Closer than Brothers - Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy

Drawing on extensive interviews with these officers, as well as on diaries and memoirs, the book details for the first time activities of the secretive brotherhood that is the Filipino officer corps. Members of the class of 1940, who bonded to one another in PMA training modeled after West Points, emerged from heroic battles against Japanese invaders with their belief in civil supremacy over the military affirmed. In postwar decades, they actively blocked coup attempts. By contrast, the class of 71 emerged from the academy to become the fist of the Marcos dictatorship. Their involvement in torture ruptured the academys socialization and inspired them to launch six coup attempts in the late 1980s. The collective biographies of these officers offer insights not only into Philippine history but also into topics of wider global import--the influence of male gender on a distinctly gendered institution, the causes of coup d tat, and the collective trauma of torture.