Why don’t we give our military the muscle, so they can finish the job?

President GMA was in San Fabian, Pangasinan yesterday, but she cancelled her trip to Bicol – specifically to Polangui, Albay, where she had been scheduled to inaugurate a project, as well as to Sorsogon for an inspection of flood-damaged areas.

The excuse given, I believe, was the "escape" of four Magdalo rebels, a captain and three lieutenants under detention in Fort Bonifacio for their role in the Oakwood mutiny of July 27, 2003. Our theory is that a more compelling reason is that Bicol may now be considered increasingly unsafe for the Chief Executive, owing to the growing strength of the Communist New People’s Army in that region.

You must have noticed that the NPA has been on a rampage lately, raiding for instance the Batangas provincial jail only last Saturday, "rescuing" nine of their imprisoned comrades from that facility, in the process also letting four accused drug traffickers escape. Naturally, they seized the jail guards’ revolvers and a shotgun then ransacked the jail’s armory, grabbing heavier weapons. Interestingly enough, the NPA raiders knew where to look and what to take to swell their agaw armas stock.

As the news reports of the same day recorded, NPA rebels ambushed and killed an Army lieutenant and three soldiers, wounding four more in Western Samar. NPA radio-TV-print media "celebrity" spokesman Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal (who seems to get more airtime than Mike Defensor) crowed in a cellphone interview with this newspaper that "this is proof that the NPA has remained strong" and promised "more offensives of the same kind will be launched by the movement."

There you are. In my column last Thursday (Jan. 12), written three days before the Batangas provincial jail attack and the Samar ambush, I asked in my headline: "Are Our Outgunned, Threadbare Military Losing the ‘War’?"

In the article, it was 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."

I quoted my conversation with National Security Adviser Norberto B. Gonzales the previous day in which he said: "We’re not winning the fight!"

Three days later, the NPA struck again – in two places – to confirm this assertion.

It’s time we woke up. Our government must realize that in order to defeat the NPA, our troops (with PNP back-up, since the latter are fewer in numbers and less well-equipped) must punch in with force and determination, and slug it out with the NPA, toe to toe.

But they won’t be able to do it on the pathetic P5 billion a year budget we give the Armed Forces of the Philippines. You can’t battle a tough, defiant, increasingly better-armed Communist rebel force with an ill-shod, poorly armed, literally ragtag military, with a piecemeal budget. It’s worse than applying a band-aid to a hemorrhaging artery.

At the height of Adolf Hitler’s blitz in Britain, when England stood almost alone against the Nazi juggernaut which had chewed up all of Western Europe including France, and further East to Poland and central Europe, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had begged a then isolationist America: "Give us the tools and we will do the job!"

Our soldiers are in the same frustrating bind. They’re starved for weapons, equipment and morale. We must give them the tools – then turn them loose on the enemy to do their job.

In short: the only solution must be to decisively move to crush the NPA, not compromise or continue to plead "peace" with them.

* * *

The modus operandi of the Batangas raid was not even original. The NPAs had utilized the same method some months ago in Mindanao when they pounced on a police station, took over the place without a shot being fired, ransacked the armory (again knowing exactly where to look and what was to be found), then departing without harming their police captives. There were half a dozen PNP on duty, but they had offered absolutely no resistance, claiming afterwards they had been too "surprised" to react. Whatta lot of baloney. I wonder what PNP Director General Art Lomibao had done to the too-easily-hoodwinked and overcome PNP men by way of disciplinary action.

And to think that the motto of the once-proud Philippine Constabulary, the forerunners of the PNP had been: "Always outnumbered, never outfought." They didn’t even put up a fight that day.

Last Saturday’s caper was engineered by the rebels in much the same manner. Perhaps 20 NPAs disguised in dark military fatigues arrived at the Batangas provincial jail in three vans, also bringing decoys in the form of two "arrested" criminals, handcuffed and sporting orange detainee shirts. The five guards were "surprised," disarmed, and rendered helpless. The "jailbreak" took place.

This time, as the PNP was quick to point out, the jail was under the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), hence under the authority of DILG Secretary Angelo T. Reyes. But, after all, as Interior Secretary, retired General Reyes is also the boss of the PNP, isn’t he? It’s time we integrated our deficient prison system, and got them better coordinated in the process with the police.

Speaking of "prisons," how did the four Magdalo officers break out of their Fort Bonifacio detention center so easily? My suspicious mind – journalists are afflicted with a jaundiced eye – flashes with the word "connivance." Perhaps even, to invoke extreme paranoia, some government-affiliated spin-doctors are doing a bit of hocus pocus in order to scare the public with the bogey of a "coming mutiny" – or, who knows, to scare GMA. Even that business about previously escaped mutineer Marine Capt. Nicanor Faeldon flitting in and out of Camp Crame smells fishy.

My nose may be stuffed up, but I don’t scent a coup, or even the rumor of a coup.

This comic-opera scenario has, by over-repetition, begun to look more fanciful than the novel and movie, The Prisoner of Zenda. (I like the old Ronald Coleman version better, but the Now Generation knows only Ronald MacDonald).

