Police and military officials are openly confessing the difficulties they face trying to avoid being sucked into the country’s decrepit neo-feudal politics.

At the start of last week, for instance, an overtly anxious Philippine National Police chief Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr. had to expressly warn cops to “remain professional” and always “uphold the rule of law” amid the unwarranted politicizing of the police ranks on the treacherous issue of Mindanao secession.

“As I read books about failed states, they have one thing in common: The dysfunction of institutions. The number one problem there is the politicization of the security forces. The failure of states starts there,” Acorda said solemnly in a speech during the flag ceremony.

Acorda didn’t get much news traction with his worries. But ignoring his dread as merely some sort of a surreal omen of the country’s vulnerable future is the worst thing any of us can do.

In fact, Acorda’s worries upon closer inspection are increasingly becoming matters of fact, with discomfiting signs that politicizing the country’s security forces is dangerously veering toward dangerous shoals.

A harrowing prospect which by the way involves not only cops but also soldiers.

Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., for example, recently toured military camps in Mindanao to exhort the soldiers to ignore secession calls for the region.

Exhorting soldiers and cops not to take part in neo-feudal and cacique politics has long been a call within the country’s security forces, particularly after its self-inflicted immaturities during the pre- and post-martial law years.

In fact, the professionalization mantra is often invoked every time there’s a brewing political crisis.

The mantra usually comes in many forms but in its essence, it is plainly about asking the security forces not to become mere bodyguards of the moneyed, and often corrupt, political class.

While the security forces have somehow managed to convince people they aren’t bodyguards of a select few, it is still a work in progress.

Recent developments, however, show that the professionalization mantra is again being polluted by neo-feudal politics.

Nothing amply illustrates this brewing pollution than the AFP’s recent terse denial of rumors that an active Davao City-based military unit was to be disbanded supposedly because it was serving as the Praetorian Guard for former president Rodrigo Duterte.

“They know that this Task Force Davao is loyal to the Dutertes. So it seems that there was — well, that’s the buzz now — that Task Force Davao will be disbanded,” wrote former presidential spokesman Harry Roque in a recent Facebook post.

Except for a terse denial, the military did not elaborate on the unsubstantiated claim that the task force set up in 2003 after terror attacks on the Davao International Airport and Sasa Wharf was to be disbanded.

Yet, even if the military maintained a radio silence, the top brass surely could not ignore the unflattering picture of a military unit acting once more as the bodyguards of a political dynasty instead of the state.

Such a gloomy picture certainly puts the lie to all previous herculean efforts to prop up the idealized version of professionalism for each cop and soldier to follow.

Coopting soldiers and cops for neo-feudal political lords’ own naked interests is, therefore, another problematic issue we all must face squarely and contend with.

For one, allowing such raw undemocratic forms of power to prosper again in this country eventually empowers the security sector to alter its relationship with the prevailing political structure.

Inviting the security sector to engage in neo-feudal politics opens them once again to adventurism, in short. Encouraging adventurism in the security sector is literally putting a loaded gun to our heads.

Thus, with the security sector itself pleading that they be spared from politics, we should all join in their call for all neo-feudal politicians to bug off.