Timing good,
but message off

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

A high-ranking officer of the Naval Reserve Command has been stripped of his post and restricted after he called for the overthrow of President Benigno Aquino III in a video that was circulated Friday.Col. Generoso Mariano is also facing a formal investigation and may be charged for sedition and unbecoming conduct for an officer. What further charges may be filed against him, his superiors will have to determine that. But it is clear that Mariano’s action was indeed unbecoming, if not utterly suspicious, most of all because of his timing.The Naval officer’s timing was also believed suspect because the video was circulated on the day that the President was scheduled to meet with military officers in a command conference. Others considered the timing to have been chosen also to coincide with the arrival from abroad of the former president of whom he is believed to be supportive.It is not surprising that his own superiors promptly took the measures against him that they did. Actually, it seemed a strange decision for Mariano to make. Did he believe that he has enough following in the military to back him up? Was he trying to make a last hurrah, considering that he is supposed to retire this week, having already reached the prescribed age of 56?Backgrounders of the incident show that this same Mariano was also one of the soldiers involved in the 1989 coup attempt on the late President Corazon Aquino. Was this the same coup try where one of the victims was now President Beningo Aquino III, her son? Reports have said that the son still has the bullet scars from that caper on his back.President Aquino, the son, may not be the aggressive, gung-ho and dramatic leader that his people expected. But they chose him overwhelmingly because of their disgust with the previous administration. He was voted to do his thing for six years, and he has only led for one. Surely not too many people think like Mariano and the birthday bishop Juan Pablo de Dios Pueblos, Por Dios!*