Another batch graduated from the Philippine Military Academy this weekend as a PMA alumnus is back in hiding from possible arrest for multiple murder as a crime against humanity.
Emerging briefly to personally help install Alan Peter Cayetano as the new Senate president, Sen. Ronald dela Rosa sang the PMA hymn and appealed to his academy “mistahs” to give him peaceful support.
His batchmates in Class ’86 expressed support for him. Retired police Maj. Gen. Mao Aplasca, originally a member of Class ’86, was delayed by a year in the PMA. Aplasca has been suspended for six months as Senate sergeant-at-arms over the burst of gunfire at the Senate shortly before Dela Rosa waltzed out of the building together with Sen. Robinhood Padilla early last Thursday.
The head of the PMA Alumni Inc., however, urged all alumni to remain non-partisan.
Their loyalty is not to any particular person or classmate, but to the flag, the Constitution, the Republic and the people who are the employers of all members of the military and police.
Since going into hiding in mid-November last year, Dela Rosa has continued to receive his monthly basic pay of about P300,000 on top of his pension as a retired four-star general amounting to approximately another P300,000, all courtesy of taxpayers. In addition, taxpayers continue to maintain his Senate office at a cost of millions of pesos every month.
Contrast those amounts with the salaries received by overworked public school teachers and health professionals, and the many other workers in the public payroll who deliver value for money in the services they render.
In the private sector, such no-work with pay would have earned the employee the pink slip a long time ago. In the Senate, no-work with pay is treated as a privilege of people who think they are above the law and deserve special treatment, whether in traffic along EDSA or in arrest orders for crimes that warrant life in prison.
PMA alumni and other members of the uniformed services take an oath of allegiance to the Republic, the Constitution and the people. Not to individuals, and especially not those who have brought dishonor to the institution they are serving.