Quashed

The crisis in Marawi is ending exactly as we wanted it to: decisively.

The ringleaders of the terrorist group responsible for this audacious attempt to occupy a city are dead. The small army of militants that followed their leaders into this murderous misadventure has been almost wiped out.

Less than two hectares of the city center remains to be cleared. Should the remnants of the Maute group choose to fight instead of surrender, the body count will continue to grow over the next few days.

The death toll for the militants who invaded Marawi should move closer to 900. That is nearly the entire terrorist army assembled to occupy the devastated city. Such a force cannot be assembled in a long while. The other cities of Mindanao can sleep a little easier.

Puny attempts to reinforce the beleaguered terrorist force in the city were intercepted and destroyed by the AFP. The security ring thrown around the main battle area was so redundant escape was not possible.

Isnilon Hapilon was killed trying to escape the encirclement. He was detected through the use of modern thermal imaging equipment lent us by our allies. AFP snipers took down the notorious terrorist leader.

Cowards that they were, both Hapilon and Omar Maute tried to use hostages as human shields. That did not save them from the sharpshooters.

This was not an easy victory for the AFP. Over 160 soldiers and policemen paid with their lives to accomplish the mission. Over a thousand were injured. But troop morale never flagged. These are heroes who never wavered in defense of the Republic.

Nor will reconstruction be easy.

One eminent urban planner estimates it might take 50 years to rebuild the devastated city. The estimated P50 billion required for the task turns out to be an underestimate. It will take hundreds of billions to rebuild Marawi and restore its once vibrant economy. The tolls for this calamity will be inherited by the next generation.

The slew of sympathetic statements toward  Marawi notwithstanding, the fact is the cost of rebuilding is too large and the city’s contribution to the economy is too small by comparison. A cash-strapped government cannot go full-throttle into reconstruction.

Our security forces come out of this battle with many lessons learned. The most important of these lessons is the need to build capacity for urban warfare.

For over a century, our security forces trained for jungle warfare. Our elite military units are among the best in the world in this regard. These units are well equipped as well to do battle well away from the population centers.

Things have changed in this age of terrorism. The battle for Marawi was prolonged not only because priority was given to saving the hostages. It was extended also because our troops had neither the training nor the modern equipment to properly conduct urban warfare.

We waged this battle with borrowed thermal imaging and other surveillance equipment. We do not have the smart bomb capability required to hit targets precisely using smaller ordnance. We need better capabilities to plant bugs in the battle area as well as to use armed drones in crowded urban space.

The technologies for urban warfare get better everyday. We need to keep pace.

Surely we will do retraining of special units. The expensive technologies for urban warfare might take a little more time.

Arrest them

We have rules governing the public transport sector. The first time a group of jeepney drivers called for a strike, the official response in enforcing the rules was long in coming.

Because of that, the group Piston found it convenient to call for yet another strike at the start of this week. In order to minimize the inconvenience that the strike might bring to the public, government found it necessary to suspend schools and work in the public sector. Even our stock exchange was shut down.

The Piston strike was more bark than bite. No real disruption of public transport happened. But the suspension of classes and work cost the country countless billions in lost productivity.

This time the LTFRB should enforce the rules. The ringleaders of this transport strike should be arrested and charged. This should send a clear message. No band of drivers should be allowed to hold our economy hostage to the political games their radical leaders choose to play.

The arrogant leaders of Piston are now warning they will continue with their failed strike calls every month until President Duterte sits down with them (and, of course, agree with their twisted position). For making that threat, they should be jailed twice over.

There have been numerous public consultations regarding the proposed modernization of the jeepneys. The militant drivers did not attend any of them, smugly insisting on rejection of any change in an obviously retrograde transport system.

The media space is wide open for them to make their bankrupt arguments known.  Instead, they chose to use strikes as a weapon. They prefer to use force instead of reason. Nothing fundamentally differentiates them from the terrorists who tried to take Marawi.

These pig-headed drivers’ groups must be made to pay for flouting the law and sabotaging the economy. Their actions simply add to the reasons the obsolete jeepney system be scuttled.

Not only are the jeepneys technologically unfit as a form of public transport, the quaint “boundary system” is oppressive, irresponsible and conducive to the bad road behavior we associate with jeepney drivers. That should end now.