Monday, August 04, 2008 Editorial: Drawing the line
THERE are two ways to get drunk: one through imbibing alcoholic beverage, which thus puts you in a state of drunkenness; the other, through exhilaration, usually because of a great success. In both ways, there's the common factor of being stupefied or exhilarated as if under the influence of alcohol.
We can almost hear the cheers and see the high-fives being exchanged among communist rebels these days as they mount tactical victory upon tactical victory for months on end. This year, it seems, the New People's Army (NPA) has pooled all its military tacticians, or maybe put on the head its best tactician ever, to wage a shooting, maneuvering war.
They've been everywhere, especially in the Davao Region, since that broad daylight assassination of a Davao businessman, which turned out to be an assassination based on a wrong decision at that. But as if they are on a roll, they've been killing and attacking and burning and collecting.
Indeed, we can almost see the wide grins, the high fives, and we can almost hear the victorious cheers.
We can almost feel the exhilaration, the drunkenness.
The NPA has been waging a protracted warfare that has seen it rise on a crest in the 1980s, but suffered a setback when President Ferdinand E. Marcos was shooed off.
Today, with a very unpopular President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo amid incessant news exposes of graft and corruption and gasoline prices that go up every week, the rebels have regained lost ground and are enjoying a winning streak; the hungry masses feasting on their promises of better governance. In that renewed ground of discontent, they have intensified their military offensives as well, and have been very successful so far. But along with it seems the drunkenness.
If the exhilaration and drunkenness from all the tactical victories continue, the rebel command will be losing all the grounds it has gained in its primary battle -- the battle for the masses.
The drunkenness has been manifested in the death of a businessman, which they would later admit was a grave mistake. It was manifested when they belligerently admitted the mistake and offered to make recompense anytime, anywhere, but failed to do so. It is again manifested in their attack on the water pipes in a barangay in Digos City.
Water is a basic need, more important than food. By attacking the water source, the rebels have shown they don't care for civilians as they always claim.
The war is about winning the support of the masses, not the number of ambuscades and tactical offensives waged against the government military.
These mistakes the rebels have committed in less than a year show a tendency to see only the war as a tit-for-tat in firepower. A few more of these, then they will readily fit into the terrorist mold government has been readying for them. They're just lucky the President we now have doesn't enjoy the support and trust of the people. But put in someone most trusted, even at just the local government level, who will declare the rebels to be terrorists because of these acts, then all the tactical offensives they have achieved this year will be all for naught, and it will be back to the boondocks for them but this time, with less support from the masses.
