The conflict in Mindanao which has been raging for 50 years is a history of tragic ironies and outright failures which have only served to prolong the rebellion and terrorism. From Estrada's all out war against the MILF in 2000 which did not end that group but only
strengthened it to the mayor of Davao telling businesses to
pay NPA extortion fees and making friends with the communist rebels only to reverse course upon being elected to the presidency the conflict in Mindanao is full to the brim with so much folly it is no wonder the region remains a hot bed of violence both political and personal. That tradition of tragic irony was in full view this week when the plebiscite for the BOL was finally held.
On the one hand the Muslims, especially the MILF, are elated that the provision was ratified.
Many Moros have pinned their hopes for peace in Mindanao on the BOL. Clashes between the MILF and government troops have claimed 120,000 lives. With its passage, the MILF will now have to fulfill its promise of decommissioning their 30,000 soldiers and firearms.
Many but not all have placed their hope in this new law. The mayor of Cotabato is not very pleased that her city voted yes. She is even demanding a recount and the charges the mayor of Cotabato is making are nothing short of what is to be expected from a terrorist group seeking to seize power in the region.
Sayadi said holding another plebiscite under heavy government security would erase doubts about the credibility of the vote.
Cotabato City is not part of the ARMM, having voted twice to reject Muslim autonomy.
Sayadi had campaigned against the BOL to keep Cotabato City out of the BARMM, but the final unofficial results of Monday’s vote showed the residents chose autonomy this time.
But the mayor rejected the results, reiterating her earlier claims that the plebiscite was marred by violence, threats, intimidation, the presence of flying voters, vote-buying and the presence of unarmed MILF fighters in all polling centers.
She said the MILF presence “scared off” voters, resulting in a low turnout.
Sayadi told reporters that she had been complaining about threats and other possible abuses by the MILF long before the actual plebiscite.
She said the vote-buying started even before the plebiscite and became rampant on the day of voting.
Sayadi said she had evidence and witnesses to support her claim. “It happened last Monday, it will happen again in the future,” she said.
Iqbal denied the allegations. “We have no capacity or funds to buy votes. There was no intimidation or harassment,” he said in a radio interview on Thursday.
Sayadi questioned the decision of the military and the police to allow MILF fighters to enter the city and be deployed to voting centers on plebiscite day.
The MILF earlier said it had fielded 6,000 unarmed fighters to help ensure peace during the exercise.
Sayadi said 72 school teachers withdrew from poll duty after receiving threats from BOL supporters on their cell phones.
She insisted that the results of the plebiscite did not reflect the “true will of the people.” If necessary, she said, she would contest the results in the Supreme Court.
But of course MILF does not want that to happen. Move on they say.
The MILF, the largest Moro separatist group in the country, secured a "yes" vote from majority of the residents of Cotabato City, dubbed as the "crown jewel" of the new self-governing region.
But Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, who campaigned against the city’s inclusion, said she will file a protest, citing "massive disenfranchisement" of voters because of violence and threats coming from MILF supporters.
"I respect that. The city mayor can do that because that is her democratic right, but the people have already spoken and I think we should respect this," Mohagher Iqbal, Chairman of the MILF implementing panel said.
"It’s now time for everybody, the yes and the no votes, to converse together and to move forward as one body," he told ANC's Early Edition.
The people also spoke in 2016 and elected Leni Robredo as VP but that hasn't stopped her rival from seeking to overturn those results and that whole debacle has cast the entire national election system into doubt. If the people of Cotabato have spoken under duress at gunpoint then that voice is not valid. Why would the people of Cotabato twice reject the ARMM and yet now embrace the BARMM? And why should anyone believe a terrorist group when they say they did not engage in vote buying or intimidation when that is the modus operandi in Mindanao and the whole nation!? There is too much at stake to simply rely on the "will of the people" without attempting to mould that will.
Now that the BOL has passed it's time for MILF to get down to brass tacks. Time for them to put up or shut up and show that the BARMM will bring the golden age of peace and prosperity to Mindanao. Easier said than done!
