EDITORIAL - It's more fun for the rebels

The military says the communists are demanding up to P5 million in “election permits” from candidates running in the 2013 midterm elections. The way the military says it, it is as if it has just revealed a new medical breakthrough, pride oozing out of its ears at the discovery.

Well, the reality is that the military sounds like a broken record. Every election, for as long as one can remember the communist rebellion, the military always comes forward with this disclosure as if people love to be told about yet another rule of law failure.

It would have been better if the military changed its tune and said something like, at last, this election year, we have finally crippled the communists and reduced their ability to demand “election permits” from candidates.

Or, granting the sheer impossibility of that nature given the kind of military we have, even saying something like, at last, this election year we have secured all candidates in Samar from harassment by communists, would have been very reassuring and encouraging.

But for the military to say, election after election, that the communists are having a field day harassing candidates, is very deflating, to say the least. Is that all that our military can do -- act as spokesmen for the communists?

Again, this is not something new. The communists have been doing this for decades. And everybody knows when the next elections would be. So what has the military been doing to stop something that has an unfailing schedule for occurring?

If the military can brag that it has secured even just one province out of the many controlled by the communists, that would already be a big victory worth going out to the media with a public announcement.

But to say, yet again, that the communists continue to exact taxes from candidates, by gad, what a shame for a military that we have. If the military cannot stand up to China, perhaps that is understandable. But if it cannot clear a single mountain range of rebels, wow.