Filipinos should watch what happens in Myanmar very, very closely. For one, our own military elites are highly interested on this. Some members of our Armed Forces of the Philippines are harboring thoughts of mimicking the success of their compatriots in Myanmar and Thailand. What happens when a military such as the Burmese military intervenes in an election. Two things: would the international community succeed in forcing the military to release Aung San Suu Kyi and her political associates who won in the recent elections and force the military to recognize the results of the elections? Or, would the people of Myanmar themselves succeed in ousting the military from power?

For the past ten years, the Myanmar military has enjoyed some semblance of respect from the international community after its leaders decided to release San Suu Kyi from house arrest and allowed her to partner with the Myanmar government. Now that military leaders once more intervene with democratic processes in Myanmar, would it expose itself to risk when civil disobedience moves fail?

Myanmar hosts several armed groups. However, most of them are secessionists movements out to carve their own territories out of Myanmar. There is simply no nationalist movement strong enough to force the Burmese military to its knees. And unfortunately, most of these intractable insurgencies are being supported directly or indirectly by China.

Here in our country, supporters of the Duterte administration once toyed with the idea of calling for a revolutionary government to change the constitution and allow an extension of Duterte’s rule. Massive public outrage last year deterred them from their plan and the group had since slowly exited from public attention. Sources however say that many of Duterte’s supporters still harbor thoughts of declaring Duterte and her daughter, Davao mayor Sara Duterte as caretakers of this constructed administration. Many military adventurists and their acolytes now occupy sensitive posts in the Duterte administration. Do we expect these people to mimic Myanmar’s military and intervene in the event of massive electoral fraud in the Philippines by 2022? If this happens, expect this to be a plot possibly with the support of China.

There may be some variations with the Philippine military version of intervention though. China’s Manchurian president may lose the 2022 elections and use this as a way to seize political power and declare himself president backed by a revolutionary junta.