At the height of the Marcos oppression, there were 250,000 NPAs/armed men of the Communist Party of the Philippines. The Dictator was jokingly referred to as the "greatest NPA recruiter" because every dastardly, despotic act he made, drove more people to join the rebel movement.

At the end of the FVR term in 1998, there were 16,000 recorded NPAs in the field compared to only 7,000 today.

And yet the "Isabela Initiative" last week authored by PGMA to add P1-billion modernization funds to the AFP and the marching orders to crush the Reds in two years are being etched as a new major anti-communist offensive policy shift whose radical roots were last seen in the Marcos' years.

The move is reportedly part of the overall game plan called "Oplan Bantay Laya" (Literally: Operation Freedom Watch) which has been preceded by extrajudicial killings of about 300 radical militants, arrest of the above ground political left (Batasan 5), the filing of criminal charges against Netherland-based ideological chieftain Jose Ma Sison and anti-freedom Palace edicts which were all dishonored by a Supreme Court who seems to know better.

Are these strong-arm tactics meant to satisfy Washington (already alarmed by the spate of human rights violations and deaths) and EU (European Union), who had both declared the NPAs as part of the terrorist list? Are they part of the paranoia, the hysteria of a government whose legitimacy rests on thin ice and merely over-reacts to any form of opposition so as to prevent its strong growth into real anti-GMA sentiments?

Are they meant to satisfy a clique within the military who would financially benefit from this massive doses of funds for modernization? Is the Palace now beholden to this group to the extent that policy moves now seemed warped and off tangent with reality? These are concerned queries we hear at certain quarters often enough so as not to be ignored.

"Is PGMA really now in control?" is a question that is often asked these days than in other times during PGMA's wake. Or is this new "war dance" just to produce the acoustics to warm dissenters that the Palace is in an aggressive mood, so don't they better push their luck too hard?

The P1-billion new anti-red "war chest" to buy automatic weapons, vehicles and communication equipments is part of the military offensive plan. But as the AFP spokespersons chorused, the other half of the battle includes DDR - or disarmament, demobilization and reintegration.

The problem with that is - such is not a new tack. This government knows bullets and guns above will not win an ideological war as the NPAs had proven in sustaining a 37-year old insurgency, arguably, the longest in Southeast Asia, if not in Asia.

So if there is nothing new in the game plan, how can an additional P1-Billion do the magic trick and end the red rebels fight for thin freedom? Something does not quite fit.

Which leads us to a cynic's opinion that just as the USA needs a war somewhere to keep its economy humming, the AFP needs the insurgency and accessionist movements to justify its gargantuan budget. The Military budget had often gotten the largest allocation traditionally alongside education and debt payment allocations. Thus, it had to keep the "war in progress" all through the years while pretending to attend table negotiations for peace in Netherlands (Reds) and in Mindanao (Moro rebels).

Significantly, the Reds will be crushed by 2009, per their time table, a year before PGMA's legal term ends. By then, the AFP said its ranks will be reduced by half from its present 100,000 count and technology will replace manpower as the AFP modernizes. Wouldn't retiring 50,000 AFP men in today's political turmoil, be courting a clear and present danger so it had to be postponed - as it had been for so many years?

The Philippine Star reported the PNP would buy P330-million worth of patrol cars, motorcycles etc. just to secure the forthcoming Southeast Asian Meet in Cebu - even without bidding (just negotiated contracts) because of the "urgency of the situation."

The question that begs for an answer then is - if such keep amount of P332-million can be allotted so fancy free at anytime, why did it take so long for this government to modernize and retire the mediocre force members?

In this content, the recent statement of PGMA in Isabela that the "fight against the left is the glue that binds" assumes more than just more meaning.

We really hope to be proven wrong.