The Peace that Matters Most

Raymund De Silva
March 3, 2015

In the next few days, the Mamasapano bloody incident will celebrate its 40th day with heightened indignations and protests. The broad public outcries came from the north to the south of the country and from the ordinary folks to the alumni of the two professional military institutions – The Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA), where several of the Special Action Force (SAF) killed in the Mamasapano clash had graduated and from Philippine Military Academy (PMA). The intensifying anger and frustrations are directed to the leadership of the current Aquino administration – specially the President for not taking responsibility of the botched police operation and lying to the nation about what really happened in the planning and the execution of the OPLAN Exodus. The OPLAN  had been a continuing mission to arrest or neutralize a Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan and his Filipino assistant – Basit Usman with the decisive and direct participation of the United States (US) operatives and the suspended Director General of the Philippine National Police – General Allan Purisima – one of the closest friends of the President.

It has taken President “Noy” a longer time to immediately accept  the direct responsibility and what is obviously a calibrated lying on the bloody encounter on January 25, 2015 where 44 SAF/PNP had been murdered because of the following: his closest friend has been involved – while still serving his suspension period for corruption; the direct involvement of the US intelligence agency; and the about to be concluded peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). And this is not necessarily according to that order.

The first reason, the involvement of General Allan Purisima in the OPLAN Exodus while in suspension has violated the basic principle of the line of command/responsibility and Command responsibility. In the latest Senate hearing and investigation, General Purisima had accepted that he was the overall commander of the OPLAN Exodus after vehemently and stubbornly denying his involvement in the failed police operation. He was instrumental in the action of not informing the Acting Director General Espina and Mar Roxas of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). His suspended status and yet his being the overall commander of such very important mission had made things clearer on the confusion and eventual delayed reinforcement actions of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Western Mindanao Command and the 6th Infantry Division to the timely rescue of the 55th Company SAF and the 84th Company Airborne SAF. The lives of the 55th Company and the 84th Airborne SAF Company, including the 44 SAF who died were entirely in Purisima’s hands.

The second reason, the direct involvement of the US operatives including the use of unmanned drones in the OPLAN Exodus has been justified by the President’s men and women through the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), its (US) leading and controlling role in the planning, actual and post OPLAN’s operation had been so blatant an scandalizing for the Philippines’ PNP and AFP. It shows and ugly picture of the SAF 44 dying for the US bidding and interests in the global war against terrorism.

President Noy has been so obsessed about the last phase of the Peace Talks with the MILF that he does not want to be identified with the bloody Mamasapano encounter and has to tow the line of the MILF that what occurred in January 25, 2015 was a mis-encounter. He has maintained this position even while everybody believes that the 44 SAF were butchered by the MILF and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

Currently, another set of lies has been prepared by the President and his administration. They are spreading the story that it was Purisima – the President’s closest friend, who had lied to the President which resulted to his making untimely and inappropriate actions like direct ordering of reinforcement to the AFP which surely could have still save many of the SAF. The Aquino administration is trying its best to diffuse the anger and the continuous outpouring of sentiments by the relatives of the SAF and the people by pointing a finger to Purisima and sacrificing him inspite of his closeness to the President.

The Presidential ONESIDEDNESS and the INTERRELATEDNESS of the Peace Process and the Mamasapano bloody incident

They strongly believe that by the acceptance of the President of Purisima’s resignation as Director General of the PNP, people would be pacified and believe the stories of the President. Obviously, they (Aquino) again misread and underestimated the people because their anger and growing mistrust to the President have led them to put into question the worthiness and viability of the continuation of the peace talks of the government under Aquino with the MILF.

The Mamasapano bloody incident has opened up the core weakness of the current Presidency –  governance and leadership. When the US agents with Purisima and the leadership of the SAF planned to execute OPLAN Exodus, the President had approved its execution knowing fully well that it could complicate the continuation of the about to be concluded peace talks with the MILF. He could not refuse its implementation because he was just considering the positive side of this important mission and its glorious global impact on his presidency because an international terrorist like Marwan was neutralized under his administration. The President has already felt the success with the peace process because the International Community has been praising him for pursuing peace with the MILF.

Definitely, the President has refused to factor in that the OPLAN Exodus and the Peace Process could be interrelated because behind the peace process are people like Marwan hiding and waiting for an opportune moment while riding on the process and its aftermath to strike in the name of its belief.

The very unfortunate event in Mamasapano has opened up many realities which have  been bypassed in the name of fast tracking the consummation of the peace process. It has surfaced the many voices stifled and permanently silenced because they had tried to articulate the peace that matter most to the broadest section of peoples in Mindanao.

Obviously, the President is losing both his campaign against terrorism which could even lead on allowing himself to be used by the US security forces and continue to call on the service of his suspended friend bypassing the command hierarchy and the peace process with the MILF because he has been misled by his peace advisers who do not fully know the dynamics of Mindanao and its peoples.

International terrorists like Marwan can only effectively stay and hide in areas where people are living in extreme economic deprivation, social inequality and political isolation. There is always a friendly revolutionary organization who is willing to vouch or his (Marwan) reliability and security to the people. The Moro people who have suffered in economic and social miseries secured people like Marwan to staynd share with them the blatant neglect and deprivation in such depressed communities.

