It does not come as a surprise to me that the officials of the AFP and the PNP are stunned by the walk-out of Trillanes IV and Lim from the Makati RTC to Manila Peninsula Hotel without their military escorts stopping them.

The AFP and the PNP are in a state of denial. They refuse to face the fact that the leaders of both organizations, especially the AFP, have no moral ascendancy over their soldiers.

To kill and die for one’s country is an ideal. The soldiers become and are paid their salary for this ideal. When soldiers are bombarded by facts and circumstances which are contrary to their ideals, they rebel. Yet, their rebellion is not contrary but, in fact, very consistent with their ideals. It is not ideal to steal votes. It is not ideal that their appointed leaders are people who made the stealing possible. The foregoing are not ideal for the country they are ready to kill and die for.  

Of course, nobody likes force. But what do countries need the military for if force is not a necessity?  

Trillanes was and Lim is a member of that organization that symbolizes and exercises force. So how do we expect them to act in changing things? Election? Antonio Trillanes IV had tried that.  

Trillanes and Lim would like to force change in the Country—immediately. So, they took over the hotel for a start. To end the siege immediately, the AFP and PNP used force.  

There was no difference between the two sides as to the means employed on how to get what they wanted. The only difference was who got what he wanted and why. 

Needless to explain, it was the AFP and PNP who got what they wanted because their organization had the power—money. Money to house and educate the children of the people who obeyed the orders of their generals. As to Trillanes and Lim? They had only the ideals.  

But as to whom sympathy of the fellow soldiers goes? 

Surely, not to the AFP and the PNP and their Generals. Otherwise, Trillanes and Lim could not have walked-out, staged a three kilometer march, more so took over a five star hotel in the commercial capital of the country. Or, Trillanes could not have won the elections. 

The rebellion might have been stopped but the AFP and the PNP did not win. They will be haunted by their ideals they failed or refused to act upon. As to Trillanes, Lim and others, they are in a dark room, surrounded by guns—in jail yet free from the ghosts of their conscience.