Police action

By most accounts, the renegades and bandits in Sulu are on the run. The major encampments of the renegade MNLF faction and the Abu Sayyaf have been overrun, at some cost in terms of military casualties.

By most accounts, too, the volume of fighting has scaled down quite dramatically over the last few days. It appears both sides have broken up into small teams, tracking each other down in the bush, with occasional skirmishes breaking our from time to time.

By government’s own description of the situation, the battle has now shifted from a fight to control territory to one intended to neutralize specific units and personalities. This seems to be a way of saying that the "battle" has now become a routine police action.

If that is so, then why are we still talking about a ceasefire?

The other day, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced she will convene the National Security Council to deliberate the wisdom of calling for a ceasefire in Sulu.

A few days before that, the governor of Sulu wrongly announced that the AFP agreed to a ceasefire in his province. The announcement was denied by the AFP.

Surely, all this talk about a ceasefire must be due to some political stimulus coming from somewhere. That stimulus could not be public opinion.

In the aftermath of the treacherous Valentine’s Day bombing run by jihadists, public opinion appears to have solidified behind the intensive military offensive against remnants of the Abu Sayyaf and a renegade faction of the MNLF. Leaders of Islamic communities in the metropolitan area have come out to express support for the relentless police crackdown on the terrorist cells.

We have heard very little from the usual peaceniks – including those who sometimes sound like they want peace on any terms, including allowing obvious terrorist bands nestle in safe encampments.

The religious leaders have kept their peace regarding the offensive in Sulu. It is, after all, an offensive initiated only after the renegades attacked military camps without warning and without provocation.

It seems to me the only ones interested in pushing for a ceasefire are the local elites in Sulu. They were the ones who, early in the offensive, came out to call for a halt in hostilities. They were the same ones who issued that premature announcement that a ceasefire has been agreed upon.

Local political alliances in the troubled Philippine south are usually quirky. Local political power draws from both overt and covert alliances – including unspoken alliances with those who stand outside the fold of law as it is understood in the metropolitan center of power.

There are, after all, many ties of tribal allegiances, kinship and a vast array of partnerships that permeate relations between those who hold mainstream posts of power and those whose influence holds sway by the barrel of the gun.

So it is that troubled as the status quo in the south might be, the local elites prefer it to a more settled, more defined option. The present military offensive, pursued with a strong will to demolish the remnant bands of troublemakers, threatens the troubled status quo in which local power wielders actually thrive.

The communal conflict in the Philippine south has been going for so long it has become the "normal" condition of social life. The determined military offensive in Sulu threatens to perturb that "normal" condition.

The wild tapestry of armed gangs, tribal aristocracies and broad political movements constitute the arena within which local power has been contested and consolidated for two generations now. That arena has defined the standard logic for the acquisition and retention of power at the local level.

That could be the only explanation for the variance in the perspectives of those at the metropolis and those at the trouble periphery.

Here in the national capital, the view is pretty straightforward. That grayish situation in the south that allowed bandit groups to persist and assorted rebel actions to, from time to time, explode in a carnival of violence must come to an end. The army must tame the situation to spare all of us from becoming victims to terrorist acts or suffering the adverse economic fallout from high-visibility kidnappings and other forms of random violence.

The view from the locality is, to be sure, dramatically different.

There is an accepted modus vivendi that must be restored after every episode of trouble. When guns begin firing, it is not intended to resolve the grayness of the situation. It is merely to improve positions and gain marginal advantages within the status quo ante.

And so it is that after every outbreak of fighting, everybody seems primed to rush in, pull the combatants apart and establish some sort of "ceasefire". That "ceasefire" redefines political positions in the most minute ways, almost unnoticeable to outsiders. It institutionalizes marginal gains, microscopic changes in the political configuration.

The national leadership must now mediate between the cosmopolitan view of the military leadership that wants to establish order in the area and the quaint view of the local elites who seem to be trying very hard for the status quo not to be unduly disturbed. These are two views – and two rules – of the game.

In the cosmopolitan view, there is no reason to the continuing police action against the troublemakers to be aborted. The slate must be wiped clean. All possible factors that might cause a repeat of the attacks on military camps last month and the sort of terrorist attacks we saw in Makati on Valentine’s Day must be eradicated.

That cosmopolitan view, pursued with vigor, could actually – and unintentionally – undermine the political stability of the local elites who have, from time to time, made themselves useful to the national elites for various purposes. Undermining the sustainability in power of the local elites could, in the end, be a destabilizing dynamic as well, further compounding the already problematic situation on the ground.

This is a complex tangle. Some might be disinclined to solve this tangle by cutting the knot with a strong blow of the sword.

Ay, there’s the rub.