Runaway train of betrayal
As the caskets bearing the bodies of the 42 (two others were buried earlier in Zamboanga) slain members of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force slowly emerged from three military transport planes that brought them home to Villamor Air Base last Thursday, a Philippine government panel and its counterpart from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front signed in Kuala Lumpur the protocol governing the decommissioning of weapons of the rebel group.
To the ears, the decommissioning may sound great and important. It means the surrender of rebel firearms, which is always an important component of any peace deal. But it only sounds that way because, in truth, the MILF only intends to surrender 75 firearms, and only as a symbolic gesture. In fact, there is even no date as to when the symbolic gesture will be made.
As to whether there will be any genuine and substantial surrender of weapons, only the MILF can say. And it is not saying. What it did say was said in another way - in the clear, crisp and unmistakable sound of gunfire, the gunfire that slaughtered the 44 SAF policemen as they tried to capture two wanted terrorists being coddled by another Muslim rebel group, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.
The MILF had everybody believing that the BIFF was a splinter group. But then the SAF policemen took down one of the two terrorists inside a BIFF village, who do you think would come to the rescue but the MILF. Now it can be told that for the names the MILF and the BIFF are one and the same. The MILF pursues peace talks with government to wrangle an ill-disguised separate state in Mindanao while the BIFF takes charge of criminal fund-raising to sustain the rebellion.
Everybody wants peace. Make no mistake about it. Nobody wants war. But the Bangsamoro state the Philippine government is being coerced, through threats of endless violence, to carve out in Mindanao is a huge sellout of its own sovereignty. Not only that, it is not being dealt with squarely and honestly but by means of deceit and guile.
Nothing illustrates this more than the massacre of the 44. When the BIFF clashed with the SAF police, that seemed regular and acceptable. The BIFF was coddling the terrorists. And it was not in peace talks with government. But why did the MILF join the BIFF in the fight? The only reason the MILF could cough up is that the SAF police did not coordinate with them.
Just for that you would join in the slaughter? Why would you endanger the peace talks you are having with the government over such a ridiculous matter as lack of coordination? Maybe the MILF believes that whatever it does, it is the Philippine government that will blink. The MILF gets its inspiration from Noynoy Aquino himself, who has very publicly been twisting the arms of Congress to pass the Bangsamoro law before he bows out of office in 2016.
Noynoy, who has no achievement whatsoever to speak of, is putting all his marbles on the Bangsamoro law. He wants it to become his legacy. He wants to be remembered as a man of peace, the reason why he has been so openly coveting the Nobel Peace Prize. Never mind if the Bangsamoro law sell the country down the river to the MILF, which could not even see eye to eye with other Muslim groups, and for which reason the peace talks will only look good on paper.
So obsessed is Noynoy with his ill-conceived legacy that he did not bother to stop, or at least postpone, the signing of the decommissioning protocol in Kuala Lumpur between the Philippine government panel and the MILF, if only in deference and respect to the slain policemen treacherously slaughtered by the MILF. How insensitive can the commander-in-chief get.
Even if there is a nice ring to the signing, and even granting that, under normal and more sincere conditions, the signing of any protocol leading to the surrender of firearms may actually be good, still it was insensitive to do it on the very day the SAF policemen's remains were being unloaded before the anguished eyes of a betrayed nation.
How could Noynoy allow such a charade to proceed and coincide with the sounding of taps for the nation's fallen heroes? It would not have done his illusions any harm if the signing was moved to some later date, when those who lost so much have dealt with their loss and moved on. The call of the moment had in fact been extreme - for the peace talks to be promptly terminated. Instead Noynoy allowed it even to move a step forward.
Picture this and see if you do not feel disgusted: As your fallen heroes come home in coffins, your president is somewhere else, enjoying himself inspecting cars at a new plant in Laguna. Instead of pausing in prudence, if only temporarily, to protest the betrayal of peace talks, your president allows a government panel to even move ahead by signing a protocol for the symbolic surrender of firearms by the same rebel group that slaughtered your heroes.
- Latest
