Losing both battle and war

By Alex P. Vidal

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” – Rumi

CAN we win the war if we lose the battle? Or is winning the battle more important or okay than winning the war vice versa?

Although war, a prolonged, large-scale conflict between nations or groups, encompassing many smaller battles, campaigns, and broader political aims, is much bigger than a battle, we can’t fully celebrate and brag about it if we are losing the battle, which is just one specific, shorter military engagement within that larger war.

Such is the dilemma we are in today in as far as the fracas involving the flood control project anomalies is concerned.

We, the Marcos Jr. administration in particular, are actually losing both the battle and war because, so far, all the government could gloat was the issuance by a trial court of the warrant of arrest against Sarah Discaya and other DPWH worms with days to go before Christmas.

-o0o-

That’s how car they could go: running only after worms, insects, mosquitoes, ants, lizards.

The government has pounced on them like it was the greatest achievement in its battle against flood control project scams in particular, and graft and corruption in general.

Mr. Marcos Jr. and his most trusted acolytes, the Remulla laway (saliva) brothers, Ombudsman Jesus Crispin and Justice Secretary Jonvic promised us the moon, the stars, and the galaxies.

They promised to bring to the calaboose the fat cats and deadly reptiles in the persons of some DPWH bosses, the contractor-solons and kickback queens and kings in the Senate who are supposed to “spend Christmas in jail.”

With six to five days left, it’s now impossible for the Filipinos to witness the grand and biggest mass arrest of crocodiles in Barong Tagalog and business suits.

Those are empty braggadocio by Mr. Marcos Jr. and the laway (saliva) Remulla brothers.

Si Sarah Discaya lang and the small kittens ang kaya nila.

If they can’t pin down the mammoth beasts like Manuel Bonoan, Chiz, Jinggoy, Bong the thief, Joel the bogus preacher, among other ruffians, they can’t succeed in pinning down other lesser-known contractors who will eventually be freed in jail when nobody is watching anymore.

-o0o-

The truth is that the Marcos Jr. administration has no match versus the pact of wolves that have established fiefdoms in the three branches of the government.

It can humiliate crooked members of the House of Representatives and Senate in a series of postulations and condemnations, but it can’t carry a big stick or whip to put them away or place them behind bars.

The Christmas Day timeline or deadline that went pfft is a classic example of how both the battle and war had been lost.

Our leaders had taken us all for a ride; it played an extensive  lip service to mesmerize us and took advantage of our anger at the titanic corruption but, in truth and in fact, it did not have the backbones and sharpened teeth to defeat the elements of darkness that have been hovering the pillars and posts of the government.

The Marcos Jr. administration has missed its shining moment and let us all down.

-o0o-

WE heard in at least three major news networks in the United States and Australia that the Philippines was referred to as the “breeding ground of terrorists” or “known ISIS home base.”

This is absolutely incorrect. The tag is also misleading.

Just because authorities were able to trace the place where the father and son terrorists came from before staging the bloody carnage at Bondi Beach in suburb Sydney, Australia that killed 15 people on December 14 did not mean they “trained” in that place.

It defies deductive reasoning or syllogism. Anyone can be in one place for a different reason before going to another place for another reason.

Although authorities were able to confirm shooters Sajid Akram, 50 (killed) and son Naveed, 24 (hospitalized), stayed in Davao City in the Philippines in November before flying to Sydney to engage in mass shooting at a beachside Hanukkah celebration, it defies logic to conclude they had been radicalized in Mindanao.

The place in the southern Philippines has been widely described in foreign news as “where Islamist militant groups have been active in the past, including some with ties to the Islamic State.”

Mass murder was probably already on their minds while living in Australia because of their mindset and religious belief.

(The author, who is now based New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)