Sunday, December 02, 2007 Malilong: Is ‘utter brightness’ behind the sealed door? By Frank Malilong The Other Side
RAMON Montinola (PMA, Class 68) was in the United States watching over his grandchildren when he learned about the latest Antonio Trillanes caper. I teasingly asked him if they still teach common sense at the academy. Here is his pained reply (I am omitting the quotation marks but the words are all his):
The Cowboys won but the game was hollow as your statements kept me awake the whole night. I write this comment with a heavy heart filled with guilt and disappointment.
I tried to read behind the media report of the incident (please note that I consider it an incident for how could two unarmed former military officers without any military unit command stage a coup) and several questions kept coming up.
1. What the hell were they trying to celebrate? 2. What armaments did they have that elicited such a massive response? 3. How many armed followers did they have that needed heavy vehicular armor and SWAT teams just to serve an arrest warrant? 4. What military units did they hope would join them when they have been held incommunicado all these times? 5. Again, what the heck were they up to?
One is a West Point graduate, a respected and decorated combat Army Ranger veteran and the other a PMA alumnus who bested several lawyers (with full campaign machinery), while being detained for the duration of the campaign to become a senator.
Yes, common sense is still being taught in the Academy as well as Courage, Integrity and Loyalty. Maybe a few may have fallen along the path (although I would not be judgmental on the case of these two) but the vast majority of graduates continue to lay their life on the line to serve and defend the country and the freedom that guarantees the right of all citizens to express their views and opinions.
Let us not judge an institution by singling out individuals. Even Jesus was not perfect in His choice of disciples. A lot of lawyers do not know the law as sworn by other lawyers.
The PMA will celebrate its Foundation Day come February. Would we be so brave to stand before the Corps and all the alumni and propose that we do away with the Academy because the people we serve and for whose freedom a lot of our friends have given their life for no longer appreciate all that we have done for them?
A lot of alumni our age are inclined to agree out of a sense of frustration for the shabby treatment we have received from the government we have given our lives to serve. I have heard plenty of true combat veterans express their frustrations by throwing away all their combat medals and awards.
Admitting that this government is very corrupt and saying that the alternative is just as bad is the very argument we as junior officers were told when we complained about the dictatorship of (Ferdinand) Marcos. Praise the Lord, the Republic has survived all these years even though we went through a simple housewife and a joke of an actor who thought that he was a president.
We seem to be afraid to open a tightly sealed door because we have been bombarded by propaganda that behind the door is more darkness. Are we so afraid to find out if behind the door is utter brightness?
My apologies if I sound so serious now. I just received word that one of my classmate Mistah, who gave his whole life in government service, now lies in state.
(fmmalilong@yahoo.com)
nt size="1" face="Verdana">(December 2, 2007 issue) Write letter to the editor.Click here.
