Bangsamoro Basic Law, a booby trap

By Alfredo C. Garvida Jr.

Contributor

This contributor agrees with the assertion of the MILF that they are affected too by the bloody, treacherous ambuscade their men and their allies, identified as BIFF and members of the murderous Ampatuan clan's private armies, have inflicted on the PNP Special Action Force (SAF). They are affected indeed! But not emotionally, as the rest of the Filipinos are, for this tragic episode of the government's chronic goal to impose peace in Mindanao has now threatened to wipe out any chance of having the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) approved by congress. 

The MILF and some politician armchair directors of field combats, the likes of Rodrigo Duterte, are blaming the brutal slaying of the 44 SAF members on non-coordination by the police operatives with the MILF when they tried to arrest two well known international terrorists who were well entrenched inside the MILF's de facto territory. And people are being swayed into believing that indeed the non-coordination was the culprit.

Weighing the facts in a passionless stance, one will find in the end that Duterte and his MILF friends were incorrect in their non-coordination blame on the fallen 44's massacre with one simple question: What were those two terrorists doing in the MILF camp? They were being cuddled, protected like babies inside the rebel "territory" while the international community was earnestly trying to bring them to justice for the senseless deaths of countless innocent people here and abroad. And we want to coordinate with people who have given them protection and sanctuary? 

You coordinate with another party when you trust that party. Obviously, and rightly so, the government did not trust the MILF that they would surrender the two terrorists upon demand. For if the MILF were worth of any trust from the government, these secessionists would have arrested or at least effected the arrest of the two terrorists even without demand from the government.

The massacre of the 44 SAF troopers clearly defines the degree of sincerity the MILF has on the peace process. Some people, including certain gov’t spokesmen have characterized the carnage as the result of “misencounter” between this PNP special unit and the MILF. We would say this is a blatant misdirection to the truth, lest the firefight would have not lasted all day; lest the massacred troopers would have not been mutilated, robbed and shot overwhelmingly at close range even when they were already dead or near death. The perpetrators did not possess any shred of dignity of a warrior for cause, as what the MILF vainly attempts to characterize their marauding warriors to be. They were simply the bandits that the civilized Filipinos have known them to be. 

What is so painful and disheartening to know was the refusal of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to go to the rescue of the beleaguered policemen because as its Chief of Staff, Gen. Catapang, has said, they were bound by the peace process agreement. What a tragic manifestation to hear from the highest officer of the Philippine Armed Forces, given the constitutional provision that the AFP is mandated to be the protector of the people; and the people they were supposed to protect were no ordinary “protectees” but were government agents who were trying to enforce the law of the land. 

Sen. Alan Cayetano was right in asserting that the lives of the 44 fallen policemen were sacrificed in the name of the peace process. Catapang's defense on his failure to aid or reinforce the SAF smacks of failure of character in leadership at his end requiring thus the need for his immediate relief from the highest position of the AFP's hierarchy. For leadership, as Gen Norman Schwarzkoff has maintained, "[I]s a potent combination of strategy and character, but if you have to be without one, be without the strategy."

People have been blaming non-coordination by the police with the MILF and the military as the culprit in this senseless bloodshed. This is a bull full of crap--with my sincerest apology for the brutality of this frankness! What was the need to coordinate with the AFP when every time the police did that the mission to get Marwan, the internationally wanted terrorist in whose bloody hands hundreds of innocent lives were lost, would fail? And there was no need to coordinate with the MILF either for the mere fact that Marwan was well entrenched inside their territory speaks well of these pseudo rebels' sincerity to peace. The police were right to go on their own although the planning and execution were suspect. But this was no excuse for Catapang and the AFP to foreclose any rescue operation on the SAF commandos at the time they needed help. 

President Aquino, whose fingerprints are visible all over this whole mess, still wants the peace process to proceed. We agree; it must proceed! But not this time yet, Mr. President, and not with these people anyway whose reverence to truth and degree of sincerity to peace are way off the mark of our government's objectives in Mindanao. The Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) must be scrapped altogether and we must start on a peace process that is responsive to real peace and security for the Filipino people. To give the MILF a wide latitude of autonomy would be akin to planting a time bomb right in the heart of Metro Manila. If Marwan and his terrorist pal, Usman, were given sanctuary by the MILF for the past 12 years, training hundreds of terrorists and bomb makers while these pseudo rebels were yet un-autonomous, what peril will we be facing when they will finally get that autonomy the BBL badly covets in their behalf? How many Marwans and Usmans will live with them; and how will our government contain their movements, their assimilation with the rest of society. How will we stop these new Marwans from traveling to Manila or anywhere else in the country to plant bombs without identifying their movements right inside the separatists' territory, a prerogative that will be fully absolute for the MILF but not for our government under the Bangsamoro Basic Law? Trust is the key to peace, sadly, the MILF is unworthy of it.  

Mindanao needs a massive socio-economic development to overcome poverty and religious and cultural subjugation in its Muslim-dominated parts. Political autonomy is not the answer to peace; neither appeasement to warrior clans or groups will do. Improve their economy and social existence, like increasing their employment potential and affording them better education and health care, and we will find the inhabitants, from where the warriors come, appeased. And the ambitious, covetous Moro-Islamic leaders will have no men to wage atrocity upon our people.