Seven ideas to fix our country, so he says.

Launching a determined campaign against kidnappings. "We need 10 major success stories in kidnapping for the next 60 days in order to break the back of the kidnapping syndicates in Metro Manila," said De Venecia.

Sounds eerily like the PACC, which are basically thugs working for the government.

Providing a bigger budget for the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces' intelligence operations "so that they can infiltrate the kidnap syndicates and have more information against them." He said the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force should also be given "all the funds it needs."

If anything, De Venecia is proving that he's out of the loop. These short term measure have been tried before, and they only work until a new group steps in. You need a long term PNP plan. How many times have we seen ex-soldiers turning up in their own little private armies and doing the kidnapping? Throw in the bank robberies.

Here's my one good idea:

Fire everyone at the PNP. Yes, everyone. Take all their guns and put them in a safe place. Inventory all the weapons. Appoint a commission of public school teachers (headed by UP professors) to administer a test -- with a psychology section -- to determine fitness to serve. While this is happening, deploy the Army and the Marines to police the country (martial law like, I know, but it's a bitter pill). Deploy the reserve forces (college and high school) to add to mix. Blitz the media explaining your actions.

Forget Mindanao for now. That's been there for a while and it won't go away any time soon. These are more pressing matters.

If they fail the testing (which acts as a re-application for the same job) then they'll never get back to the PNP. Ever. Fast track all the criminology students and appoint them. Do hard exit interviews and proper appointments. Jobs that are not filled will be filled by either people from the AFP or the MMDA traffic people. Educate like mad to bring everyone up to speed.

Appoint Congressional aides to perform half duty in the PNP - secretarial stuff. Basically, the PNP outsources to the congress. Clean up all the records. Do that in one year with 150 million pesos. The congressmen should hire extra help using their pork barrel money. Get Bayani Fernando and Juan Flavier to oversee this entire thing. Get former president Ramos in the mix as well.

As for the kidnappers: I'm warning you. I'm coming to get you, and I'm bringing Hell with me.