Are our outgunned, threadbare military losing the ‘war’?

It was a serious mistake to permit jailed Muslim separatist leader, former ARMM Governor and captured Balik-Moro rebel Nur Misuari – even for a "six-hour" furlough – to get out of prison to attend the Islamic holiday celebration of Eid’l Adha (the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice).

The Makati Regional Trial Court (was it on the prodding of the likes of Executive Secretary, retired General Ed Ermita, etc.?) granted the imprisoned rebel a trip to join the prayers in the mosque of Maharlika Village in Taguig City, where he even addressed more than a hundred Muslims present to "dedicate your search for peace." Tell me another windy.

Misuari is no ordinary detainee. He’s the guy who signed a peace agreement with FVR, ostensibly to bring his murderous Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) back into the peace fold, got himself anointed head of an Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao – into which ex-President Ramos tried to shoehorn even Christian cities and provincial areas – plus billions of pesos in development funds, then led his cadres into rebelling again, in bloody battles, against the state. Now he’s singing the "peace lullaby" again, hoping to regain (with the help of the Palace’s Surrender Gang) his freedom.

Sanamagan. Does a leopard change its spots?

Letting Misuari out to suck up to the Muslim renegade bunch is a typical Administration wishy-washy ploy, the same which has led us to waltz with the even more vicious Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), while the Abu Sayyaf and the terrorist Jemaah Islamiyah ranged free in MILF-claimed "territory" in central Mindanao. And, salamabit, we’re even trusting the Malaysians to help us get "peace."

What that Misuari "furlough" accomplished was give that imprisoned troublemaker a kind of importance when his influence was becoming zilch and he was headed to becoming a non-entity. The next time he’ll get away – to try, try again.

In some other countries they execute rebels or bury them in prisons where the sun doesn’t shine. In this land of self-destructive wimps, we reward them, after capturing them by dint of blood and prodigious effort on the part of our dead or wounded soldiers or police, with lavish treatment.

No wonder nobody’s afraid of the government, the Republic, or the Constitution. We don’t have to amend the latter organic law. It’s violated continually.

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Never mind the political wars in which some people are "fighting" to oust GMA, force her to resign or shorten her term, or get themselves concessions. Even FVR, frenziedly trying to get attention, manages to seize frontpage space by blowing hot, cold, and furious. While we’re engaged in cha-cha, recriminations, press releases and counter-press releases, and a barrage of public opinion "polls," is a real war being lost in the countryside?

This was the concern voiced to me yesterday by National Security Adviser Norberto B. Gonzales. He pointed out that, while nobody was looking, the CPP/NPA/NDF have stepped up their attacks. More soldiers and police constables are being killed by the New People’s Army in increasing encounters, and more murders, acts of sabotage, and "tax collections" are being undertaken by the terrorist rebels. More and more weapons are being seized by the NPA.

In short, he argued, we’re not winning the fight against the almost 40-year old Communist insurgency mounted by the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army-National Democratic Front, who’ve taken advantage of failed "peace talks" in Oslo and elsewhere to beef up their movement while the government hemmed and hawed over how to treat them.

In truth, since ex-President Joseph Estrada’s impeachment crisis in 2000, we have been plagued by a resurgent Communist threat, our military and PNP attacks handcuffed by the peaceniks and the leftists in both government and society who’ve preached "peace" while the terrorists rampaged.

If we don’t wake up, we’ll find the CPP/NPA growing stronger than our ill-fitted, badly-equipped, worn-out armed forces. The "terrorist" tag slapped on the New People’s Army by the European Union and the United States is not without basis. Most of the armed attacks made by the NPA are clearly "terrorist" in nature – and aimed at helpless non-combatants and civilian targets. As for their other victims, they were mercilessly cut down. The murderers of JUSMAG Deputy Commander Col. James Rowe who was ambushed and killed on April 21, 1989, have gone free, if I’m not mistaken. Where are they? Have they been released by our government to the consternation of the US? Rowe was no ordinary officer – he had suffered capture, torture, and unspeakable privations in Vietnam, before getting out. He was to the US military a hero, sent here to assist our armed forces in JUSMAG when he was targeted by NPA hit-men and slain. (There’s a camp named in his honor in the US, in special operations forces compound). The NPAs murdered Tanauan, Batangas Mayor Cesar Platon on May 7, 2001; Quezon Congressman Marcial Punzalan on May 12, 2001; and Cagayan Congressman Rodolfo Aguinaldo, their longtime foe, on June 12, 2001.

All the 2001 assassinations occurred while the government was engaged in peace talks with the NPA, moving the government, belatedly, to suspend negotiations on June 13 of that year, after Aguinaldo’s ambush. Formal "peace talks" resumed in February 2004, were thwarted only five months later when the US refused to remove the FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) tag on the NPA, which was the ridiculous condition imposed by those rebels on our government before any further peace discussions were held. Why in heck do we persist in stupidly believing the NPA will agree to peace when they’re enjoying what they’re doing? What they want is for us to "surrender" to them.

And you know what? The way they’re going, they’re whittling us down. Their coffers, for that matter, are swelling. Extortion is making the NPA one of the boom-industries of this era. They’ve stepped up acts of sabotage, wreaking havoc on private businesses, blasting government projects and facilities, and costing us millions of pesos and dollars in lost investment opportunities.

One interesting fact is that in the year 2005 – last year – alone, 27 Globe cell sites have been attacked and damaged, or destroyed by them. Why not other cell sites? There’s a three-page single-spaced list of Globe cellsites sabotaged between January 2005 and January 2006, from sites in Iloilo, Sorsogon, Masbate, to Pampanga, Bulacan, Rizal, Batangas, Mindoro, Albay, Tagbilaran City, Bukidnon, Cebu, Camarines Sur, Catanduanes, Tarlac City, Cagayan, Ilocos Sur, Compostela, Quezon, Occidental Mindoro, and Nueva Ecija. Just goes to show that the NPA is a nationwide destructive "corporation" – blackmailing corporations into "paying up", or else. Sus, do they even get a piece of that "pork barrel" from Congress?

The Filipino taxpayers are even helping finance their own destruction.

A new policy with regard to the CPP/NPA/NDF is reportedly being firmed up in Malacañang. (Like those guys from Missouri, I’ve got to see it to believe it!) The decision, hopefully, will be "no more peace talks," just back to the old Ramon Magsaysay formula: the legendary three F’s by which RM crushed the forerunners of the NPA, the Hukbong Magpapalaya ng Bayan, the Huks or HMB. This was "Find ’em, Fool ’em, Fight ’em – Finish ’em!" Let’s see.