Leader of the band

Antonio Trillanes may have been elected a senator of the Philippine republic in the May 2007 elections but he has not been able to warm his seat in the Senate because he is in jail awaiting trial as a coup plotter.

Trillanes is one of the leaders of the so-called Magdalo Group, a band of junior military officers that took over the Oakwood Hotel in Makati in July 2003 in a failed attempt to spark a revolt against the government.

As a young military officer, it is understandable for Trillanes to be highly idealistic. As an idealist, it is easy to spot causes and issues that afflict even such supposedly steadfast institutions as the military.

And it has to be admitted that the causes and issues that stoked the rancor of Trillanes and his band of young officers were valid and legitimate, even to this day. They are causes and issues that cannot be ignored and swept under the rug but must be addressed and remedied.

These causes and issues not only cut deep into the integrity of the military as an institution but seriously undermine the safety and well-being of the nation's fighting man as well.

For these issues involve, among other things, corruption in high places, the same king of corruption that is already eating other institutions of the country, most especially that of the political leadership.

But the idealism of Trillanes and his ilk has not been tempered with responsibility and discipline, two virtues they were supposed to have but so carelessly abandoned in favor of impatience and intransigence.

Two wrongs just never make a right. Even if the motives of Trillanes and his ilk are good, no good can ever come of them if they do wrong in pursuing them. Mounting a coup was wrong and they knew it, both as military officers and as citizens.

If Trillanes and his men felt a strong and decisive action needed to be taken, especially one that would necessarily disrupt the normal course of life of ordinary citizens, then they should have first renounced their oaths and shed their uniforms and become rebels.

For there is nothing right and pardonable for them to be both soldiers and rebels at the same time. Soldiers are sworn by a sacred oath to even give their lives in defense of their country and its people. They are not supposed to be the threat to the security of their country.

But Trillanes and his ilk could not see that. They are hot-headed and close-minded. Worse, they are self-righteous, selfish and presumptuous. And so, on that balmy night in July 2003, they took the nation hostage by storming and taking over Oakwood.

By their own admission before live television cameras, they rigged the entire hotel with bombs and explosives. They were prepared to sacrifice innocent lives. If only there had not been a specific term to describe what they did, their act would have been called a terrorist attack.

Now Trillanes and his ilk are behind bars, and deservedly so. The example they set does not deserve to be emulated even by the most disgruntled man in uniform, for it tarnishes the sanctity of what that uniform signifies.

Yet Trillanes is incorrigible. A recent explosion rocked Glorietta, incidentally the same complex where Oakwood is located. Without any shred of evidence, Trillanes blamed government for the blast. A leader of the band that rigged Oakwood with bombs has the shoe on the other foot.