In the 1980s, the Philippines (specifically Metropolitan Manila) was rocked by 9 coup attempts by a

faction in the military. I remember the bloodiest of these, the one in December of 1989, when I was
seven years old. One of my earliest recollections then was the sight of a coup dive-bomber attacking
the government TV station which was (and still is) near our house in Quezon City.

"Closer than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy" by the noted historian and
political scientist Alfred McCoy of the University of Wisconsin (Madison) is a comparative historical
analysis of two classes of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), the country's equivalent of the US
Military Academy at West Point. The book is required reading for my Theories of Comparative
Politics course in graduate school and studies the class of 1940, the Academy's first graduating class
and whose members fought the Japanese invasion; and the class of 1971, the class that figured
prominently in the several coup attempts in the 1980s.

McCoy's research puzzle is this: What makes a military disobey civilian authority and try to remove
it? And what makes it do the opposite, to obey and respect it? In the case of the Philippine military,
McCoy found that the answer lies in the socialization of the Filipino officer corps and the experience
during service and churned out a book that is a guide on the military's role in the Philippines and
Asia.

The Philippine Military Academy was established in 1935 as part of the National Defense Act, the
first law made by the Philippine Commonwealth (the ten-year preparatory period before
independence) under President Manuel Quezon. The Commonwealth created the PMA to train
Filipino officers for its military to defend against foreign invasion. However, the government also
recognized the danger of creating a professional force with arms that can defend against invasion,
but can also turn its guns against the government and seize power.

To prevent the politicization of the military, the PMA (just like its US counterpart) instilled in its
cadets a respect for civilian authority through discipline and curriculum, while the informal bonds
created through hazing, hardship, and camaraderie served to instill a more lasting solidarity among
its members.

The class of 1940 was inculcated with the values of honor, professionalism, and respect for civilian
authority over the military. Just more than a year after their graduation, the members of class 1940
were in the frontlines fighting the Japanese invasion. Though the integrity of some was compromised
by collaboration (voluntary or not), most of those who survived a hellhole prisoner of war camp
continued the struggle as resistance fighters and assisted in the defeat of the Japanese and the
liberation of the Philippines in 1945. They also served the Philippine republic after the restoration of
independence in 1946. Though many also felt the pressure of politicization (and a few succumbed to
it) from politicians and the patronage system, most resisted and remained apolitical and
professional.

The members of class of 1971, on the other hand, were politicized from their cadet days through
political events in the Philippines and the world and brutalized by martial law, when they became
instruments of state repression. Having tasted power over life and death, the class of 1971 (and other
classes during martial law) was stripped of its apolitical mandate and became convinced that it was
an agent of change through violence.

The first manifestation of the bid of the class to effect change and seize power was during the People
Power Revolution in February of 1986 that drove the dictator Ferdinand Marcos out of power. Some
people might forget it, but People Power was not a brain child of Corazon Aquino. It started as a coup
plot by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM), the faction led by PMA class 1971 baron
Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan and coddled by the wily Defense Minister (and co-author of martial law)
Juan Ponce Enrile. But the plot was discovered through leaks and Marcos sent troops and tanks to
crush the plotters who were then holed up in Camp Crame (the headquarters of the Constabulary,
which is the Philippine National Police today). But a call from General Fidel Ramos, then
Constabulary chief (and later Philippine President) who defected to the rebels, to Manila archbishop
Jaime Cardinal Sin led the latter to issue an appeal through Catholic Radio Veritas for the people to
go to the Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue (EDSA) to block the troops and tanks of Marcos from
reaching the rebel soldiers. More defections followed, the US withdrew support from Marcos, and
the world watched as the miracle of people power unfolded and unseated a dictator.

But the success of People Power emboldened the right-wing members of RAM to flex its muscles to
try to overthrow the government of Aquino and prevent justice to prevail against the torturers and
executioners of martial law, many of whom were members of RAM. So they launched several coup
attempts against the Aquino regime, but all failed due to tactical incompetence.

But the coup attempts failed also because MAJORITY of the Armed Forces of the Philippines did not
(and still do not) agree to removing a democratically elected government through a military coup. It
is perhaps a testament that the socialization and discipline among officers (and ordinary soldiers) is
still strong and a recognition that launching coups not only damages the economy and destroys
democracy. It is also a testament to the failures of the very idea that Honasan, Kapunan, et al (and
later, Trillanes) and to the prevailing concept that democracy must be continually improved.

