Trouble in the Ranks.

When the junior officers who led last week's uprising handed over their weapons, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared victory. And understandably so. By the end of the 19-hour standoff, authorities had 396 soldiers in custody without having ceded to any of their demands.

But what the troops were protesting remains a critical problem--one of the weakest links in efforts to combat terrorism in the region. The Philippine Armed Forces are in tatters and show no signs of eliminating the corruption that have made them one of the country's most notorious institutions. As one of the mutineers said last week, "There are 70 officers here. There must be something wrong. You do the math."

Almost no one disagrees with the sum of their logic. "When they came out of the building at the end, they were hugging their generals," says Clarence Henderson, a Manila-based political columnist. "People realize these guys have real grievances." The coup plotters were graduates of the national military academy, whose elite officer training earns them about $250 a month. As young officers, they spend most of their time waging the country's ongoing war against Muslim insurgents--a --battle in which many have died and ...