THE EMBATTLED PHILHEALTH'S CHIEF RICARDO MORALES
Who is Ricardo Morales? Morales hailed from Davao, from the hometown of president Rodrgio Roa Duterte..
PhilHealth Chief Ricardo Morales, a former soldier, retired in 2009 as a general. A member of Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) headed by Gringo Honasan.
In 1986, the group hatched a plan to topple the Marcos government. He was then the trusted aide de camp of Imelda Marcos...
He was the group’s ace in the hole. The plans had him as the rebel commandos’ guide into the Presidential Palace to capture the First Family (Marcos).
“Since I knew the route inside the palace, my job was to lead the assaulting element,” Morales recalls...
But something went terribly awry. RAM leader Gregorio Honasan had tried to recruit yet another Palace insider, Maj. Edgardo Doromal. Doromal, however, squealed, and Presidential guards moved swiftly to arrest Morales and two other military officers.
On the eve of Feb. 22, 1986, just six hours before the planned commando assault, then Ferdinand E. Marcos appeared on national TV for an emergency broadcast; announced that he had foiled an assassination plot and presented the three captured military officers as evidence.
“They were part of an aborted coup d’etat, an assassination plot against the President and the First Lady,” Marcos declared on television. To Marcos’s left sat a glum and ashen-faced Capt. Morales, still dressed in the dark bush jacket favored by security aides at the time.
“Once I was caught, I thought, ‘I’m a dead man,’” Morales recalls. “I was thinking, whatever happens, I hope it’s going to be quick and painless.”
But the wheels of history have a way of turning things upside down...
While Morales was thrown into prison in the Presidential Security Command (PSC) compound, then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Constabulary chief Fidel Ramos barricaded themselves inside Camp Crame.
Millions of folk poured into the streets to protect the military rebels from Marcos’s might while military units began defecting to the Enrile-Ramos side.
The event later on was dubbed as the first EDSA PEOPLE'S POWER or the 1986 Revolution.
Hence, the so-called rebellion or defection of Enrile and Ramos to the people side is actually to escape the strongman (Marcos) as the rebel's plan to capture Malacanang was foiled, or the three RAM members officers involved was caught, including Ricardo Morales.
Marcos already knew who are the powers behind the captured soldiers and it was easy as they are all connected to the Reform Arm Forces or RAM headed by Gringo Honasan, who then was a trusted aide of Juan Ponce Enrile.
Thus orders were given for the arrest of Fidel V. Ramos and Juan Ponce Enrile. So they fled and barricaded themselves inside Camp Crame.
While in Camp Crame, Ramos and Enrile actually called then the late Cardinal Sin and pleaded for help. Thus the Cardinal made a plea to the people via Radio Bandido to protect Ramos and Enrile, and the people heeded and went to EDSA
The rest is history.
Disclaimer: This article is based from an article written by Ed Lingao for PCIJ.
Comments
Post a Comment