Over time, graduates of the prestigious Philippine Military Academy (PMA) have populated the political landscape, not least the Senate.
Some names of recent memory include class goat Marine Gen. Rodolfo Biazon; putschist Col. Gregorio Honasan II; warrant evader Panfilo Lacson; and the younger putschist Lt. Antonio Trillanes IV role-playing an “ad hoc” ICC sheriff.
There were also Cagayano senator (1957-1963) Eulogio Balao and the veterans’ champion, Ruperto Kangleon, who constantly defied President Quirino. Hot off the plate is the now “most wanted” Bato dela Rosa, who was reputed to have brought communist terrorists back to the fold of the law.
They, products of the Academy, were made from the same dough but baked in different ovens. Their glorious leadership in the military cum security realm speaks volumes. However, upon joining politics, they played “differently.”
Still, by all accounts, they performed creditably well. But since, as politicians, every wicked thing is par for the course, there are those who fall down the rabbit hole; even worse, down the tubes.
Military historians at a later time may have a more nuanced rating of the now beleaguered Bato. If most say that the truth shall set us free, so does history, however late written, for posterity.
Recent events perceived as both trivial and crucial render the PMA a novel subject for reassessment by policymakers or scholars focused on military elites, strategic or security studies, higher education+ and career service.
The Senate acoustic war where nearly 40 live rounds were fired but exacted no toll, no injury, no harm in whatever way, shape, or form. All the elements of fiction, fantasy, and fanfare simply surrounded what transpired — all badly documented — since staff, personnel and media were cordoned off under the pretext of securing everyone’s safety.
The post-incident narrative scoped and framed what happened as an interventionist National Bureau of Investigation overstepping the legal bounds of what it sought to accomplish within generally and customarily accepted fashion and parameters.
Roughly, it was said the NBI team had orders from above to extract, to use CIA parlance, Senator Bato on the strength of an officially issued ICC warrant of arrest.
The attempt was manageably pre-empted, presumably because the Sergeant at Arms was the former’s “mistah” in the academy. Truth be told, the retired major general owed his appointment to the Senate to Bato. This precisely established the unbreakable lifeline called quid pro quo.
More partisan views dismissed as a hoax, the apparently well-choreographed “shootout” following the declared lockdown, where everyone was asked to leave the premises if they wished to.
The reported “gunbattle,” be it staged, allowed Bato to “escape” or “elude” arrest by the NBI operatives. Strange that only the new majority bloc was left in the building, while the minority, all four of them, as if by prior knowledge, had left the complex for safety.
The NBI’s attempt to “kidnap” Bato and surrender him immediately to the ICC with an aircraft reportedly ready to fly him to The Hague was deemed aborted, courtesy of a fellow “mistah” in the Senate.
Both Bato and Mao have shining past achievements. Mao is reputed to have put a stop to the dreaded laglag-bala at the international and domestic airports, while Bato brought communist terrorists back to the fold of the law and the mainstream.
While some quarters tend to underestimate Bato’s fitness as a senator, it’s some consolation to know that he always speaks from the heart — candid and indicatively honest — in media interviews.
Could he be of inferior intelligence if, actually, he holds a PhD in development administration? He’s one of only two senators thus far with doctorates, not to downplay that he is a top-ranking senator voted by millions of Filipinos.
Is it regarded as a low feat to top nearly all local and foreign schoolings toward rising to the highest level of the police profession?
Unto Caesar, what’s due him!