Deodorant

Malacañang finally persuaded someone to head the commission formed to dismantle private armies.

I don’t know how a seven-member commission can accomplish what the government has failed or has refused to do, and within a deadline: by Election Day in May, or by the end of President Arroyo’s term on June 30, depending on who is discussing the creation of the special body.

Whenever the Arroyo administration wants to wash its hands of a thorny issue, it creates a commission or a task force. That way it hopes to give the impression that it is doing something, however belatedly, to address the problem.

Private armies and jueteng lords have one thing in common: they exist because they are allowed to by those tasked to go after them.

The coddling cannot be done by penny-ante kotong cops. The forbearance must be ordered by higher-ups, within the police or, more frequently, within the local government.

You want to stop jueteng? Simple. Just tell the jueteng lords to stop. Mayors and police commanders know who all the gambling barons are; many are campaign donors or regular contributors of funds and equipment needed for law enforcement.

Several former interior secretaries and chiefs of the Philippine National Police launched no-nonsense campaigns against jueteng. The operations stopped completely for several weeks, until the most influential jueteng lords appealed to their political patrons in the top rungs of government. Soon enough the jueteng lords were singing, “Happy days are here again!” And when their bossing gives the order, most PNP officials happily oblige. The rule in these operations is, if you don’t share, you go to hell.

In this election year, the buzz is that the jueteng lords are raking it in, thanks to those who need to fortify their campaign war chests.

And in an election year, what many politicians think they need as much as campaign funds are their private armies.

Try telling a pro-administration warlord that his private army will be dismantled, and the response is likely to be, “Over my dead body… or yours.”

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The new commission faces at least three major problems. One is the definition of a private armed group, which politicians could question all the way to the Supreme Court.

Like the Ampatuan clan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, many local government executives are protected by members of the Civilian Volunteer Organizations, backed by police and, in conflict areas, by military contingents as support groups. The CVOs were created by virtue of Executive Order 546, issued in July 2006 by President Arroyo herself. How can the CVOs be illegal?

Since the Maguindanao massacre last November, Malacañang has not revoked E0 546 or declared the continued existence of CVOs illegal. You don’t need a special commission to revoke this order.

In addition, a military officer who was relieved in connection with the massacre has reportedly been promoted to the post of vice commander of the Philippine Army.

Among the biggest armed groups in this country are the communist New People’s Army and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The government cannot defeat the NPA and has no interest in disarming the MILF as a precondition for a peace agreement.

There are also the other threats that the government cannot contain: the Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah, and heavily armed organized crime rings such as the Alvin Flores Gang. Their continued existence has been used not just by politicians but also by businessmen and other private citizens to pack guns.

There lies the second major problem of the commission: there are too many loose firearms, and the procurement continues. Security officials estimate that politicians maintain over 130 private armies in this country, with the members in possession of nearly a million unlicensed firearms. If security officials know this for a fact, why wasn’t anything done to reduce all that dangerous firepower? You don’t need a special commission to seize loose firearms.

And how did the guns enter the country in the first place? Most likely through legal channels, as the Ampatuans did — as indicated by the fact that most of the high-powered weapons and crates of ammunition reportedly found in their compounds bore markings of the Department of National Defense, AFP and PNP.

Tell a pro-administration warlord to turn over the weapons, and the likely answer will be, “Make me.”

This is the third major problem of the commission: President Arroyo isn’t about to tell any of her political allies to give up their guns. Especially not in an election season when her official candidate cannot rise beyond single-digit popularity ratings, and when she needs to win hearts and minds in her looming campaign to become speaker of the 15th Congress.

That commission will be nothing but a deodorant for the failure or refusal of authorities to do their job.