Al-Hajj Murad Ebrahim, leader of the MILF, was already in the underground movement at the onset of that revolution.
“The struggle of the Bangsamoro, basically, is a political struggle for our rights for self-determination. Even before the colonial period ay nakipaglaban na kami sa colonizers. We wanted to sustain our independence as a nation. But unfortunately, we didn’t succeed,” he told ABS-CBN News in an interview at the MILF stronghold, Camp Darapanan, a day after the January 21 plebiscite.
That struggle, Murad explained, began ages ago with the inclusion of their land under the Philippine Republic without the consent of the Bangsamoro people. Although the Moros embrace their Filipino identity today, the dream of governing their own land according to their own set of customs, systems, and beliefs, had remained unfulfilled, Murad added.
The autonomous Bangsamoro government will be parliamentary-democratic, similar to the United Kingdom, and based on a political party system. It will put the MILF leaders on the same policy-making field with the powerful political clans in Muslim Mindanao.
An analyst said the setup could be challenging.
“A genuine political party system means the clan will not vanish. You will put clans in a situation where there are new rules of the game, which are more democratic, equitable, fair play, and no violence,” political analyst Ramon Casiple said, adding that this is an opportunity for the Bangsamoro to establish a political party system that may even be better than what is being practiced in Philippine Congress.
Murad acknowledged that dealing with influential political families, which usually have private armed groups, in a parliament would be difficult, but he is optimistic that the political party system of the Bangsamoro government will focus less on individual politics and diminish somehow the power of local clans.
“It’s a fight between political parties, not individual parties. We reduced this to party politics. In individual politics, only the popular personalities win. That is the reason why we have actors turned politicians, and the reason why only the rich people are able to win elections. But this one is political party politics. The strongest political party will dominate,” Murad said.
“The corruption rate in our place is very high. The amount of appropriated budget will have no bearing if we will not be able to counter corruption. Everything will just lead to nowhere. That is the first struggle that we need to solve,” Murad said, adding that one of the root causes of corruption in the ARMM is its weak auditing system.
He said one of the “weapons” against corruption placed in the organic law is the “double auditing” system, wherein the region’s funds will go through both the national and Bangsamoro government’s auditing offices.
Murad earlier told foreign reporters in a press conference that self-rule will be difficult, because “maybe our enemy will be ourselves.”
“The people will not let go of their firearms. They see the need to hold guns for survival. That’s why the joke here is, it is better to separate with your wife rather than your firearms. It means the people are very concerned. If there is an effective security structure, it will be OK. To be frank, people right now do not fully trust the PNP and AFP yet . . . This is a very long struggle,” he said.
Maybe they can do it maybe they can't. Never say never. The MNLF, BIFF, and Abu Sayyaf don't want anything to do with the BARMM. Who can blame them? They are also Muslim terrorist groups fighting for self-determination just like the MILF and now they are left out in the cold. Only a few days after the ratification of the BOL the nation received a taste of the peace to come.
Let the good times roll!
So on the one hand you have the joyfulness of the MILF at the passing of the BOL and on the other hand you have the families of the SAF 44, who were executed by MILF terrorists, still pining for justice four years on while those who butchered their loved ones are ascending to power.
Justice remains elusive for the 44 police commandos killed by Muslim rebels after hours of holding their ground in a cornfield in the remote town of Mamasapano, Maguindanao exactly four years ago yesterday.
This was according to the families and loved ones of the fallen policemen who lamented that none among those responsible for their death had been punished.
The 44 Special Action Force commandos were killed in a gun battle with militants – mostly members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) – as they were leaving the site of the raid in Mamasapano after killing Malaysian bomb-maker Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan, whose Filipino cohort Basit Usman was killed in another operation months later.
Days after what later came to be known as “Mamasapano Massacre,” the Department of Justice filed murder charges against more than 80 commanders and fighters of the MILF.
