SLOGANEERING: “All-out Justice” is nice to hear, but hard to bear. Promising to deliver it in the grand way that President Noynoy Aquino did carries political risks. It exposes him to accusations of sloganeering.

It is much simpler to pursue marauders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to avenge the massacre of 19 elite Army troopers last Oct. 18 on Basilan Island than to deliver “all-out justice” for the fallen soldiers.

We all know what a plain Pinoy has to go through to buy justice at the company store. Has our justice system improved since Oct. 18?

The administration has not even gained headway in the older cases of treachery by Moro hotheads, including the beheading of 10 Marines in 2007 and the rampage of MILF rogue commanders whose victims included innocent civilians.

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FIGHT BACK!: Considering how slow this administration responds to emergencies, we are likely to end up adding the 19 soldiers to the ever-lengthening list of victims of injustice in this benighted land.

In war — and what we are witnessing in bloody sections of Mindanao is war — a commander who truly cares for his men does not show up three days after the carnage and then try assuring his troops by screaming “All-out Justice”!

Seeing his men decimated, the commander promptly rallies the rest of the troops to fight back with the cunning and savagery of a wounded tiger.

After all, based on the rebels’ record of treachery, force is the only language they understand.

Terrorism is the same weapon they wield. Note how they signal their field commanders to go on a rampage every time they want to dramatize displeasure or to gain psychological leverage in the peace talks.

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THE ENVELOPE: The MILF chief, Murad Ibrahim, must have enjoyed the recent spectacle in Tokyo of the President of the Philippines pushing an envelope stuffed with P5 million to be laundered through a Bangsamoro Institute for Something.

It was another costly lesson for the ill-advised President. Now he knows that goodwill secured with a bribe does not last. Not long after Tokyo, a rebel force walloped an Army contingent sent to serve warrants on criminals being coddled by the MILF.

The MILF should have sent a thank you note for that P5 million, considering that one of its major benefactors, Moammar Kadhafy of Libya, is now bankrupt and buried in the desert.

That Bangsamoro fund cannot be divorced from the paramount objective of carving out a separate Moro state. What the MILF wants is not peace but a piece of our sovereign Republic.

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NINO BONITO: If it is any comfort to President Aquino, some foreign governments have been inveigled into contributing to this war chest. They were presumably buying goodwill in anticipation of a Balkan-type of breakaway state in Mindanao.

Why is Malacañang not lifting a finger to stop the fund-raising? Why cannot we do as the United States does of locating and freezing assets of enemies of the state?

Because the MILF is the niño bonito of Uncle Sam? To our repeated basic question of who gave the MILF the role of voice and representative of the Muslim minority in this country, the answer is: The White House.

In fact, US State Secretary Hillary Clinton is coming in a few days to make sure that their beleaguered boy in Malacañang does not falter but will continue to do what the White House wants him to do vis-à-vis the MILF.

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TRAVEL BUG: Government peace negotiators are not only naïve, but easily carried away by cheap thrills. Even as our soldiers’ blood drenches the fields of Basilan, our peace talkers are already packing their travel bags for another junket.

Since it seems that travel is the focus, why do we not send to Kuala Lumpur the driver of Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez instead of the likes of alleged peace experts Teresita Deles and Marvic Leonen?

Better still, instead of the venue being Kuala Lumpur – where the Malaysian teammates of the MILF lie in wait – why do we not hold the discussions right here in the Philippines whose piecemeal dismemberment is, after all, the subject of the negotiations.

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UNDESERVED STATUS: By registering the Bangsamoro institute used as conduit for amassing a revolutionary fund, the Securities and Exchange Commission may have unwittingly lent official recognition of the rebels’ juridical personality and political respectability.

Such seemingly small details add up to our giving the MILF a status it does not deserve.

When the President formally sat for a one-on-one with the MILF chief, he gave him status. When the government granted the MILF full control over some camps and communities, that gave them territory. When we journeyed to foreign capitals for peace talks and allowed foreign entities to meddle, we internationalized a purely domestic conflict.

How do we now shuffle our way out of the corner to settle the long-drawn dispute just among us Filipinos? (That is assuming these secessionists consider themselves Filipinos. They have not formally said they are.)

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BASILAN ATTACK: To illustrate the earlier point that force, especially overwhelming force, is what the rebels understand, the MILF is now asking the government not to push with its search, destroy and capture campaign in Basilan.

The military wants to settle the score with MILF forces led by Dan “Laksaw” Asnawi, the second highest rebel commander on the island who led the Oct. 18 massacre.

The military is not listening to MILF claims that it has been granted areas of temporary stay on Basilan.

Even assuming they had been granted ATS, such grant is illegal and should be ignored by the military. There cannot be a square inch of land in this country where authorities cannot come in to enforce the law when there are clear violations.