EDITORIAL - Implosion

Only the most naïve didn’t think the mutiny staged by junior military officers in Makati last July 27 was a power grab. The misguided putschists and their psychotic civilian supporters miscalculated badly and the mutiny followed such a horrid script that when the day was over, the misadventure looked like a cheap comedy.

For all the pathetically comic moments, however, it was still a coup attempt, and it was nothing to laugh about. A fact-finding commission has concluded as much, and has warned that unless the mutineers’ grievances are addressed quickly, the Armed Forces of the Philippines could implode and collapse, with unpredictable consequences.

The recommendations of the commission headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Florentino Feliciano cannot be ignored by the administration even as it basks in the afterglow of US President George W. Bush’s brief visit in Manila. For even as Bush condemned attempts by Philippine military elements to grab power, some quarters in the American media pointed out that US military aid to Manila has failed to improve the AFP’s performance due to corruption.

Everyone acknowledges the need to professionalize the AFP and make its members immune to exploitation by opportunist politicians. The Phi-lippines will never be secure until it has in place an army whose loyalty is to the country and its democratic ideals instead of to certain self-styled messiahs. To build such a professional army, however, will require sweeping reforms, with changes starting from the way the officer corps is molded in military school, and going all the way up to the top AFP brass.

The administration has been lauded for making sure that the July 27 mutineers and their supporters won’t get off with the usual slap on the wrist. Now the administration must show political will in implementing genuine, long-term reforms in the military. Apart from punishing coup plotters, the best way to send politicized soldiers back to the barracks is to implement reforms that will make military intervention in national affairs unnecessary.