*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
When I first saw the name of Acting Senate Sergeant-at-Arms General Mao Aplasca trending across television reports, YouTube commentaries, social media timelines, and the endless national noise surrounding the controversy involving the supposed attempted arrest of Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, I did not feel the familiar excitement that usually accompanies Philippine political drama. I felt sadness. General Mao Aplasca is not just another public official whose name was suddenly thrown into the center of controversy. He was once my student way back in 2003 in the 360 hours of doctrine development in the Directorial Staff Course at the Philippine Public Safety College. Their class is the best that I mentored and is my favorite of those I handled because they have produced numerous PNP chiefs, such as Generals Guillermo Eleazar and Dionardo Carlos, and great leaders today. I did not know him as a viral face in a political storm. I knew him as a professional officer being shaped for leadership, command responsibility, institutional judgment, and the unforgiving burden of making difficult decisions under pressure. Men who pass through such training are not prepared merely to salute, obey, and look good in uniform. They are prepared for uncertainty. They are prepared for moments when clarity disappears, when institutions shake, and when decisions must be made with imperfect information. That is why seeing him suddenly portrayed as the central villain of this controversy, the man blamed for the initial shots, struck me not merely as a political observer but as a doctrine development professor who understands the burdens that command can place upon a man.
We now live in an age where social media has become the fastest prosecutor in history. One video clip becomes the entire story. One camera angle becomes the whole truth. One soundbite becomes conviction. Political camps quickly weaponize fragments. Commentators rush toward emotionally satisfying conclusions. The public, hungry for instant clarity, mistakes incomplete information for complete understanding. But institutions, especially security institutions, do not function according to edited clips and partisan emotions. As I watched the public conversation unfold, I found myself stepping back not as a participant in political tribalism, but as someone who has spent years observing governance, public safety, command structures, institutional security, and operational decision-making. There is one reality that civilians often fail to appreciate. Not every crisis comes with a perfectly written manual. Yes, there are situations where doctrine is clear. There are operations where procedures are established, rehearsed, and understood. But there are also moments where ambiguity arrives faster than policy, where confusion overtakes preparation, and where the burden falls upon the officer in command to make what professionals understand as "judgment calls."
That phrase deserves respect. A judgment call is not recklessness. A judgment call is not emotional improvisation. A judgment call is not arbitrary aggression. It is the burden of leadership under uncertainty. Security professionals, particularly those shaped by the disciplined cultures of law enforcement and military-oriented command environments, understand that hesitation can be as consequential as action. The public often assumes that every operational response must fit neatly inside a procedural handbook. Reality is far messier. There are moments when situations evolve beyond protocol, when the officer must rely on training, situational awareness, instinct shaped by discipline, and professional judgment.
That is why, when I examine the issue involving the alleged firing of initial shots under the authority of General Mao Aplasca, I do not begin with condemnation. I begin with questions. What exactly was the operational environment at that moment? What threat, whether real or perceived, existed? What intelligence was available? Was there institutional confusion? Was there a breakdown in communication between agencies? Was the action intended as deterrence, warning, defensive signaling, protective containment, or something else? More importantly, was there even a specific operational doctrine written for that exact constitutional confrontation? Because if no exact procedural framework existed for such an unusual and politically charged encounter, then what remains is judgment. And if what happened was indeed a judgment call, then fairness requires that General Mao Aplasca be allowed to explain what reasoning brought him to that moment. This is not written to absolve any person from accountability. Nor is it written to politically defend one faction over another. It is written because public condemnation without doctrinal understanding is often injustice disguised as outrage.
One of the deeper problems in this national conversation is the casual misuse of doctrine. One of the most abused terms in public discourse is “rules of engagement.” The moment armed personnel are seen in any confrontation, somebody inevitably asks what the rules of engagement were. It sounds tactical. It sounds sophisticated. It sounds authoritative. But the question itself may already reflect doctrinal confusion. Rules of engagement, in their classical sense, belong to military doctrine. They are products of combat-oriented thinking. They define when force may be initiated, escalated, restrained, or terminated in relation to mission objectives, identified threats, command authority, and lawful military parameters. Rules of engagement answer battlefield questions. Under what circumstances may force be used? When does deterrence become engagement? When does warning become defensive action? That framework belongs to military environments because war anticipates hostile encounters as part of mission design.
Police doctrine is fundamentally different. Civilian law enforcement does not ordinarily function through battlefield rules of engagement. Police agencies operate through operational procedures, escalation doctrines, use-of-force continuums, arrest protocols, and legal procedural mandates. A hostage situation does not begin with warfighting doctrine. It begins with containment, negotiation, communication, coordination, and the measured use of force only when absolutely necessary. That distinction becomes even more critical when we move into the institutional environment of the Senate.
The Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms is perhaps one of the least understood institutions in Philippine governance. Some assume it is ceremonial, existing merely for protocol, decorum, and escort duties. Others, seeing armed personnel, assume it is some form of autonomous police force. Both assumptions are incomplete. The truth is more nuanced. The Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms occupies a unique constitutional and institutional space. It is neither military nor police in the conventional sense. It is best understood as a quasi-law-enforcement institutional protective security body whose authority is confined to the constitutional ecosystem of the Senate. The word "quasi" is important because it recognizes both capability and limitation. It means limited enforcement authority. It means specialized institutional jurisdiction. It means functional security power, not general police power.
The Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms exists to maintain order within Senate premises, secure senators and staff, regulate access, enforce Senate directives, preserve legislative continuity, respond to disturbances, and protect the constitutional functioning of the institution. That is significant authority. But it is not unlimited authority. The Senate is not a battlefield. It is not a military camp. It is not a police fortress. It is not an armed sanctuary. It is a constitutional legislative institution. Because of that, its security doctrine must reflect that institutional identity.