"MORE than any other comparable Filipino elite, the officer corps had been created and defined
by the nation. No other group had its social role, ideology and personal values so directly, so
fundamentally shaped by the state." So writes the historian Alfred W. McCoy in his fascinating
book, "Closer Than Brothers" (Anvil Publishing), a comparative study of two batches in the
Philippine Military Academy-the classes of 1940 and 1971.

Only 30 years separate these two PMA classes from one another, notes McCoy, and yet the
difference in mind-set is so sharp that one would have thought they were bred by two distinct
institutions. "Class '40 is a study of successful military socialization....Graduating on the eve of
war, Class '40 won honors for fighting enemy invaders, were ennobled by privation in Japanese
prisoner war camps, and emerged with their bonds and values stiffened....As soldiers in a society
permeated by patronage politics, Class '40 faced incessant pressures to compromise. Their
careers required, on a daily basis, mediation of the paradoxical, even contradictory role of the
military in a democratic society-subordinated to politicians yet apolitical; armed yet nonviolent,
all-powerful yet powerless."

At the other end is Class '71, "a study in the breakdown of military socialization," says McCoy.
"Instead of fighting enemy invasion, the young lieutenants of Class '71 were brutalized by
combat against Muslims in Mindanao and interrogation of suspected subversives in
Manila....They emerged from a decade in the safe houses of the Marcos regime with a superman
sense of themselves as creator/destroyers who could seize the state and transform society."

It was to Class '40 that men of honor like Gen. Victor Osias and Commodore Ramon Alcaraz,
who both refused to compromise with Marcos, belonged. Addressing the members of the PMA
class of 1990, who had joined the 1987 coup as cadets, Alcaraz sharply reminded his young
audience of what it meant to be a soldier: "Go forth out there and be a strong moral force in
transforming the military into a profession of honor which it used to be."

To Class '71, on the other hand, belong the officers who plotted the 1986 coup that led to Edsa I,
and controversial figures like colonel and former senator Gregorio Honasan who mounted coups
against the Aquino government, and police general and now senator Panfilo Lacson, whose
record McCoy associates with torture and summary execution of criminal suspects. McCoy's
unkindest depiction of them is as political egomaniacs who played god. Nowhere in the book is
there a mention of Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia, another member of this class. The information that
the US government has shared about the amount of money that General Garcia and his family
have brought into the United States over the past 10 years demonstrates the magnitude of
corruption in the military. An updated version of the book would no doubt include a whole
chapter on General Garcia-one more proof of the decline of honor among the officers who were
initiated into the cynical ways of power under Marcos.

It would be unfair to single out one PMA batch and ascribe to it all the failings of military
leadership. But indeed no PMA class has figured in more controversies as the Class of '71. This
class clearly counted in its ranks many strong individuals with great leadership potential.
McCoy's point is that these soldiers used these qualities to ruin the nation in whose image they
were cast, because somewhere along the way they lost their basic military values and began to
imagine themselves as worthy players in a society ruled by corrupt politicians.

McCoy explains this as a failure of military socialization. This view places the onus of
responsibility for the failings of the officer corps on the Philippine Military Academy and its
curriculum. We may need to dig deeper than that to understand the problem.

It is a fact that the modern values instilled in the minds of PMA cadets bear little resemblance to
the distorted values of our society. But this is nothing unusual. The education of a student in any
of our better universities features the same discrepancy. There is nothing wrong with the
socialization of our young people. But the ideals they learn at school are easily negated by the
practical realities of the world into which they are subsequently thrown. Members of the Class of
1940 remained men of honor because they did not have to contend with political leaders as
vicious as those we have today. Like the rest of their generation, they were animated by the spirit
of nation-building. Today's politicians are seldom gripped by such ideals. You cannot have
professional soldiers in a nation governed by corrupt and incompetent leaders. They will either
try to seize power or become part of the rotten system.

Ex-Captain Rene Jarque says as much in a poignant letter he recently wrote to his fellow
Filipino West Pointers: "We have known the rottenness of the system all along and how the
culture in the AFP was not and is not conducive to professional growth and honest conduct. It
was never reflective of the Academy's motto, 'Duty, Honor, Country.' Some of us gave it a
chance, found it unwieldy and incorrigible, and left. Some stuck with the system and played it
out only to be sucked into the vortex of corruption and unprofessional conduct. I was trying my
best to be as professional and as patriotic but I could never be honest given the extent of the
graft and corruption in the AFP. And that was, I believed, unacceptable to my sense of honor
and integrity. Hence, I left."