Epic Fail: If You Can’t Lick ‘Em, Recruit ‘Em

I WAS watching the TV series “24” the other night and I couldn’t help thinking: even in their mountain lair, the NPAs must be watching “24,” if not “Leverage” or “White Collar.”

At the same time, I couldn’t help thinking: even right in the city, government intelligence operatives must have never watched “24,” “Leverage” nor “White Collar.”

This is because of the planning and thoroughness with which the February 19 Camp Philips attack by NPA forces seemed to have been carried out.

It seems clear now from hindsight that weeks prior to the attack, the attackers have been conducting their planning: casing every establishment that figured in their plans, knowing precisely how many people are there, casing the surroundings, perhaps even knowing the times people did what they routinely do.

It seems that arriving in one establishment they commandeered, the raiders herded the staff and instantly knew one was missing. True enough, the place’s chef was at the bathroom when the raiders came.

I doubt if the raiders have parabolic antennas that enable them to eavesdrop on conversations from afar; night vision gadgets that enable them to see at night; hand-launched unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that allow them to survey the ground from above, allowing them to see everything happening on the ground. No, the raiders didn’t have these; yet, they executed the raid with precision that goes way beyond their equipment.

On the other hand, I’m sure that with their fat budgets, military intelligence must have all the toys above and more, yet look at how they made a fool of themselves in the eyes of the people, being absolutely clueless about the plan being hatched by the raiders, and responding too late.

There’s this joke about there being two kinds of people: those who make things happen, and those who ask “What happened?”

In the February 19 fiasco, it’s plain to which group the raiders fall under, and to which group the military intelligence establishment belong.

With a budget of P104.5 billion in 2011, no one can complain that military intelligence is unable to give proper intel because it is ill-equipped. Yet, nobody, but nobody seemed to have heard that something was afoot, a tragedy that took one life, and resulted in unnecessary losses to businesses in the area.

In that “24” episode, Jack Bauer had to find a nuclear device set to detonate in L.A. in 24 hours. He was able to do it, in a credible way that’s the reason why “24” has been around for a long, long time, something unusual in an industry when a series often do not make it to Season 2.

Assuming that of the P104.5 billion defense budget, P10 billion goes to military intelligence, perhaps our lawmakers should consider cutting that down to just P100 million, but to provide every military intelligence operative a year’s supply of “24,” and spend the rest pirating those young student-looking NPA operatives.

P.S.

Perhaps those in “hot pursuit” of the dissidents might start checking on who have been absent from among our school’s political science classrooms. Some of the hostages swear some of the raiders are young enough to be students.