In 2017, the Office of the Ombudsman filed with the Sandiganbayan one count each of graft and usurpation of official functions against Aquino in connection with the tragic outcome of the raid, originally an operation to capture or neutralize Marwan.
The ombudsman held Aquino liable for reportedly allowing then suspended PNP chief Alan Purisima to supervise the operation, called Oplan Exodus.
But the former chief executive blamed the heavy loss of police lives on then SAF chief Getulio Napeñas, specifically for his failure to get reinforcement from the military. Purisima and Napeñas are also facing charges with the Sandiganbayan.
The justice these families crave is seeing former president Aquino or somebody, anybody, tossed in jail. Mostly Aquino. They want to see him punished for authorising the raid as if he is criminally liable and intentionally sent these men to their deaths. The fact is these men were sent on a mission to kill a specific terrorist. They did so. Mission accomplished. But the MILF and BIFF were alerted to their presence and deliberately and viciously attacked them.
“It was Kato who gave the order to his men and members of the MILF involved in the massacre of SAF commandos to kill them all,” said a ranking military intelligence officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Leave no one alive and take all their firearms, ammunition and personal belongings,” the official quoted Kato as ordering his BIFF guerillas.
An Army colonel, who also asked not to be identified, confirmed the information and said some BIFF guerrillas shot dead wounded commandos who were still alive after the government troops withdrew from their encampment.
“[The BIFF] executed them,” the official said. “The barbarism of these men is beyond human nature.”
He said the rebels were “even dancing and firing their new loot in the air if not on the already mutilated bodies of the police commandos.”
“These BIFF and MILF fighters involved in the massacre are brothers, cousins and relatives. They live in one community harboring criminals and terrorists such as Marwan and Usman,” the official said.
While Aquino's case has been public and is ongoing it seems to be forgotten that charges were also brought against MILF and BIFF members.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has recommended filing of direct assault with murder charges against 88 suspects in the Mamasapano massacre.
The suspects are commanders and members of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), and private armed groups (PAGs).
State prosecutors said the suspects should be charged with murder since they conspired to kill the Special Action Force (SAF) troopers.
"It must be noted that respondents waited for each other before going to the firing line; that the respondents arrived at the same time at the firing line," the DOJ resolution read.
On January 25, 2015, 45 SAF members were deployed to serve arrest warrants against terror suspects Marwan and Basit Usman in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
They were then reportedly gunned down like "sitting ducks" by hundreds of MILF and BIFF fighters.
What has happened since the DOJ recommend charges be filed two and half years ago? Nothing. As far as I can tell nothing. No MILF or BIFF member has been arrested in connection with this massacre. But Aquino has been charged with graft and thank goodness a man like Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo has a loud enough voice that he can encourage the Ombudsman to hurry up and adjudicate this case.
"Even as we continue to pray for the eternal repose of the souls of these gallant heroes who were recipients posthumously of the PNP Medal of Valor and as we share in the grief of their bereaved families, we urge the Office of the Ombudsman to resolve with dispatch the case filed against those who recklessly placed them in mortal peril," presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement.
Does Panelo believe his own words? Does he really believe that the graft cases brought against Aquino in connection with this tragedy will bring justice to these grieving and angry families? Or does he wish to see Aquino fall? Why is both he and he nation silent or ignorant about the role of the MILF in this massacre? Why doesn't the PNP speak out for their fallen brethren?
Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Oscar Albayalde on Friday led top police officials in a wreath-laying ceremony at the memorial for the fallen 44 Special Action Force (SAF) troopers inside Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig on Friday.
It's absolutely disgusting how the government pretends to honour the fallen SAF 44 by declaring January 25th a day of remembrance and laying wreaths at their memorial and having a
memorial bike ride all the while giving full backing to a law which will not only empower the men who massacred those officers but will also
allow them to enter the ranks of the PNP. The ratification of the BOL during the same week as the anniversary of the Mamasapano massacre is nothing less then a spitting on the grave of these 44 men who were brutally murdered by terrorists. With the MILF in power these families can continue to expect no justice.
