IN the old days, the biggest threats to national security came from Filipinos who had been swept away by the ideological tide of Marxism and Leninism. From the time of the Huks in the 1950s up to the 1970s when the communist movement was further stoked by ideologues like Jose Ma. Sison and Red fighters like Bernabe Buscayno, the successive administrations from Manuel Quezon to Ferdinand Marcos Sr. equated the term national security to fighting and defeating at least three generations of communist rebels.
From the time of Corazon Aquino onwards, the radical New People’s Army (NPA) that succeeded the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB) itself suffered a diminution of forces, following the split into several factions of the reestablished Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). By the time Rodrigo Duterte established the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), the communist rebels were just waiting for the death knell to end their armed struggle.
‘… many feathers are expected to be ruffled by the implementation of the EO.’
In the past, the NPA used to reserve their biggest and most daring attacks on the Armed Forces of the Philippines or the police on the day or within the week of the CPP’s founding anniversary on December 26. This year, the rebels failed to deliver on this tradition despite the fact that the NPA-CPP-NDF refused to declare a ceasefire in observance of the Christmas season.
The exit of Duterte from Malacañang Palace and the entry of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. coincided with the exceedingly aggressive activities of China, particularly its coast guard, in the disputed islets and shoals in the South China Sea. In the past two years that Marcos was in power, the government has submitted numerous complaints to the Chinese embassy in Manila about China’s incursions and harassment activities against Filipino fishermen and uniformed personnel patrolling the country’s exclusive economic zone.
Thus, as one internal threat to national security is resolved, another more insidious and precarious one has developed.
It is in this context that the Marcos administration, through National Security Adviser Eduardo Año, defended the Chief Executive’s decision to reorganize the National Security Council (NSC) in recognition of the felt need to upgrade its advisory capability in the wake of the new geopolitical landscape.
The national security adviser described Marcos Jr.’s Executive Order No. 81 s. 2024, which reconstituted the composition of the NSC, a necessary move to further enhance the formulation of national security policies.
The move scrapped the membership to the NSC of all living previous Presidents and the Vice President, which means former presidents Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Duterte, and Vice President Sara Duterte need not be invited to NSC meetings.
The order is backed by the Administrative Code of 1987 which vests the Chief Executive with the continuing authority to reorganize the administrative structure of the Office of the President, which the agency is a part of.
The Constitution also concurs. Section 17, Article VII of the Charter gives the President the power of control over all executive departments, bureaus and offices.
Despite this, many feathers are expected to be ruffled by the implementation of the EO.
It is somewhat reassuring to note that previous Chief Executives — Elpidio Quirino, Marcos Sr., Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Macapagal-Arroyo also reorganized the NSC without much fanfare, achieving some measure of utility and efficiency.
