonte says.
He says that in the same way that Ramos was able to sell military bases and integrate Muslim rebels into the Armed Forces and the National Police during his time because he was a “professional soldier through and through,” so too can Mr. Aquino lead the way for other big landowners in the country. Almonte may get his wish yet; the Department of Agrarian Reform would announce a few months later that the distribution of Hacienda Luisita would be completed by September, after passing the most contentious stages in the acquisition of the estate under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.
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Even if he has been out of public service since 1992, Almonte has been busy with speaking engagements in and out of the country. He remains a favored resource person and is known to be a source of wise counsel for officials not only at home but abroad.
“My policy is always to do everything I can to help them because it’s my only duty. I think I owe it to them and to God. Look, I am being paid by the government. I still have my pension. They are very concerned about the situation and I do help them,” he says, but declines to name any of them.
Palace Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang admits that he has been seeking advice from Almonte, whom he has known since he was in media. He met him through Glenda Gloria and Marites Vitug when they were all together in Newsbreak.
“He’s considered as one of the elder statesmen of Southeast Asia. So when there’s an issue affecting the region, they seek him out, including officials from other governments,” Carandang says.
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Almonte has spoken extensively on the challenges of terrorism, and the challenge posed by China, which he had predicted would be a continuing problem. Inside his main office, he motions to a framed page of the Far East Economic Review editorial cartoon that appeared on its May 7, 1997 issue. President Ramos is on a tugboat bearing the Philippine flag, confronting a Chinese ship. Mr. Ramos brandished a flyswatter and demanded, “I order you to leave immediately!” It was the only frame that he brought with him when he left NICA.
“This to me was very close to my heart because I knew it’s going to be a problem,” he said.
I ask if he plans to write an autobiography but he seems disinterested, though he admits that people have approached him about it. He says his problem in pursuing the project is that he has never kept a record about himself. He doesn’t keep old pictures; he has no baby photos because his family couldn’t afford them.
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“I have sentiments. But I don’t live with my past,” he says.
Some parts of his past he has chosen to live with are displayed on his shelf. One is represented by his photo with the late British PM Margaret Thatcher. It was taken at the residence of the British Ambassador, the venue of a luncheon for Lady Thatcher who visited Manila for a speaking engagement in 1996. Almonte vividly remembers their meeting. He says Thatcher demanded that he be seated next to her at the luncheon, displacing Finance Secretary Roberto de Ocampo, and they talked for two to three hours.
“She lectured me. She told me, ‘General, I want you to continue what you are doing,” which showed that Thatcher was monitoring the key reforms of the Ramos administration, of which Almonte has been credited as the chief architect, and the backlash he received from those at the losing end. “She told me, ‘Don’t be intimidated by these; don’t believe them. I know what you want. That is what you do. Forget them,’” he recalls.
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Another memorable meeting, he says, was in 1995, when Jusuf Wanandi, chairman of Indonesian think-tank Institution of Strategic and International Studies, paid him a visit. It was upon the request of their “common friend,” former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew who had an important question for him. This was at the height of public outrage over the execution of Flor Contemplacion in Singapore. Lee, through Wanandi, told Almonte that he was very proud of Filipinos and had fought for their freedom but he could not understand why they have gone “collectively insane” because of the execution of one Filipino, “a domestic helper and a woman at that.”
“I said, Jusuf, tell our common friend: No. 1, he is right, that the Filipinos have gone collectively insane because of the Flor Contemplacion issue. Number 2, tell him that the reason why they have gone collectively insane is because they are insane enough to believe that the dignity of Flor Contemplacion is equal to the dignity of the Queen of England. That’s the reason,” Almonte recalls.
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After a lull while we had coffee, he says, “Mia, you can ask all the difficult [questions], embarrassing or what. You covered me before. I was so unfair to you people.” He fixes his eyes on his coffee cup. “I think I didn’t want to talk to you [the Malacanang Press Corps]. You know, sabi ko sa inyo noon,” he turns to his side, points his index finger to an imaginary person and says in a loud, gruff voice, “Do you know what you’re talking about?” We laugh together. He smiles and says, “I’m sorry, hija.” I still laugh but he doesn’t join me this time. He sips his coffee and says, “No, I’m sorry. I’m apologizing.”
He reveals he used to act this way because he was frustrated with the impatience of young journalists who wanted simple answers to complicated issues, especially on matters of national development. Now, his ultimate target audience is the youth and he is willing to clarify his answer many times over to drive home his point. His desire to reach out to the younger generation is evident. Through the Foundation for Economic Freedom, he published a pamphlet, Why are Filipinos killing fellow Filipinos? It was meant to bring his 2007 book to a wider, younger audience. He dedicated his collected speeches, Toward One Southeast Asia, to the “young people of Southeast Asia.”
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His message to young Filipinos is that they are equal to anybody in the world. “All we have to do is to give him the opportunity so that his potential could be realized, his talents could come out and give meaning to that potential,” he says, effectively summing up his life story in one sentence.
As I wrap up the interview, I decide to raise the enigmatic Christmas card. Almonte is puzzled why no one bothered to ask him back then. They were just plain scared of him, I say; some of them still are. He laughs heartily, along with his secretary, Edna, who is in the kitchenette.
“Simple. It’s about freedom. It’s about independence. On top of me is my carabao. On top of the carabao is me. On top of me is my hat. What was not articulated is on top of my hat is God; nobody else.”
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Photos by Charles Buenconsejo. This story originally appeared in Esquire Philippines' September 2013 issue.
Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph team.
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