Explaining can ease Mindanao tension

Police officials have in succession disempowered seven Muslim governors, planned special IDs for Muslims, and sent rogue cops to Mindanao. Those acts need thorough public explaining – lest they be misconstrued as ethnic or religious discrimination. Master propagandists, Maute terrorists gleefully will capitalize on resentments to agitate Muslims and Moros. That would encumber the military's job of combating jihadists while placating separatists.

The National Police Commission (Napolcom) last week revoked the supervisory powers over local cops of the seven Mindanao governors and their 132 town mayors. The latter are begging for reconsideration. To be sure, Interior and Local Government officer-in-charge Catalino Cuy, as Napolcom chairman, has promised to “review and correct” the to-do. But it’s not merely administrative; it could turn ideological – fodder for terrorist escalation.

Sadly the Napolcom order looked haphazard. It lacked details on individual infractions, and even misidentified two of the governors. The generic justification, from the Napolcom Law, was that they had harmed national security or got in the way of peace and order, provided material support to criminals, abused their authority, and frequently were absent.

Un-deputized were Governors Esmael Mangudadatu and 28 mayors of Maguindanao; Mamintal Adiong Jr. and 37 mayors of Lanao del Sur; Imelda Quibranza-Dimaporo and 22 mayors of Lanao del Norte; Pax Mangudadatu and 12 mayors of Sultan Kudarat; Abdusakur Tan II and 13 mayors of Sulu; Hadjiman Salliman and 10 mayors of Basilan; and Nurbert Sahali and nine mayors of Tawi-Tawi.

Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Sulu, Basilan, and Tawi-Tawi are part of the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Un-deputized as well was Mayor Frances Cynthia Guiani Sayadi of Cotabato City, capital of ARMM.

Notably, Adiong is the vice governor of Lanao del Sur; his mother Bedjoria Soraya Adiong is the governor. Rashidin Matba is the governor of Tawi-Tawi; Sahali was past governor.

Napolcom vice chairman Rogelio Casurao said the suspension was “for their failure to impose measures to suppress terroristic acts and prevent lawless violence in their territories, which is inimical to national security and poses serious threat to the lives and security of their constituents.” Further, “there were reports of local chief executives in Mindanao being involved in the illegal drug trade which is tantamount to providing support, in one way or another, to the Maute terrorist group or other criminal elements in their jurisdiction, an act which negates the effectiveness of the peace and order campaign in the country.” Given that President Rodrigo Duterte imposed martial law in Mindanao due to the Maute siege of Marawi City, capital of Lanao del Sur, one would think that the Napolcom order was in support of that military option.

But Defense Sec. Delfin Lorenzana, as martial law administrator, was quick to dissociate himself from it. “No, that has more to do with the fight against illegal drugs,” he reportedly said.

It was not the first time he disagreed with police actions in Mindanao. Days prior Philippine National Police director general Ronald dela Rosa banished to Marawi two cops videotaped caning a couple of jailed street drunks. Lorenzana found it inapt to mix bad cops with soldiers heroically sacrificing life and limbs to retake the Islamic City from Maute terrorists. ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman and Lanao officials too resented the “throwing of Metro Manila’s garbage to Muslim Mindanao.”

The Napolcom power to un-deputize local officials comes from Republic Act 8551, the PNP Reform and Reorganization Act. Under that law many local officials have been sanctioned for cause. Among the latest was Camarines Sur Gov. Miguel Villafuerte in 2015, for failure to obtain licenses for the provincial capitol’s firearms, uncooperativeness in the police investigation of the killing of four miners, and coddling of men toting assault rifles around town. Also in 2016 Cebu City Mayor Tommy Osmeña, for withdrawing logistics support from the local police, and Mayor Vicente Loot of Daangbantayan, Cebu, for narco-trade.

The Napolcom power is not merely disciplinary, but a potent tool of reform. Removal of a governor or mayor’s power to oversee the local police dents the official’s political clout, including the illicit use of the cops as private army men and bodyguards. A reformist President can use that power to wipe out warlord-ism and enforce gun control in “Wild, Wild Mindanao.”

The Napolcom may have the juice on the seven governors and 132 mayors. Local executives in Mindanao and elsewhere are known not only to coddle criminals but engage in syndicated crime themselves. Those range from narco-trafficking, illegal logging, gun running, and gambling, aside from the usual taking of kickbacks. Some Moro officials have even pocketed commissions from ransom negotiations with Abu Sayyaf terrorist-kidnappers.

Still, it would have been wise for the Napolcom to include particulars on the disempowered governors and mayors. Like, who were into drugs, or were napping while terrorists were building up arsenals in their jurisdictions. That would leave no room for misinterpretation of anti-Muslim or anti-Moro bias, since Maute cyber-jihadists feed on real and imagined injustice. Details also could have exposed the local officials' accomplices in the police or military. (Like, one Lanao del Sur mayor named as a narco-politician by Duterte last year had long been exposed in this column as a recipient of machineguns from the Army. He supposedly merited that favor for fighting Moro separatists.)

Indefensible perhaps is the issuance of ID cards to Muslims, plannned by the Central Luzon police brass. Cuy and Dela Rosa initially had justified the IDs as necessary to clear the entry of evacuees from Marawi. It turned out, however, that it was intended for all Muslims in Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Bataan, Zambales, and Aurora. Muslim imams denounced the plan as Islamophobic. Christian bishops opposed it for violating equal protection of law, and freedom of religion and mobility. Even the Armed Forces of the Philippines distanced itself from the Muslims-only IDs, preferring instead a national ID system for all Filipinos.

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