Redemption

MALACAÑANG’S shilly shallying whether to assign Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan as government’s anti-gambling czar or consultant on national security need to be resolved pronto. It wouldn’t hurt to name a battle savvy guy like that as anti-gambling lord— every bettor in the street would wager on him taking on the role, playing it to the hilt.

People would love Palparan to ply the usual terminate-and-destroy tack. It ought ot be the same sort of war plan that seeks to extirpate the 8,000-strong New People’s Army in two years flat in which hundreds of civilian sympathizers and suspected Reds were turned into stiffs.

With Palparan at the reins of the government’s anti-gambling drive, we can expect fireworks. Lots of.

Plus a staggering body count—ready the body bags, no prisoners will be taken.

For starters, our idol may be tasked to neutralize coddlers and protectors of, say, jueteng. The illegal numbers game has plagued Luzon for centuries—quite more formidable a challenge to weed out than a 30-year old or so communist insurgency.

People expect lots and lots of jueteng coddlers and protectors done in and queuing up for their appointment with an embalmer.

It is now common knowledge: coddlers and protectors infest local and national government. They come in such guises as councilor, mayor, media practitioner, barangay chieftain, congressman, police or military official, maybe even kith and kin of Malacañg occupants. Self-confessed jueteng bagman Sandra Cam did implicate GMA's hubby and eldest son as among those who were fattened by jueteng protection payoffs, did she not?

That is a formidable array, a multi-tiered assembly of corruption that exploits the Filipino penchant for the get-rich-quick way via gambling.

People would wish for Palparan to take care of ‘em jueteng coddlers and protectors, apply the usual terminate and destroy tack on ‘em. It’ll be a massive cleansing campaign.

Dissidents and their sympathizers call our idol as “butcher.” Enough of such tacky epithets and cranky name-calling.

Once Palparan gets his marching orders as the nation’s anti-gambling czar, people should bequeath him a more appropriate sobriquet.

Say, “redeemer?”