Closer than

brothers
Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy
By: Alfred McCoy
"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.” – Alfred W. McCoy
 Alfred W. McCoy
 Alfred William McCoy (born June 8, 1945) is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. McCoy has been recognized as "one of
the world’s leading historians of Southeast Asia and an expert on Philippine
political history, opium trafficking in the Golden Triangle, underworld crime
syndicates, and international political surveillance.
 McCoy graduated from the Kent School in 1964. He earned
his BA from Columbia College, and his PhD in Southeast Asian history from Yale
University in 1977.
 McCoy served on the faculty of the University of New South Wales for eleven
years. In 1989, he joined University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 In 2001, the Association for Asian Studies awarded McCoy the Grant
Goodman Prize for his career contributions to the study of the Philippines. In
October 2012, Yale University's Graduate School Alumni Association awarded
McCoy the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal.
Alfred W. McCoy
 Philippine Military Academy
 For the past 100 years, the officers training school of the Armed Forces in
the Philippines has made Baguio City its home.The Philippine Military
Academy (PMA) boast of a long and illustrious history of preparing only the
best Filipino men (and, in recent times, women) for military service.
 Located at Fort Gegorio del Pilar on Loakan Road, visitors Philippine Military
Academy History, Traditions & General Information to the City of Pines are
welcome to explore the grounds, view the cadets performing their drills,
and explore the PMA museum and walk around its manicured grounds to
see vintage tanks and other historical military weapons.
Philippine Military Academy
 The Philippine Military Academy began on October 25, 1898 with the establishment of
the Academia Militar in Malolos, Bulacan by virtue of a decree issued by the first
president of the young Philippine Republic, General Emilio Aguinaldo. Graduates were
awarded regular commission in the armed forces. Its existence was short-lived, barely
four months old, up to 20 January 1899, when hostilities between the Americans and
Filipinos erupted.
 While the Philippines was under American colonial rule, an officer's school of the
Philippine Constabulary was established at the Walled City of Intramuros in Manila on
February 17, 1905. It relocated three years later to Baguio City, initially at Camp Henry T.
Allen, and subsequently at Teacher's Camp.
 The Philippine Legislature on September 8, 1926 passed Act No. 3496 renaming the
school the ‘Philippine Constabulary Academy' and lengthened its course from nine
months to three years with provisions to strengthen the faculty and revise its curriculum.
 Philippine Military Academy
 On December 21, 1936, Commonwealth Act No. 1 (also known as the National Defense
Act) was passed. The law formally created the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) and
authorized it to confer a Bachelor of Science degree on its graduates after they
successfully complete the four-year course.
 The outbreak of World War II in late 1941 disrupted training at the Academy. Classes
1942 and 1943 were graduated ahead of schedule, assigned to combat units in various
parts of the Philippines. Many perished during the war.
 The Philippine Military Academy reopened on May 5, 1947 again at its former location in
the Summer Capital, Camp Henry T. Allen.
 Due to the need for wider grounds, the Academy moved to its present site at Fort
Gregorio del Pilar, a sprawling 373-hectare compound in Loakan, some 10 kilometers
from downtown Baguio City. Named after the young hero of the battle of Tirad Pass,
General Gregorio del Pilar, PMA in its new location was developed into a military
training institution with facilities and infrastructure required by a growing academy.
 Philippine Military Academy
 Its pre-war technically-oriented curriculum, patterned after that of the US Military
Academy at West Point, was restored. Socio-humanistic courses were added In the
1960s, as the curriculum underwent major changes, and strengthened to balance the
techno-scientific disciplines, with a view towards providing a well-rounded education
relevant to the needs of a growing Armed Forces of the Philippines.
 In 1993, PMA was transformed into a ‘Tri-Service Academy', which introduced
specialized, branch-of-service-specific courses in the last two years of training, preparing
fresh PMA graduates for their specific branch of service, for the graduates to be ‘field-
ready', ‘fleet-ready' or ‘squadron-ready' upon graduation. Also that same year, in
accordance with Republic Act 7192, the first female cadets were admitted into the
Philippine Military Academy.
 The Class of 1940
 The National Defense Act created after the establishment of the Philippine
Commonwealth, gave way to the establishment of an all-new Philippine Military Academy.
After a nationwide call for PMA recruits, about 10,000 young men responded. Only 120
reported as plebes to the PMA at Teachers Camp, Baguio City on 15 June 1936 — and only
79 made it to graduation. The Class of 1940 wrote the Honor Code, renamed the school
publication to “Corps”, composed “PMA, Oh! Hail To Thee”, and launched the “Peemay
Slingo”. In the history of the Academy, only two cadets hold the distinction of being
distinguished cadets (“Starmen”) from Fourth-Class to First-Class year — Licurgo E. Estrada
and Washington M. Sagun, Valedictorian and salutatorian of Class 1940, respectively. They
graduated on 15 March 1940 and went to war nineteen months later.
 Meet the young men of the Pioneer Class of 1940 and see how they lived lives true to the
academy’s motto of courage, integrity and loyalty.
 Complete four years of training as cadets
 Authorized to go out anywhere in Baguio City during their free time.
The Class of 1971

 Known as “Matatag”, The Class of 1971 started its career in the

Academy on April 1, 1967. From the summer camp, where it was
once promised that from this camp shall emerge the future generals
of the Armed Forces, the class was indoctrinated to the FourthClass
and UpperClass System and Honor System. For four years the Tactics
Group provided the character and military science tactics training.
The Academic Group provided us the education, to complete all
necessary skills needed for the successful pursuit of a progressive
military career…
 Many Members of this Matatag class gain national prominent in the
arena of Philippine Politics and state government…
Among them are as follows…
And two most famous personalities
Two Similar but with Contrasting
Personalities…
"Closer than Brothers: Manhood at
the Philippine Military Academy"
 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.
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 Difference between Class 40
and 71…
 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.
"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."
 On the other hand…
 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 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.
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 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."