Soldier Builder

This section begins with an account of Captain Fidel V. Ramos as a 20-year-old company commander in charge of rooting out the remaining bands of the Marxist-Leninist Hukbóng Magpapalayà sa Bayan (“Huks”) making their last stand in the Sierra Madre Range of northern Luzon. It ends with a synthesis of the period during which President Ferdinand E. Marcos removed the operational control of the Integrated National Police from the Philippine Constabulary under General Ramos and transferred it directly to General Fabian Ver, who belonged to Marcos' inner sanctum. These movements in 1983, following the assassination of opposition Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., would lead to the end of the Marcos overlordship of the Philippines. From the 1950s to the early 1980s in the Philippines, Captain Ramos, who served in active duty in the Korean War, was to become a lieutenant colonel leading the engineering battalion, the Philippine Action Group in the Vietnam War; and then Brigadier General Ramos who served as Philippine Constabulary head under the imposition of Martial Law by President Marcos. Having volunteered for active duty in the Korean War, the hot war that erupted as the Cold War began, soldier-engineer Ramos was to lead in military engagements of the ideological battles of the 1960s up to the 1980s. He maintained a preference for action fronts, which allowed him proximity to the rank-and-file soldier. As head of the Philippine Constabulary for fourteen years, General Ramos maintained the composure of a professional soldier. But his life will take a radical turn.