Honor in the PMA

Three not unconnected moments from the annual homecoming rites of the Philippine Military Academy last Saturday: Former senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson called on his fellow PMA alumni to live by the academy’s honor code, Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II joined the parade of alumni as an “honorary member” of the Class of 1984—and members of the Class of 1976 denied reports that controversial businessman Cedric Lee had ever been adopted as an honorary classmate.

“Mr. Lee is not connected, is not associated and is not a member [of our class, which is] being dragged into this controversy,” Edgardo Acuña, a retired police general and president of the class, told the Inquirer.

Lee is the alleged mastermind behind the beating of TV personality Vhong Navarro. The reports stemmed from Lee’s business partnership with police officials, including at least one from the Class of 1976. “Most of us do not know him,” Acuña said.

Roxas did not break new ground when he marched at the PMA rites; the academy’s tradition of allowing each class and the alumni association as a whole to bestow honorary membership on civilians, especially businessmen, celebrities and politicians, is a longstanding one.

It is also unfortunate. The idea is to link members of a class or of the alumni association as a whole with influential civilians; the consequence has been to cheapen the worth of a PMA education and to reinforce the continuing politicization of the military. Consider, for instance, the situation at the homecoming last year, an election year: Vice President Jojo Binay, leader of the United Nationalist Alliance, and businessman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., founder of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, took their oath as honorary members of the PMA Alumni Association. Four of the senatorial candidates who went on to win in May 2013 (Loren Legarda, Chiz Escudero, JV Ejercito and Cynthia Villar) were either honorary class members or the spouse of one.

The problem is widespread, and respects no political boundaries. In 2010, another election year, the four sisters of presidential candidate Benigno Aquino III were inducted as honorary members of the Class of 1980.

This tradition adds layers of complication to Lacson’s speech as homecoming guest speaker. He drew a more or less accurate portrait of the moral test that PMA graduates face when entering active service. “Every single day of our lives after graduation becomes a test of endurance, not of physical [trials] but of our moral strengths,” Lacson said.

“The idealist—still very much armed with academy virtues—suddenly comes face to face with practically everything that is opposite of what was taught on the hallowed grounds of Fort Del Pilar—corruption, treachery and cowardice.”

“So when young graduates encounter in their fields of assignment some upperclassmen who had already succumbed to the temptations of misplaced values or had countenanced [such acts], the effects [on the young graduates] could be very frustrating if not disastrous,” he said.

The description is not unproblematic—because of who is doing the describing. Lacson, in 2001, very soon after the start of his first term in the Senate, had a famous encounter with another PMA alumnus, Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes. An editorial on the incident summarized the matter thus: “Which, as a matter of public concern, is more important to the nation? The honor code of the PMA [as invoked by Lacson], or the rule of law as symbolized in the oath that Reyes took?”

There’s more. Lacson during his second term went into hiding rather than face an investigation into his alleged role in the double murder case of Estrada publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito. In this same space, we wrote: “We … add our voice to the practically universal call for Lacson to submit himself to the legal process—if only to show that the constitutional injunction that ‘all men are equal before the law’ is for real; and one’s position in government, no matter how lofty, does not put anyone above the law.”

In other words: It is good that Lacson has put the spotlight on the PMA’s honor code again. As we can see from the misuse of the honorary-member system, however, we regret that Lacson did not go far enough, and acknowledge that the PMA’s highest values—courage, integrity, loyalty—must serve even higher ends.