* * *

It’s time, I submit, we wised up to the awful fact that our barebones budget approach to combatting insurgency, whether NPA or Bangsamoro, MILF et al, will never work. We send our soldiers, Marines, and other military personnel into battle with disgraceful equipment.

The Oakwood mutineers had angrily complained of our soldiers having holes in their boots, tears in their ponchos, and worn-out rifles and other weapons. They’re right in this gripe. Even our elite troops don’t have proper "bulletproof" vests, or sturdy helmets. Most of our M-16s and Armalites are so worn and ancient, their bores gone "smooth", that their rounds won’t hit beyond 400 yards.

Rebels toting superior weaponry could mow down an entire squad before our "boys" got into firing range – that’s the bottom line in combat.

Moreover, have you noticed that our Army doesn’t conduct night-time operations? A military offensive, or "hot pursuit", comes to a stop when the sun goes down. This isn’t because our soldiers are scared of the dark, or sleepy. It’s because our AFP, whether Philippine Air Force or Marines, doesn’t have a single helicopter with night-flying capability. The rationale of disengaging from combat when night comes is pragmatic on the part of our officers and men. A soldier could die from his wounds, of loss of blood, while waiting for sunrise when a chopper could come to pluck him (or her) to medical station or hospital. Ergo, why fight at night? A serious wound could prove a "death sentence."

If the government only got our troops four or half a dozen night-rated helicopters for med-evac, or close-quarters infantry support in the dark, our military’s capability would immediately be doubled – and the enemy kept on the run, or fearful of what might spring at them out of the gloom.

What do our armed forces lack? Money.

Gonzales and this writer mulled over an unorthodox – but when you think about it, logical idea. Instead of the measly P5 billion per annum budget for the AFP, why doesn’t La Presidenta and our congressmen – okay, even without our congressmen and never our senators – do something dramatic? Here goes: Give the military a P100 billion – yep, one hundred billion peso – one-time budget, lump sum. Get our troops vests, snappy new firearms, rifles, rockets, the works. True, it takes P1 million per soldier to gear up a soldier for modern combat according to American standards. Our kids will find themselves well-equipped for many times less – Sus, even a good assault rifle, with punch and reach will work wonders. Choppers, armored cars, fast vessels, night-vision stuff, sniper equipment, sis-boom-bah! In short, superbly re-outfit our military, retrain them, give them the support they need, bring in fresh recruits, then tell them to give the NPA hell. They’ll go in like gung ho, and wipe the smirk off the insolent rebels’ faces. This is the way – the only way – to win.

Ramon Magsaysay, when he was Defense Secretary, then President, revitalized our PC and armed forces at a time when the Huks were already maneuvering on the outskirts of Manila – and everybody’s morale was down. He whipped our troops into shape. He had charisma, chutzpah, and git-up-and-go. He tapped young Rocky Ileto – one of our bravest and best (God rest his warrior soul) – to form the Scout Rangers, which remains one of the battering rams of our armed forces. (Also, alas, sometimes rebellious). He had a lot of help, too, from friends. He got Ed Lansdale and Mark Bohanan, etc., to wheedle equipment, weapons, and armor from the Americans, enough to form those formidable Battalion Combat Teams, the BCTs that helped break the back of the Communist HMB movement. He had Napoleon Valeriano and his black-clad, skull-patch, dreaded "Nenita Unit" transform the PC into a real fighting unit. He had infiltration units schooled in all the Huk slogans, marching songs, passwords and jargon, then set them loose to mingle with the foe, then turn their guns on the amazed "comrades." In the end, HMB units began fighting each other in sheer paranoia.

The P100-billion budget – by golly, where could it come? Our besetting sin in government is that the government always says it doesn’t have the money. If you think out of the box, you’d be surprised how "easily" P100 billion can be raised, plucked from here and there – even from private sources. Or from "friends" like those The Guy, Magsaysay, tapped. From the US, Japan – China? Don’t ask me from where, but it’s out there. I remember Jordan’s plucky King Hussein, the late father of the ruling King Abdullah. Many years ago King Hussein (who, by the way, if you don’t remember, "supported" Saddam Insane in the first Gulf War) was accused of having taken money from the Americans – even the CIA – for emergency relief operations (a No-No in the hostile Arab world). Hussein, never one to be intimidated, at the time his Arab Legion the finest in Arabia, snorted: "I’d take money from the Devil if I needed it to help my people."

The Devil may not be too eager to help us or La Gloria, but it’s an idea.

P100 billion, on a one-shot-basis. Then you’ll see some action. Can it be done? You bet. In 1964, when this journalist first went to China, I was taken to the Museum of the Revolution in old Beijing. In it was the statue of a People’s Liberation Army soldier in his crumpled uniform (not the snazzy ones the PLA sports today). "That," my guide said, "was the weapon with which we won."

Our soldiers are the weapons we must use for victory. But we have to arm them with the best, so they will do their best. Inflict defeat on the enemy!