Usually these weekly martial law updates write themselves. The headlines blare through the week about so many of this and that group killed or groups clamouring for passage of the BBL or assistance given and sought by the AFP. But this week has been relatively all quiet on the Mindanao front. Certainly there is much more happening behind the scenes than the newspapers indicate. Abu Sayyaf, BIFF, Maute, stories of mass recruitment would have one to believe they are likely deep in the jungle training day and night for the next major battle. The AFP is surely doing its own training and prepping for the battle of X City.
The AFP also has its hands busy with surrendering and captured rebels.
The PNP also has its hands full of capture criminals in Mindanao.
Of the 218 persons arrested, 58 were listed as most wanted. At least 160 of the arrested suspects faced less serious offenses.
Those on the most wanted list had been charged with murder, drug offenses, robbery, homicide and qualified theft.
Data from the regional police office showed that the most arrests were made by the South Cotabato provincial police which took in 17 of the wanted persons. Police in Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato arrested 10.
While not directly related to martial law and antiterrorism operations the PNP's work in capturing all these criminals goes a long way in aiding that fight. Cotabato is a dangerous area full of Islamic terrorists, drug dealers, and no-good riff-raff in general and all these arrests only prove that fact.
The PNP also lost 6 members of the SAF from an NPA ambush in Antipolo.
Ambushing the PNP rather than fighting face to face is the modus operandi of the NPA. Will there be any retaliation on the government's part?
Shooting them in the head would be much more effective than shooting them anywhere else except maybe the stomach. This statement set off a firestorm of controversy but all these ladies missed the point by making it about all women and not only the NPA terrorists. How would anyone be able to tell who is female if they are all in combat gear? Duterte would probably be fine if they shot the men in their genitals too. It is strange that he would be so specific about where to shoot the female rebels when he fumed over the NPA cutting off the genitals of one of their captives even likening them to ISIS.
"They beheaded Bocales who already surrendered. He went to the fields from his home to look for something to eat. So what's the—what makes them different from the ISIS and kidnappers? That's their kind of justice," Duterte said in Visayan.
"When did the government and the soldiers cut off your hands and your penis?" he added.
If the AFP starts shooting them in the vagina does that mean they will now be like ISIS? Duterte has also double down on his bounty for dead communists.
The President's offer was raised from the previous P20,000 he dangled to the indigenous people for each communist guerilla they kill.
"They (communists) said, 'Kill one soldier a day.' Me? Kill one NPA today and I will pay you P25,000," Duterte said during his meeting with local chief executives from the Visayas and Mindanao held at Raddison Blu Hotel in Cebu City.
Where will this money come from? Does this now mean any commie killed in normal combat operations will be worth 25,000 pesos? If they can't determine who's bullet killed the rebel what then? There are two interpretations of this proposal.
The first is that it encourages war crimes.
The second is that it decreases war costs.
"I was computing that if this drags on for four years, ... it'll be very expensive because it's war. If I'll just pay 25,000 for a life, I can save about 47 percent," he said to laughter from the crowd.
I propose a third interpretation. Duterte is turning the communist's philosophy back on them and mocking them. From the Communist Manifesto:
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with
reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science,
into its paid wage labourers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family
relation to a mere money relation.
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the
proletariat, the modern working class, developed – a class of labourers, who live only so long as
they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers,
who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and
are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the
market.
The communists decry the commodification of labourers and the transformation of the family relation into a "mere money relation." By offering a bounty on the head of each communist rebel Duterte turns these rebels into commodities to be consumed by the bounty hunter. The rebel becomes identified with the bounty thus stripping him of his humanity and reducing his relation to others "to a mere money relation" so that when confronted by a fellow man he is seen not as a person but as a means of wealth.
Who else would think to mock the communists in such a brilliant way? Duterte is a genius!
For all his violent rhetoric Duterte is still, at heart, a man of peace.
“The President stressed that the Philippines is committed to peace,” Roque said in a statement.
But in a separate interview with reporters, Roque said the peace talks with the communist insurgents were not about to resume anytime soon, and the war against the NPA would continue.
Duterte is committed to peace and by now he knows, and even before he engaged in these worthless talks he knew, the only path to peace is total destruction of the NPA. After all the group's stated goal is the overthrow of the government.
How is it Mao Zedong overthrew the Chinese nationalist government and set up the People's Republic of China in only 3 years (1946-1949) and yet the CPP and NPA have failed after 30+ years of armed conflict to establish a communist or socialist state? Russia, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam all these countries quickly fell to the communist menace but in the Philippines it's been like a slow growing cancer with no success on either the government's side to stop it or the communist's side to overthrow the government. The communist rebellion in the Philippines is a total failure and yet these people cannot let it go. How much longer can this rebellion possibly last? A communist rebellion is so 20th century.
You know this would also fit good in your "Retard in Government" series as well.
ReplyDelete"Shoot female rebels in the vagina" says Duterte. Maybe just another way of saying feel free to rape?
That remark was included in last week's edition. I have no idea what he is trying to say and I don't think he does either. Why single out the women for shooting in the crotch? Very sexist.
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