Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Victor Corpus at different phases of his military service

The following is my recollection of events, some of which transpired 38 years ago, aided by Google.

Until I met Victor Corpus after the EDSA Revolution in 1986, I imagined him to be a swashbuckling figure, a soldier turned rebel who fought against the excesses of the Marcos regime. In a  picture I saw of him standing with the emaciated Ninoy Aquino and a very thin Bernabe Buscayno (aka Kumander Dante) at their trial before a military court, he looked fit – matipuno – like the soldier he once was. 

But when I finally met him after his release from ten years of detention, he was this shy, childlike presence who looked at you with trusting eyes and a wide bedimpled smile. Not exactly what I expected; but his fame had preceded him. Vic, who was an instructor at the PMA, had raided the Academy’s armory when he defected to the New People’s Army in December of 1970. He trained and led NPA squads in encounters with the Philippine Army, and was with the group that was assigned to meet the ill-fated MV Karagatan and its cargo of firearms from China in 1972.

In 1976, he left the NPA in disillusionment, and turned himself in to the military where he endured ten years in detention and was sentenced to death by a military court along with Ninoy Aquino and Kumander Dante.

There were so many reasons not to trust him, but in the post-EDSA euphoria, everything was possible, even for a renegade like Lt. Victor Corpus to defect back to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He was reinstated as Lt. Corpus in 1987, and retired as a brigadier general in 2004.

In 1986, along with the newly released Bernabe Buscayno who had also opted for the “legal struggle,” Vic’s story was sought after and was quickly immortalized in a movie starring Rudy Fernandez as Victor Corpus. It was in this state of semi-celebrity that Vic found himself in the midst of a political maelstrom. In November 1986, the Reform the AFP Movement (RAM) led by then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and his close-in colonels, whose attempt to seize power for themselves from President Marcos in a coup in February 1986 was thwarted by the People Power revolution, was again plotting to take over government, this time against President Cory Aquino.

The movie, *Operation: Get Victor Corpus,* starred Rudy Fernandez as the renegade soldier.

Called “God Save the Queen,” one of their “causes” was that Cory was coddling communists and communist sympathizers in her government. They also tried to establish a connection between Cory’s late husband Ninoy Aquino and the CPP-NPA, citing alleged proof from Victor Corpus who they said heard CPP leaders talk about Ninoy’s role in the bombing of Plaza Miranda in 1971. For this, they needed Vic’s public testimony.

Col. and Mrs. Vicente Corpus with their son, Vic. Col. Corpus , a doctor, was with the AFP Medical Corps.

When contacted by a RAM officer about the coup plot and the role they expected him to play in it, Vic, the loyal soldier, turned around and reported it to then-PC Chief Renato de Villa. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_the_Queen_Plot)

The AFP leaked the plot to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and all hell broke loose. Identified as the source, Vic was sought after by the media, and one can imagine, the RAM as well. It was in Camp Crame where I stood in the lobby of the PC Headquarters with the rest of the press corps waiting for Vic who was coming to hold a press conference.

When he arrived, clad in his school colors -- a green and white De la Salle jacket and sweats, and surrounded by security, he looked like a frightened bird. Vic scanned the crowd searching for a familiar face. When he saw me, he grabbed my hand and pulled me as he made his way quickly up the stairs to Gen. de Villa’s office, with me scrambling behind trying to keep up with him. He only let me go when he was led into a room, and the door was shut in my face.

His press conference was actually a let-down. Whatever happened in that room, Vic did not talk about “God Save the Queen.” Instead, he shared his recollection of the events surrounding the Plaza Miranda bombing, implicating the CPP and its founder and chairman, Jose Maria Sison, that he had told earlier at a Senate hearing. And he did not implicate Ninoy Aquino as the RAM hoped he would.

The coup was averted. Secretary Enrile was fired from the cabinet by President Aquino, the RAM officers were reassigned to distant places, and the Aquino government lived to survive at least six other coup attempts in the next few years. And Vic Corpus rose in the officers’ ranks of the Philippine Army.

The rest of my Vic Corpus stories are less dramatic and stressful. I was a reporter for the Manila Chronicle. I was covering the CPP-NPA in the late 1980s, when police intelligence raided a meeting of communist leaders and arrested every one present. Although the Intelligence officers could identify most of the captives by face, there was one whom they did not know. A call was placed to Vic across EDSA in Camp Aguinaldo, to come to Camp Crame, without telling him why.

Upon entering the room, Vic saw the captive who was once his comrade, and greeted him warmly, in all innocence: “Oy, Rolly!”

BINGO! It was Romulo Kintanar, the commander of the NPA and the most wanted rebel of the day.

I was in San Francisco in July of 1989 when Vic arrived on his way to Boston where he had been awarded a one-year fellowship by the Asia Foundation at Harvard University’s School of Government. We were staying in the same house of a common friend. He didn’t know what to expect in Harvard and was seeking advice. I asked if he intended to stay for a year without his family and he said it looked like it because he didn’t have the funds to bring his wife over. When I joked that he should be careful with the women in Boston who could be quite forward, Vic looked worried, and he apparently took it seriously because the next thing we knew, Mely and their only daughter Cynthia were on her way to Boston to join him.

When Vic stopped over in San Francisco on his way to Harvard, we all found ourselves in the same house. Seated are Gemma Nemenzo and Vic. Standing are Babes Flores who was on his way home from Harvard, and myself.

One could always count on Vic to do the honorable thing. A loyal officer, he was named head of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) in 2001, a designation that roiled certain sectors in the military that resented the re-integration and quick rise of a former rebel in the officer corps, and he was even given ISAFP, which was a plum post. Vic resigned in 2003 after the Oakwood Mutiny led by then Lt. Antonio Trillanes shook the Arroyo government and demanded the resignation of the President and her miliary leaders, including General Corpus. In his letter of resignation addressed to President Arroyo and quoted by Rappler, Vic wrote: “In chess, when a queen is beleaguered, it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice a knight to save the game. I feel that the restiveness will not calm down with my continued presence.” (See https://www.rappler.com/philippines/victor-corpus-dies/)

“Rest in peace, General Victor N. Corpus -- good soldier, patriot, environmentalist, and friend. Thank you for your passion and your loyal service to our country and people.”

When he was in ISAFP, Vic invited me to attend an event in a lovely garden that he had planted within the compound, an area in Camp Aguinaldo that I had always regarded as a place where awful things happened to suspected rebels. But it was hard to imagine such things happening during Vic’s watch. And here we were, meeting amid flowers and greenery.

After he retired from active duty in 2004 at the age of 60 (an exception to the rule that officers retire at 56), Vic continued his service to the country, this time as an environmentalist. Put in-charge of the government’s anti-illegal logging task force, he established nurseries for replanting denuded forests all over the country. It was so like Vic to be involved in something nurturing and lasting.

I would run into Vic once in a while at social and official events, and always, he was engaged and engaging, his smile warm, his eyes welcoming. The last time I saw him was around four years ago at an event in Trellis restaurant in Quezon City. He was with Mely, who was not well, and he was still talking about his passion project -- tree planting. Mely passed away shortly after, and I often wondered how Vic was coping. I was sorry to learn of his death on April 4, 2024.

Rest in peace, General Victor N. Corpus -- good soldier, patriot, environmentalist, and friend. Thank you for your passion and your loyal service to our country and people. ###