The August 28 Coup: The Possibilities and Limits of Military Imagination

Abstract

The politicization process within the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has reached a critical stage where factions within the military have recognized their capacity to intervene in politics and society. After the fall of Marcos, the soldiery has become politicized. Younger generations of officers are radically different from their predecessors. Two phenomena, the 14 years of dictatorship and the February Revolution, were said to have caused such politicization. The Philippine Military Academy formed the Reform AFP Movement (RAM) to initiate changes within the military and to restore the traditions lost from Marcos’s preferential treatment of Fabian Ver’s clique. RAM has become an essential threat to the regime and Marcos was pressured to neutralize the group.