Yes, the Senate absolutely has security procedures. It must. No serious legislative institution in the world operates without protective frameworks. Access control, visitor screening, emergency evacuation, chamber protection, lockdown contingencies, protective movement, disturbance response, and coordination with external law enforcement are natural components of institutional security. But Senate security procedures are not equivalent to military tactical combat doctrine. That distinction matters enormously. The Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms is not organized, trained, equipped, or doctrinally designed to independently repel sustained armed assaults in the way tactical police or military units are. That is not its mission. That responsibility properly belongs to national security institutions.
The Philippine National Police should logically serve as the principal civilian tactical response force. Under extraordinary escalation, the Armed Forces of the Philippines may become involved. The Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms serves as the immediate protective shield of the institution. This distinction between immediate presence and primary tactical responsibility is critical because the public often confuses first visibility with first-line combat doctrine. Yes, if a threat emerges within or around Senate premises, the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms will likely be the first to react simply because they are physically present. But being first on scene does not make them the primary combat force. Their role is containment, delay, protection, evacuation, institutional preservation, coordination, perimeter defense, and immediate shielding. They are the Senate’s constitutional protective layer, not its independent warfighting arm. That is institutional maturity.
But reality becomes messier when politics enters. And this is where the controversy surrounding General Mao Aplasca becomes deeply troubling. Because beyond operational doctrine lies another uncomfortable possibility. What if General Mao Aplasca himself is one of the casualties of a much larger political war? Political institutions are not always kind to professional officers caught between rival power centers. History teaches us that when political instability erupts, it is often not only elected officials who suffer consequences. Sometimes it is the institutional officers, the professionals tasked with preserving order, who become the most vulnerable. As I reflect on what has happened, I cannot ignore the possibility that General Mao Aplasca is now being politically crucified, not necessarily because the full facts have already established definitive wrongdoing, but because in moments of Senate leadership turbulence, shifting alliances, internal realignments, power negotiations, and political opportunism, someone often becomes the visible face of controversy.
But perhaps the more unsettling possibility is even darker. What if General Mao Aplasca was not merely an operational actor making a difficult judgment call, but a professional officer being moved, knowingly or unknowingly, within a much larger political chessboard designed by forces above him? Politics has never been a stranger to visible actors and invisible strategists. That is one of its oldest arts. It is entirely possible that what the public witnessed was not simply an isolated institutional security decision, but a moment shaped by competing agendas, hidden calculations, leadership struggles, or power equations far beyond the immediate operational environment. If that possibility carries even a grain of truth, then what makes this episode even more tragic is the thought that the man now absorbing public condemnation may not even be the true architect of the circumstances that placed him there. He may simply be the most visible participant in a script written elsewhere.
If that is the case, then the irony becomes painfully familiar. The officer in uniform stands in the public square, politically crucified, while those who may have influenced the environment, encouraged certain outcomes, benefited from institutional chaos, or quietly manipulated the sequence of events remain insulated, still comfortably seated in power, untouched by the outrage directed at the man below them. History has repeatedly shown this uncomfortable pattern, where the subordinate becomes the sacrifice while the strategist remains invisible.
And perhaps what makes this controversy even more heartbreaking is that the supposed attempted arrest of Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa may have created far more victims than the public initially realizes. In the national fixation over whether one powerful political figure should or should not have been arrested, collateral damage may have fallen upon institutions and ordinary officers whose names will never dominate headlines. The Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms itself, an institution meant to symbolize discipline, order, constitutional continuity, and institutional protection, now finds its reputation bruised and publicly questioned. General Mao Aplasca, whether ultimately vindicated or criticized by history, has already endured a form of political crucifixion.
Yet beneath the commanders and beyond the television cameras are the ordinary personnel of the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms, men who may have simply been following instructions, respecting chain of command, and performing what they believed to be their institutional duty. These are officers who may now face investigations, sanctions, administrative punishment, suspension, or even the loss of the very livelihoods that sustain their families. This is the forgotten cruelty of political crises. Powerful confrontations at the top rarely leave the damage at the top. The consequences always travel downward. They land on subordinates. They land on rank-and-file personnel. They land on spouses waiting at home. They land on children whose tuition depends on salaries earned through service. They land on families who never appear in press conferences and never participate in political strategy, yet are forced to bear the emotional and economic consequences of institutional fallout.
One can only hope that Senator Bato dela Rosa reflects deeply on this painful reality. In battles centered around whether one powerful individual should be protected or arrested, many others may be made to suffer consequences they neither designed, politically benefited from, nor even fully understood. Sometimes the greatest burden of political power struggles is not carried by the powerful themselves, but by the men ordered to stand in front of them.
The larger lesson here is not about one man alone. It is about institutions. Democracy depends not merely on laws, but on disciplined understanding of institutional roles. The Senate must remain a legislative institution, not a sanctuary of political refuge. The police must remain guardians of lawful civilian order, not instruments of institutional intimidation. The military must remain protectors of national security, not substitutes for ordinary constitutional processes. And the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms must remain what it truly is, a constitutionally necessary protective institution: neither a battlefield force nor a ceremonial relic, neither a parallel police agency nor a passive decorative office, but a disciplined protective shield standing between institutional vulnerability and constitutional continuity.
And perhaps that is what saddens me the most. In the brutal theater of politics, the men we once mentored to protect institutions are sometimes left standing alone, absorbing the stones meant for battles far larger than themselves. Long after the cameras are gone, long after the hashtags have faded, and long after the politicians have moved on to their next alliances and ambitions, a man is still left carrying the weight of one moment, one decision, one judgment call. Sometimes history is not cruel because it punishes the guilty. Sometimes it is cruel because it forgets the human being behind the uniform.
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