When one plus one equals none

So much ado has been made on GMA's "manna" of P1 billion for, again, the fight against graft and corruption, and another P1 billion for wiping out the now dwindling NPA insurgency.

Both promises have now a timetable of two years. One has lost track of similar self-imposed deadlines that passed. And reneged. A broken promise common in many a romantic novel, is an excuse for motherhood avowals among wielders of power ending up unfulfilled.

Just like weeding out "jueteng" and other gambling or aleatory social vices that resurface time and again, defying deadlines for their stamping out, GMA's P1 billion plus P1 billion two-year ultimatum may only result in mathematical zilch. And makes her a liar once again.

Let's take another peek at graft and corruption... Well, we're getting worse in this ignominy as now being second to Indonesia among Asian nations. And to think that GMA has harnessed the Hong Kong anti-graft expert in Tony Kwok, now helping the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC). In China, they shoot the grafters in public by a firing squad.

Government mercenaries disguising as honest "public servants" so far indicted, constitute only a trickle. Many are still out there making hay at our expense, from the mega fortune stakers bandying the honorific "honorable", to the middle mint manipulators, and down the "loose change" cheaters. The wheels of justice grind so slow, hindered by sloth hiding behind the much abused "due process" excuse.

"Plunder" is the name of the game. What used to be 10 to 20 percent "SOP" in government transactions, later rising to 30%, now hovers the 40% and over; so that, for every one peso in public project, only 60 centavo-worth gets applied, if at all. And, it takes many forms, like, outright highway robbery in boldness, immoral and insidious cash advances unliquidated, shameful allowances fetish among LGUs, bloated projects, unchecked smuggling, funds diversions, and tampered official receipts, to name some modus operandi.

And so, the P1 billion to raze graft and corruption in two years is all fart. It's as ineffective as the insincerity of the half-smile and half-sneer while making the promise... As for the other P1 billion to bring the insurgents to their knees in, again, two years time, this could bring an ironic twist, that is, hasten Ka Roger Rosal's death while laughing.

In fact, GMA and Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz have different timetables. The latter proclaimed that insurgency runs out in 10 years. It appears that Cruz is the wiser prognosticator who can't be called a liar because his stint ends before his ten-year deadline.

How could the rebels be wiped out despite their dwindling numbers - only 38 in Cebu, and comparatively similar in other Visayas provinces, so the AFP statistics go - when the AFP has no iron will to wage out anti-dissident campaigns?

In the local level, for instance, when Gov. Garcia came out with an all-out war against the insurgency, the military just came out with organizing the CAFGU to do their work. To be blunt about it, reviving the CAFGU civilian volunteers which, by the way, became the brunt of many complaints for abuse some years back, is a typical example of passing the buck.

How many Army soldiers are stationed in Cebu, or, even the 78th IB assigned in mid-North Cebu? Are they out-numbered by the platoon-sized 38 measly rebels? If the media people could trace "Ka Roger" to interview him, the AFP/PNP with better professional intelligence network, could as well find the rebel lairs to fight them and finish them, as in Magsaysay credo.

Not to put cold water to GMA's off-hand mathematical solution of P1 billion plus P1 billion equals P2 billion to solve the graft and corruption and the insurgency problems, nevertheless, it just doesn't add up in reality. It takes more than money to hack it. It needs sincerity and the honest will to do it.

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