The military genie has acquired a taste for money

THE military was once described as a genie that had come out of the bottle. That was the military during the marital-law years of the strongman Ferdinand Marcos, when the men in uniform were the favored group. They got all the perks, the key positions in government and the influence.

The genie has not really gone back inside the bottle. They took part in two uprisings—Edsa 1 and 2—that toppled Marcos and President Joseph Estrada. They were in the forefront of at least seven coups d’etat during the administration of President Cory Aquino. Last year some 300 of them, led by junior officers, flexed their muscle and staged a short-lived mutiny right in the heart of Makati’s financial district.