In my youthful naivete, I used to dismiss as absurd the proposition: “Sometimes, in order to win peace, you must be prepared for war.” Mamasapano has brought home the soundness of what the Romans who knew of war and its horrors already taught: Si vis pacem, para bellum! Peace has its costs, but when everything is sacrificed at the altar of Peace, then servility often becomes the price of one’s idolatry. Something like that has befallen the Republic of the Philippines.
The Special Action Force, a component of the Philippine National Police, the repository of the power conferred by the Constitution to enforce the laws, had set out on a mission to capture “high-value targets”, terrorists of the most detestable category. While in lawful pursuit of the lawless, they were corralled by armed elements and cut down almost to the last man. Those who were on the ground and helpless but not mortally wounded were finished off by shots to the head, at close range by executioners who did us all the favor of recording on video their dastardly act!
So, what stands in the way of the prompt and relentless pursuit and apprehension of the perpetrators, their indictment and their trial? This is not the only question to which the same answer must be given. Why, the grieving widows and orphans cry in anguish as well as in righteous indignation, were no troops sent in to reinforce the beleaguered SAF men and to shield them from their attackers? The answer —the perfidious peace process by which we begged for peace from the MILF. Senate itself had to await the good pleasure of MILF’s Iqbal. He did not appear on the first and second day of Senate hearings. He put in on appearance when he wanted to, and on his terms. And the senators—who had earlier caused Junjun Binay to be dragged into the chamber of the Senate—bore with this insolence, and when at last Iqbal deigned to favor them with his preference, attempted to outdo each other in obsequiousness. Digusting! In one tweet, the inimitable Teddyboy Locsin remarked: “Deles and Ferrer are more muslim than the Muslims.” But of course, they are. I bet they would have been willing to give Iqbal a foot spa had he demanded it! For the record, Sen. Grace Poe has been a statesman in the best traditions of statesmanship. So have some other senators who held no punches, nor mince their words. Cayetano’s “Did you not even know that you were not supposed to negotiate with terrorists” is classic, and so was the bewilderment and utter cluelessness on the faces of Delles and Ferrer when they were this dressed down! Senator Bongbong too proclaimed the demise of BBL, and for that welcome obituary, he wins my admiration!
What kind of a settlement is it that demands of a sovereign State that it restrain its troops and its police from entering into areas that one armed segment of Philippine society has cordoned off for itself? What else do effective control, government and sovereignty—the very hallmarks of statehood—mean when we have decided to surrender our principles for the sake of respite from the attacks of those who take up arms against the Philippines? Not even when States negotiate do they ever yield their sovereignty. They enter into treaties, in the limpid terms of jus gentium as “principes superiores non recognoscentes”…princes and sovereigns recognizing no superiors. So why then did Delles and Ferrer, the excitable duo, assume such an abject position of debasement when they perfidiously sued for peace with the MILF? Left to me—which fortunately for the Republic was not the case—I would have dealt with them as insurgents, and quelled them with the resoluteness by which all insurgency must be quelled. I would them have proceeded to send Delles and Ferrer off to,the slammer clamped in irons for disloyalty to the Republic. We were supposed to have been agreeing on terms of settlement with a restive segment of this one Republic, not with another sovereign state.
Now, our legislators are threatened with the specter of renewed armed conflict in the South should the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law, the testament to our shameful capitulation, fail to muster the necessary votes to become law. Senatus populusque Romanus….SPQR, the standard to which the Roman legions rallied in war. That was the high regard with which they held their Senate. And now our Congress is threatened by the MILF: Pass BBL or else… and quite perfidiously, we have the Deles-Ferrer tandem issuing the same dire threats. This is when we must heed the wise words of the Romans who knew what it was to conquer and to rule: Si vis pacem, para bellum.