FPJ, Robin Padilla, as 'peace negotiators'? It's a war, not amovie

The bloody rebellion in Mindanao may have its element of comic opera as well as drama. Yesterday, a newspaper front-paged a story, quoting an unnamed "ranking military official," who said that the Muslims love action star Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) and would like to have the movie king head the panel of "peace negotiators."

Another action star's name surfaced in the same article, which cited the idea that Abu Sayyaf rebels holding 33 civilians captive, including teachers and school children, wanted Robin Padilla -- who converted to Islam when he was in jail in Muntinlupa -- to lead government efforts to secure the release of the remaining kidnap victims.

What's this? A joke? Even if FPJ is a nice guy, and Robin may have "reformed," what qualifies them to broker a peace deal? This is a rebellion we're confronting, compounded with kidnapping, ransom, rape, murder, and arson, not a motion picture.

What ought to catch our attention is the latest development in which the fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf, who usually show no mercy, suddenly released 18 of their hostages. The Abu Sayyaf did not do so out of the goodness of their hearts, nor for the 200 sacks of rice they are demanding as part of their "ransom" call -- but clearly because relatives of the hostages counter-kidnapped 11 relatives of Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani.

This is the cruel tit-for-tat that exists in strife-torn Mindanao, particularly in Basilan where the ragtag Abu Sayyaf are the most vehement of the insurgents. The bandits publicly blamed Basilan Police Chief Akmadul Pangambayan and Governor Wahad Akbar for abducting the Janjalani relatives in retaliation for the rebels' seizure of 51 hostages. Both are denying this.

In the end, it's more logical to conclude that kin of the original hostages took the Janjalani relatives in turn. The message delivered was: "If you kill our kinfolk, we'll kill yours."

This is the language warring Moro clans understand. It is a violent give-and-take which has been going on for generations.

We know Basilan, for instance, quite well on a personal basis. My sister and her late husband spent over 20 years of their lives planting and developing an 180-hectare plantation, against danger and all odds, in Galayan, Maluso (near where the Abu Sayyaf was "born").

The rubber and copra plantation was overrun years ago during the bitter fighting, then captured by Muslim rebels. To my widowed sister's surprise, one day, out of the blue, she got a notice that the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) had divided up her hard-fought-for plantation among her alleged "Muslim tenants." In all the years she and her husband had run the plantation, and her kids were born and grew to manhood there and in Zamboanga City, they had never had "Moro" employees and certainly no Muslim "tenants."

But that's Mindanao. The Moros claim that Christians "invaded" and grabbed "their land" generations ago. Now, they snarl, they are demanding "their land" back.

Some bleeding hearts and do-gooders seem to swallow this romantic baloney, including many foreigners and observers. Very few mention the fact that the Yakans (the majority in Basilan since the old days), Taosugs and Samals in Zamboanga and the Sulu archipelago were mostly seafaring folk -- okay, let's call them pirates and raiders -- and traders in more peaceful times, not farmers, planters or agriculturists. How could they "own" the land?

Even the Badjaos, who lived all their lives on water, were never landowners.

The Moro raiders were so feared during the Spanish colonial era that as far north as Vigan and my hometown in Ilocos Sur you can still find the ruins of old Spanish-built look-outs and towers designed to house sentries watching out for the sight of the colorful but dreaded sails of Moro vintas, those long-ranging sailing boats. When those vinta sails of the marauders were spotted, warning bonfires used to be lit, the local guardia hastily assembled to confront the Muslim warriors (coming for loot and slaves). The cry went up: "Hay Moros en la costa!" (There are Moros on the coast!)

And, traditionally, during festivals, Christian towns would stage a morality play called "Moro-Moro", depicting Christian princes and warriors battling and vanquishing Islamic attackers. When we were children, we used to know how to sing and chant the Ilocano lines of the "comedia", as those plays were known, such as "Beware, because my sharp sword is coming!" The sword versus the kris is a longtime tradition.

How can "peace talks" ever succeed? The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) of Ustadz Hashim Salamat continues to demand that we must surrender our territory in Mindanao so they can establish an independent Islamic state there. How can a sovereign Republic surrender to rebels in order to buy a funny kind of "peace"?

In turn, our government panel is demanding that the Muslim insurgents hand in their arms and surrender -- which they are not disposed to do. Those so-called "peace talks" are leading nowhere, and can never lead anywhere.

The only way to win is for the government's armed forces and PNP to attack and overrun ALL the armed camps and so-called "sanctuaries" of the MILF and the rogue "Lost Commands" kuno of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

It's ridiculous for us to allow rebel armies to "maintain" sacrosanct bases like Camp Abubakar, Camp Omar, and other fortresses, within our Mindanao provinces. From there they can run their own separate communities, train cadres, regroup, rest, receive foreign aid and weapons, and from which they can issue to raid the seize peaceful towns, ambush military patrols, attack AFP camps, and kidnap, ravish, pillage and burn.

