WAR is costly but a protracted insurgency war is even more so. The armed forces and the police are spending billions year in and year out in sustaining a fight that seems to have no end. We have lost more than 13,000 soldiers and policemen in the past 52 years, yet we have been accused of simply 'managing the conflict' and not ending it completely in order for us to benefit from the billions that the taxpayers spend for the war kitty.

Let me give it to you straight. If there is anybody who wants to see the end of this insurgency, it is we, your soldiers. We don't want more soldiers to die out there. We don't want to see more orphans from this useless war being waged by Jose Ma Sison and his ilk in the Kamatayan (Makabayan) bloc. We want to go home to our families. We want to go back to our barracks so we can prepare, train and fight instead the bigger wars, which may be launched by non-Filipinos. We are tired of fighting our own countrymen. It is pointless.