Extended

The two chambers of Congress will convene for a rare joint session today to consider President Duterte’s request to extend martial law in Mindanao until the end of the year.

There will be no surprises here. We basically know how the proceedings will go. The opposition, or what remains of it, will raise questions about the island-wide coverage and attempt to limit martial law to the Marawi area. The “super-majority” in both chambers will mow them down in a lopsided vote. What the President wants, he will get.

Resistance to the martial law declaration has been undermined by many things and by many opposition politicians themselves.

To begin with, notwithstanding Justice Marvic Leonen’s facile effort to make “rebellion” and “terrorism” two mutually exclusive things, the fact of rebellion stares us in the face. Nearly a hundred soldiers have died. Marawi is in ruins. The malignant force that occupied the ill-fated city must have numbered over 500 with an inexhaustible supply for firepower.

If this is not rebellion, then what is?

Furthermore, the confidential security briefing given the legislators has been described as “explosive.” Beneficiaries of the briefing are sworn to secrecy. But we have an idea of its contents from other reports.

We know now, for instance, that ISIS money did flow in to fund the Abu Sayyaf and other radicalized groups to mount attacks on the cities of Cotabato, Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro. There were a few feeble attempts to mount diversionary attacks to relieve the pressure on the Maute group entrenched in Marawi, but they failed.

With their strongholds in Iraq and Syria crumbling, and with their forces in Afghanistan under intense military pressure, the ISIS needs to open a new front. They have chosen Mindanao and ordered some of their fighters to move there. From their intended bases in Mindanao, they could threaten the whole of Southeast Asia.

If the international terrorist network, known for its extreme brutality, gains a toehold in Mindanao, the future will be bleak. The ambitious development plans for the tri-border area between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia will be prejudiced.

There is so much at stake not only in liberating Marawi but in stamping out the extremist threat in the whole island. Martial rule is seen as an important tool to achieve that goal. This is not just a security question. It is a developmental one as well.

The appeal of martial rule in the island is helped by the extremely professional conduct maintained by the AFP. Those who opposed the imposition of martial rule two months ago warned of widespread abuses, torture and oppression by our men in uniform. Such warnings were unfounded and, as experience has shown, unwarranted.

Gabriela insinuated that government troops were involved in looting and harassing women in the war zone. Unable to support their insinuations with evidence, the leftist front organization ended up burning its own credibility.

When Sen. Rissa Hontiveros complained about the resort to force in Marawi, this was interpreted as siding with the terrorists. When other leftist groups protested the use of bombing runs against the rebels, the public asked: How do we dislodge the terrorists and free the city?

When Justice Leonen issued his dissenting opinion on the martial law cases lodged before the Supreme Court, one commentator called him an idiot and a liar. No magistrate has been assessed that way in our entire judicial history.

Critics of martial law are so weighed down by their own credibility problems, they could not mount a sensible resistance to the extension of martial law for the whole of Mindanao.  Not only do they not have the numbers; they do not have the arguments either.

Sen. Franklin Drilon, with his record for taking the most opportunistic positions, declared he agreed with the extension of martial rule but had questions about its scope and duration. He, of course, did not elaborate – even if what he said undermined the minority political effort to block martial rule per se.

There are thousands of armed men roaming the entire breadth of Mindanao. Islamist groups are capable of mounting attacks from Tawi-Tawi to Cagayan de Oro. The CPP-NPA now has 80 percent of its men and materiel situated in the embattled island.

While the bulk of the AFP’s best fighting units were engaged in liberating Marawi, the NPA mounted a series of treacherous attacks. They killed two soldiers out marketing for their unit and ambushed a convoy of the Presidential Security Group. They burned the equipment of plantations refusing extortion efforts. In one instance, the communist guerrillas smashed the eggs of a small vendor who had no money to give collectors of “revolutionary taxes.”

Many have wondered: How much deceitfulness can government take from the communists who pretend to be interested in peace talks?

President Duterte addressed precisely that when he visited troops fighting in Marawi. He ordered that talks with the communists be scrapped. He likewise announced that after crushing the Islamic terrorists, our security forces should continue on crushing the communist terrorists.

It is delusory, after all, to compartmentalize the security problems in Mindanao that held back the region’s development for decades. All the armed groups bent on attacking government security forces in the region draw strength and logistics from one another.

We have known for a long time that the NPA acquires many of its weapons from the mainstream Muslim secessionist movements. They use MILF territory, protected by the terms of the peace initiative, as safe heavens when pursued by government troops.

That synergy must be stopped.