When a handful of armed Muslim separatists belonging to the Moro National Liberation Front entered Zamboanga City, the Aquino administration’s response was swift and decisive: Bomb the city and kill anyone who resists the government re-occupying force.
To this day, the once-bustling city has not really recovered from the disproportionately brutal zero-tolerance policy against the MNLF. Hundreds of residents still live in evacuation centers and many structures still bear the marks of the Manila government’s retaliatory strike against Nur Misuari and his men – whose biggest crime, by the way, was raising the rebel flag on territory that, by God, no rebel group should claim.
Contrast this hardline, scorched-earth strategy to the official response to the Maguindanao “mis-encounter,” as the government is still calling the massacre of 50 or so police commandos by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. There is no official condemnation, no quick, punitive counter-strike, not even a statement of protest.
We all know why. The Manila government is talking peace with the MILF —and it will seemingly allow any atrocity to happen and to go unpunished so as not to jeopardize the negotiations.
I understand President Noynoy Aquino’s predicament, of course. The pressure on him to carve up his own country to create a new Bangsamoro state is just too great for him to endanger his own continued stay in Malacañang.
The last President to go after the MILF was Joseph Estrada, who decided that he had enough of the secessionist group’s depredations. Estrada’s “total war” on the rebel group and his siege of MILF camps in Maguindanao may or may not have led to his ouster from the palace—but it certainly didn’t win him any friends in either Kuala Lumpur or Washington, the known backers of the group.
Going back to the present time, both Malaysia and the US are still very much in the mix. The Malaysians wanted a known terrorist, Marwan, captured or killed and the Americans had put up a $5 million reward for anyone who did just that.
The government in Manila deployed the police commando force to neutralize a terrorist in known MILF-controlled territory, so as not to involve the military, which could not be used to extract Marwan because of the peace negotiations. The MILF replied with an ambush, causing horrific casualties on the government side.
The government in Manila can’t even whimper in protest. And all it got from its benefactors was a helicopter body bag airlift, courtesy of the US military.
How can a government, which swore to defend its people, its territory and its national interest, sell out so badly as Aquino’s? How can Aquino brush aside the anger that is escalating against his government because of his coddling of the MILF?
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In case Aquino and his officials are not aware of it, the stakes here are way higher than those in any other controversy that’s been going on lately. We’re not here talking about his boorish behavior or his lying when Pope Francis visited, or even that pathetic attempt of his social welfare secretary to hide the poor while the pontiff was here.
The Maguindanao massacre strikes at the very heart of a nation weary of the Aquino administration’s policy of appeasement with the Moro rebels. It is an unequivocal challenge hurled at the Manila government, which is being dared to continue talking peace with rebels who will not hesitate to mercilessly butcher its men in uniform.
The killings have stoked the fears of the military that Aquino will stop at nothing to give the MILF and its foreign backers whatever they want, to buy a peace that is not even certain to come to pass. They encourage opportunistic forces who are close to concluding that the government can easily be forced to submission by an armed threat.
Aquino’s spokesmen have announced that the President will address the nation today, something he has done only twice in the past —when he came to the defense of his administration’s alleged bribing of Congress through the Priority Development Assistance Fund and the Disbursement Acceleration Program. This is a welcome development, because the people need to hear from him that the government is not helpless and hopelessly deaf to the cries for justice and retribution.
If Aquino is less than forthright, if he continues to mouth statements of appeasement and concession, the backlash could be quick and permanently damaging to his administration. If he cannot show the leadership and confidence that the times demand of him, he may as well retreat permanently into his cubbyhole, performing his version of “hiding under the bed,” like his mother was once accused of doing.
I sincerely hope that Aquino is up to the task. Otherwise, he may not last until the end of his term—and not because he displayed the bravery and resoluteness that Estrada did.