The Peace which Matters after the Elimination of National Oppression

The struggle for the Right to Self-Determination of the Bangsamoro currently led by the MILF should be geared towards the elimination of the national oppression brought about by the neo-liberal globalization as implemented by the current Aquino administration. Economic policies and progress are liberalized to open-up the country’s market to the global capital with the direct participation and benefit of the national and local economic elites (Filipino and Bangsamoro). Less and less participation is given to the elected political leaders including the Bangsamoro (existing ARMM) function because it is the unseen hands of people hidden behind the Multi-lateral financial institutions who have been dictating the policies and programs e.g. Structural Adjustment Program and embodied in the so-called Development Plans.

The elimination of the national oppression includes the untangling of these unseen hands and manifested in the national chauvinism of the majority nationality led by the current Aquino administration. The political objective of the struggle for the right to self-determination in the framework of one state/nation is genuine political autonomy. This objective can only be fully realized if done together with the struggle of democratic rights of the Bangsamoro and other democratic sectors of the oppressed peoples. In the case of the current MILF led struggle, it should be building of social and political infrastructures of the Bangsamoro democratic sectors.

The political and democratic struggle of the toiling masses of the Bangsamoro together with the other oppressed sectors of the IPs and the majority nationality is a sure way that the establishment of the Bangsamoro is not a mainstreaming by the national government of the Moro people as part of the modern day version of national integration

The establishment of the Bangsamoro government therefore is not only replacing the so called failed political experiment – the ARMM – but building and making alive the Bangsamoro nation with the active participation of the democratic forces and institutions of the Bangsamoro and other oppressed sectors of the peoples in the region.

The absence of a distinct Bangsamoro economy should be urgently addressed because it will be the country’s economic development program with the Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines – East Asia Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) as its (Mindanao) role to this regional economic integration will be used as development framework. The much projected Sadja Hatra Economic Development program of the Bangsamoro where the President himself attended in its launching had been silently replaced by the Bangsamoro Development Program supported by the multi-lateral financial institutions like World Bank.

Concretely, the socio-economic and political realities of the communities of the Bangsamoro should be effectively addressed by a revolutionary organization like the MILF which would want itself to be relevant and avoid another political failed experiment. The absence of the formal economic and financing system and institutions in many areas of the Bangsamoro communities should be effectively given attention so that regular functioning of economic system and formal financial infrastructures be established and strengthened.

The informal economic and financial system have been controlled by the rich but informal sectors in the communities. They do not pay taxes but effectively control the lives of the people in their areas.
The establishment of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) will not be enough unless its members and officials will have to work hard to correct the gaps and the non-presence of the elected political officials in their respective political domain and areas.

The MILF has to broaden its outlooks and concerns because when it takes over the ARMM with the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) and eventually with the establishment of the regular Bangsamoro government it will not only cater to the MILF’s rank and file but more so to the people who are not MILF and peoples who are not Bangsamoro.

Both tasks of building a formal and viable economic and financial system and establishing and strengthening infrastructures and dynamic and functional political machineries should be given urgent attention. Building the Bangsamoro is not only replacing the people who used to work in the ARMM, it is most of all building political infrastructure which are mainly and ultimately responsive to the democratic interests of the peoples.

The January 25, 2015 bloody encounter could have exposed the lack or absence of seriousness on the part Aquino administration to help address the socio-economic and political concerns of the Moro people. It has become clear that the political and economic infrastructures in the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) are made sure by the Congress to tailor fit in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. It will undergo a process of 2008 MOA-AD type of constitutional test and validity. The MILF will definitely contest the result on lesser moral ground.

The Mamasapano armed clash between the SAF/PNP and the MILF and BIFF had helped surfaced issues and concerns and the needed time to reexamine basic principles and given a priori in a peace process.

In the mutually agreed version of BBL as submitted to both houses of Congress the political and democratic principles and concerns of the Indigenous Peoples (IPs) have been intentionally neglected. The inherent rights of the IPs over their ancestral domain and the development of the Indigenous Political Structure in the core areas of the Bangsamoro have not been incorporated in the BBL amidst various advocacy struggles and democratic representations.

The existence of ceasefire agreement between the two parties (GPH and MILF) could have provided given opportunities for the MILF and the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) to consolidate its forces and build up its military hardwares. In some areas, expansion activities are observed with the local base commands of the BIAF which simply means that the MILF/BIAF is expanding the Bangsamoro territory beyond the ARMM agreed territory which could eventually be included in the expanded territory of the Bangsamoro.

But the most important is the revelation and public exposure of the basing of International terrorist like Marwan in the claimed MILF territories and shared with the BIFF. The benefits that terrorists like Marwan had enjoyed because of the peace process and the ceasefire has been affected by the same peace process and ceasefire agreement as it violates the standing agreement of allowing international terrorists to use identified and claimed territories as base of it terroristic operations. Marwan was pursued by SAF/PNP because of its criminal and terroristic activities in the middle of MILF claimed territory.

There could not be a violation of ceasefire agreement of the SAF/PNP if the MILF did not allow terrorists like Marwan to stay and had a base in the MILF claimed territory.

Another public revelation which came out into the surface was the undeniable relationship of the MILF and the BIFF. The Mamasapano bloody incident showed to one and all that the difference between the two (MILF and BIFF) is just in name and nothing else.

Meanwhile it is the people of Mindanao who are paying a high price of these political blunders of the GPH and the MILF. At least more than 54,000 peoples have been displaced in Maguindanao province because of the all-out war launched by the AFP against the BIFF and at least 35,000 people are displaced in the North Cotabato areas because of the so-called operations against the BIFF.