Only if we defeat the Moro rebels in combat, crush their "safe" sanctuaries and make life impossible for them, will they come willingly to a "peace table." When the government sues for peace, the rebels grow more arrogant by the day. They are creating the impression in the outside world that they are winning -- and the government is "losing." When they beg for peace because they must, then, and only then, will peace talks have any meaning.

With their fight-talk-and-fight-again tactics, the Islamic mujahideen and their increasingly fundamentalist leadership are only jerking us around. And yet, so many government big shots who ought to know better keep on bleating that we should seek peace by "laying down our arms" and that "Filipinos must not be fighting Filipinos", and all that defeatist crap. During the years this journalist travelled all over Mindanao, I found Moros calling themselves "Filipinos" only when demanding projects, appointments, or aid. Most of the time, however, we suckers are the "Filipinos," while they call themselves Maranaws, Maguindanaos, Taosugs, Samals, Yakans, and other tribal appellations, never "Filipinos." And they're demanding, as well, that they be governed by Shariah Law as dictated by their Islamic tradition and the Koran, not the laws of the Philippine Republic.

I can understand Muslims, in countries where they are in the vast majority, kicking their tiny Christian minorities around. But in this at least nominally Catholic country, where 85 percent profess Christianity, we're still the ones being kicked around. When I express amazement over this, some Muslims ferociously call me "bigoted."

But look at Kosovo. The Americans and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces crushed the "Christian" Serb troops, who were admittedly cruel and indulged in barbaric massacres, in order to save the pitiful, bullied Muslim Kosovars (ethnic Albanians). Now, it's the returned refugees and Muslim Kosovars -- and their Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas -- who are oppressing and murdering the tiny, remaining Serbian minority, conducting "raids" into next-door "Serbian" Yugoslavia, and taking potshots at the K-FOR (NATO) peacekeeping troops, who are growing, daily, more harassed and frustrated.

There is no hostility more deadly and everlasting than that based on religion. Centuries ago, Christian crusaders smashed into the Middle East, killing Muslims and Saracens with the war cry, Deus vult! (God wills it). The Spanish Inquisition, launched against accused heretics, remains a symbol of merciless religious persecution. (It was partly designed, of course, to enable Churchmen to seize the wealth, property, and assets of Jews and other "heretics").

In these fundamentalist times, on the other hand, it is a wave of Islamic fanaticism that is threatening the world -- even Muslim-ruled countries. How can you argue with men and women who are brought up to destroy you because, as they cry, Allah is great and it is his (God's) command that infidels be killed? Assassins are no less assassins, if they are paid in the coin of ascent to paradise. It's terrifying.

It's also sad. With millions of Russians having gone to the polls yesterday, across a land so vast it encompasses 11 time zones, it's almost a foregone conclusion that acting President Vladimir Putin will be resoundingly elected "President" in his own right, defeating his eleven rivals. What was the previously unknown ex-KGB officer Putin's biggest achievement? That he crushed the Muslim Chechens and Russia's remorseless armies continue to grind them into the snow and into the dust.

The first "war" against Chechnya was botched by Putin's predecessor and patron, former President Boris Yeltsin, who launched his assault on Grozny on December 11, 1994. This led to Russia's abject defeat in August 1996 -- and the "victorious" Chechens' commanding general, Aslan Maskhadov was elected "president" of Chechnya in 1997. Maskhadov is now a fugitive. Putin, in the eyes of 150 million Russians, has avenged that defeat and "restored" Russian pride.

The Chechens, it must be said, have only themselves to blame for their current plight in which hundreds of thousands have been rendered homeless refugees, scores of thousands are dead, and Grozny, their capital, reduced to rubble -- a howling wilderness. Flushed with Islamic fervor and hubris over their previous triumph, Chechen guerrillas and saboteurs began attacking Russians in next-door Dagestan, then blowing up buildings in the heart of Moscow, leaving hundreds of civilians dead.

They forgot that the Russians, smarting from their earlier humiliation, suffused with newly-restored "Orthodox Christian" religious fervor (a surprising U-turn from seven decades of Communist atheism), can be as merciless and tough when provoked. Putin, who might otherwise have been dismissed as a nondescript type (he had never racked up any brilliant achievements, even in the KGB), cannily exploited these traits and resentments. His campaign platform was based on nationalism of a virtually chauvinistic streak and a resurgence of Russian self-respect. His trajectory, which may include the "reunion" of the Ukraine with the Russian Federation, only narrowly falls short of a restoration of Soviet power.

For this reason, he has by now probably elbowed aside (unless there's a runoff election) his only rival, the Communist Party's Gennady Zyugannov.