Honor Must be Restored

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has taken a step in the right direction in excising from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) its premier military school the stigma of being a hazing ground that has led to the deaths of several potential soldier-leaders supposed to defend their country.

No less than the new corps commandant if PMA, Brig. General Romeo Brawner, is explicit in declaring total war against hazing within the revered halls of the popular military academy. What Brawner, a Baguio boy, is really saying is that hazing, or the maltreatment and extreme abuse of soldier cadets have no place in an organization that puts a premium on honor.

On the most basic level of understanding honor is simply adhering to what is right or what is ordinarily accepted as the usual norm of conduct. In other words to be honorable is to do what is right in the eyes of society and in the regular affairs of men.

Hazing therefore is absolutely anathema to what being honorable is all about. In the ordinary and regular day-to- day human interaction is it right to maltreat and abuse a fellow brethren or colleague for the sake of brotherhood? There is no honor in that. What would be deemed as an honorable thing to do is to defend the downtrodden, those unable to fend off for themselves, those incapable of protecting themselves and their rights as enshrined in the basic law of the land.

This is the honorable thing to do and this is what honor are all about and not the debasement of a fellow human being. In Japan when someone has done something that is not acceptable to society or to so called good morals and right conduct, or just simply neglected to do what he is supposed to do, then for them the honorable thing to do to restore what they perceived has been honor lost is to commit the ultimate sacrifice by committing seppuku or har kiri which is a Japanese term for ritual suicide.

For the Japanese suicide is not a means of escaping responsibility or avoiding liability but rather the right way of restoring honor.

The resignations of PMA Superintendent Lt. Gen. Ronnie Evangelista and PMA Corps commandant Brig. Gen. Bartolome Baccaro are also steps in the right direction in restoring honor to the PMA as a military institution.

It may not be the ritual suicide done in Japan but still their resignations are a clear signal that they understand what command responsibility is all about and are willing to put their military careers on the line for it.

In that sense what they have committed is symbolic suicide so that honor may be restored. For the new PMA Corps commandant the first order of the day after the declaration of war against hazing is to strengthen the PMA’s honor code by making sure it is not interpreted as a code of silence.

The PMA cadets must be retrained to understand that the honor code that “a cadet does not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do” finds application even in the cases where their fellow cadets are being maltreated or abused for no valid reason but simply to exact punishment outside and external to that of the training parameters of the academy.

In fact the honor code of the PMA, if hazing is to be ultimately excised from the training regimen, should include the following: “a cadet does not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do. A cadet shall at all times protect those who are being maltreated or abused, be it a fellow cadet or any fellow human being who is unable to fend off or protect themselves from the depredation of others.

If the cost of offering protection and defense will require the ultimate sacrifice of giving up one’s life then honor is attained.” This must be the new PMA honor code.

Sideglance

Amianan Balita Ngayon