President Gloria Arroyo survived the first armed challenge to her two and a half year-old rule on Sunday, but the mutiny has left many wondering where the next military rebellion will come from.

London-based political consultancy Asia Intelligence Ltd warned that following the mutiny "rumors of Arroyo's opponents resorting to non-political ways to force her from power are bound to increase in the run-up to 2004."

Arroyo, who has yet to say if she will stand in the 2004 presidential elections, has already warned political opponents not to "exploit the messianic complex of these rogue officers for their naked ambitions."

The leaders of some 300 soldiers who seized a section of the Makati financial district on Sunday are all alumni of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), which has produced most of the 113,000-strong military's officer corps of around 1,000 men.

In launching their revolt, they followed a trail blazed by fellow PMA graduates a generation ago who mounted most of the seven coup attempts against then president Corazon Aquino in the late 1980s.

"All officers -- incumbent or retired, junior or senior -- must feel a sense of responsibility for what has happened," ex-Philippines president and PMA alumnus Fidel Ramos said.

The PMA "must not suffer any more stains on its reputation through actions of this nature by its alumni."

But armed forces spokesman Colonel Daniel Lucero, PMA class 1983, insisted "just a small, minute fraction" of officers were power-hungry and rejected suggestions it was the PMA which inspired the officers to seek political power.

Ramos, a former military chief and defense secretary, worked hard after becoming president in 1992 to heal divisions in the military -- politicized by his cousin Ferdinand Marcos who had used the military to allow him to stay on as president for 20 years until being deposed in 1986.

Ramos pardoned rebel leaders including former army colonel Gregorio Honasan, now an opposition senator, enabling the country to gain relative peace and boost economic growth until the mid-1997 Asian crisis.

In her first meeting with soldiers since the rebellion, President Arroyo spoke at length about the need to "deepen the education" of Filipino soldiers.

This way, they do not easily fall prey to "politicians who channel their legitimate grievances to convince them to withdraw their allegiance to the civilian government."

Given the military's long and tangled involvement in politics, the mutiny has raised more questions and speculation than answers.

Rene de Castro, political scientist at Manila's De LaSalle University, said he believed the junior officers were given money to carry out the mutiny to show the armed forces could flex their muscles.

By bringing pressure to bear on the government the military was hoping to push for a bigger share of the national budget, he said.

However Bruce Gale of the Singapore-based Hill and Associates said the security risk consultancy had learned from Filipino government sources that the mutiny "was originally planned as a genuine coup attempt" by forces loyal to deposed president Joseph Estrada in June.

The plot was exposed in late June, and Sunday's action was "more a case of self-preservation coupled with romantic idealism rather than a genuine mutiny or destabilization effort," he said.

WAR.WIRE