The Magdalo apology

Those who might be inclined to be disillusioned and even embittered by the latest development in the Oakwood mutiny should refrain from passing harsh judgment on the young mutineers for what appears to be an apologetic capitulation to the very authorities the mutineers had denounced in a momentary fit of daring and idealism.

The Magdalos, after all, are young officers with families to support and a career to maintain, and even idealism has its price. That's the reality.

At least, in a moment of audacious idealism, the young officers gave full expression to their discontent, in the process threatening the very foundations of a government presiding over what one of the rebel leaders described as a “dying society.” One can only hope that the rebellion, brief and aborted as it turned out to be, has had at least a sobering effect on the authorities.

For the Magdalos, it is time to move on, but it remains to be seen whether the government will allow them to move on, and if it does not, then the Magdalos do have a problem.

But that's for the future.

What's important is that the entire incident is done over with, and if the government does prove harsh on the Magdalos in spite of the latter's capitulation and apology, then that too could turn out to be a problem — for the government.

But, again, that's for the future.

There are, however, certain lessons to be drawn from the incident, and many are drawing those lessons now.

Perhaps the most important is that it is futile to expect that the Armed Forces of the Philippines as an institution could possibly harbor enduring the durable nationalistic rebels in its camp. Time and experience, of which the Magdalo rebellion and subsequent capitulation is the latest, have shown that the AFP can't possibly be a breeding ground for the likes of Nasser and his corps of young officers who successfully mounted a military coup in Egypt and established a new social order which has endured these last 30 years.

Those young officers risked life and limb and the safety of their families to overthrow a long entrenched, foreign-backed civilian dictatorship, establishing in its place a nationalistic quasi-socialist order which eventually nationalized the Suez Canal and proved that the people of Egypt could run an enterprise which till then had been deemed beyond the competence of the people of Egypt to undertake, and which only foreigners could.

From the successful rebellion staged by the young officer corps of Col. Nasser, hope dawned on the Third World that a revolution from below isn't the only road to change and reform: that such a revolution is possible from above, provided it is led by nationalistic and patriotic elements of the nation's Armed Forces.

Nasser became the model of another Islamic military leader named Khadaffy who staged his own version of a military-led social revolution in Libya, which has proved as enduring and durable as Nasser's.

Nasser and Khadaffy literally led their people out of centuries-old bondage under colonialist rule and to this date their names are cherished in the breast of every nationalist patriot chaffing and languishing in corrupt military regimes throughout the Third World.

What the Oakwood mutineers have invaluably established by the petition of their behavior is that it is futile in the Philippine context to expect anything of what Nasser and Khadaffy had held out and delivered to their people.

There is apparently something in the culture of the Armed Forces of the Philippines which virtually excludes the possibility and prospect of Filipino Nassers emerging, at least in the foreseeable future, and that if the young, idealistic elements in the AFP are to realize their dreams for themselves and their country, they must look elsewhere for that.

We must thank the Magdalos for the invaluable lesson that their capitulation gave the nation, because they have exposed the very soul and essence of the best elements in the AFP, and if that soul and essence have been found short and wanting, that is valuable lesson enough for which we should be grateful no end.

We can only hope, for the Magdalo's sake, that the Arroyo administration will respond in kind, forgive and forget, and allow the Magdalos and their families to move on.

They have, as one so aptly reminded, families to support.

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