Hi:

Interesting.

Comes now the issue. Marcos politicalized what was once a relatively professional Armed Forces of the Philippines.

He also allowed--no, encouraged--AFP officers and men to help themselves to the public coffers--as long as they went along with his politics.

For any long term results, the US will also have to help address these also.

A good number of AFP officers still harbor Bonapartist tendencies. They will have to learn to respect civilian authority once more.

At the same time, their grievances will have to be addressed.

Incidentally, hazing at the Philippine Military Academy will have to be addressed. Much anecdotal evidence suggests that this hazing is what had made many of them torturers and perpetrators of human rights violations during Marcos' dicatatorship.

This helped fuel the Maoist insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s.

As one notorious torturer is reported to have said, and quoted in a book:

"What I did to them (i.e. the torture she committed on political dissidents) was only what was done to me as a plebe in the PMA."

Will the US help address this?