Right and wrong
Right and wrong
Posted 10:29pm (Mla time) Feb 20, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 21, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I ASKED my sources last week about the St. Valentine's Day massacre. I couldn't understand how the Abu Sayyaf, which was reported to have claimed the deed, could have done it. Last we heard, they had pretty much been wiped off the face of the earth. They had lost their key people, they were on the run. How they could plant bombs in key cities and set them off simultaneously seemed to strain credulity.
On the other hand, if it had been the Moro National Liberation Front, or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, why would they want to do it? Renewed hostilities with the government would merely fall in with the US caricature of the Philippines as a terrorist flashpoint and the government's anti-terrorist rhetoric, which it periodically raises to strident levels every time it loses points with the public. And it has been losing big, with foreign investors fleeing, the Germans at the head of them, the country being downgraded by foreign creditors, and the public incensed over a proposed VAT increase.
The bombings looked like a "wag the dog" scenario, or government producing a crisis the exact same way Mother Lily produces movies. As it turned out, it wasn't so at all. This was what I gathered:
The bombings were truly the handiwork of the Muslim groups. What triggered it was a sortie by government troops at nighttime in Patikul, generally held as an MNLF "area of control." A heated exchange ensued between the duly-elected councilor and the leader of the troops. Fearing for their safety, the soldiers opened fire, killing the councilor, his wife, his two children, and his brother. The councilor happened to be an in-law of a high-ranking MNLF official. The entire Muslim community protested the incident, to no avail. The official military version was that the troops had encountered a renegade band.
Fuming over the atrocity, the MNLF and its allies retaliated by raiding a military camp. Fuming further over their unrest being depicted as caused by the fate of Nur Misuari rather than by the atrocities wrought upon them by government-the military apparently routinely shelled civilian areas with mortar fire-the groups decided to give government "a taste of its own medicine." They bombed three key cities to make the rest of the country experience what they were experiencing.
I don't know how much of this is true. But even if it were so, it does not justify anything. At the very least, if the Muslim groups felt aggrieved and scorned and wanted to bring the war to the capital, they could have attacked Camps Aguinaldo and Crame. Doubtless, government and the media could still depict that as an act of terrorism, but it would at least be understandable, if not defensible. Why in God's, or Allah's, name massacre the innocent? The boy who died in Davao and the folk who were charred beyond recognition in a bus in Ayala never did anybody any harm.
As 9/11 shows, if massacring the innocent does anything, it is not to make the public see the original provocation, it is only to make the public see the results of the retaliation. It is not to make the public feel sympathy for the perpetrators, it is to make the public feel hatred for them. It is not to prevent the people, or their own, from being harmed further, it is to assure they would be so. Terrorism is always counterproductive. All it does is to silence the groups calling for sanity and give credence to those calling for unleashing the dogs of war.
But none of this as well justifies a knee-jerk anti-Muslim, or anti-Moro, campaign, couched in the language of anti-terrorism. None of this justifies escalating the conflict by painting the country as drowning in flames. Muslim Mindanao has been like this for decades-Elmer Jacinto, who topped the medical board exam, spoke of gunfire being background noise while their teacher taught in their high school in Basilan-and nobody has thought to say this. Escalating the conflict can only bode for more atrocity, the very thing that sparked the bombings to begin with.
I caught Gen. Edgar Aglipay and several top PNP officials being interviewed on TV, and they were saying the bombings ushered in a new phase of terrorism that would see violence spreading throughout the country. Yet government officials, who endorse this depiction, are first to bristle whenever the United States and other countries issue advisories against their nationals visiting this country. We suggest we are the next Belfast, Beirut, or Baghdad, and we fume that potential visitors refuse to buy the DOT ads proclaiming us to be the next paradise? It is not too late for talks to stop the madness.
Certainly, none of this justifies giving GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) emergency powers to deal with terrorism. She is the scariest person to give added powers to. That is by no means hypothetical, as the months immediately following 9/11 showed. She made us look at the world through the eyes of the National Security Council.
I'm glad that Joker Arroyo, like Nene Pimentel, has not lost his libertarian instincts, and has spoken out against the proposal to allow wiretapping, warrantless arrests, and the other things dear to Ping Lacson's and Alfredo Lim's heart. By themselves, these powers are dangerous, as those who experienced 9/11 themselves have learned over the last three years: The Homeland Security Act does not stop terror, it institutionalizes it. You put those powers in the hands of someone who, as Jovito Salonga says, has shown she would stop at nothing to remain in power, heaven help us. Those will not be used to fight terrorists, they will be used to fight critics. To this day Horacio "Boy" Morales continues to be tagged as a "destabilizer."
You do not compound a wrong by another wrong. The MNLF should have seen that. Let's make sure we do.
Posted 10:29pm (Mla time) Feb 20, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 21, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I ASKED my sources last week about the St. Valentine's Day massacre. I couldn't understand how the Abu Sayyaf, which was reported to have claimed the deed, could have done it. Last we heard, they had pretty much been wiped off the face of the earth. They had lost their key people, they were on the run. How they could plant bombs in key cities and set them off simultaneously seemed to strain credulity.
On the other hand, if it had been the Moro National Liberation Front, or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, why would they want to do it? Renewed hostilities with the government would merely fall in with the US caricature of the Philippines as a terrorist flashpoint and the government's anti-terrorist rhetoric, which it periodically raises to strident levels every time it loses points with the public. And it has been losing big, with foreign investors fleeing, the Germans at the head of them, the country being downgraded by foreign creditors, and the public incensed over a proposed VAT increase.
The bombings looked like a "wag the dog" scenario, or government producing a crisis the exact same way Mother Lily produces movies. As it turned out, it wasn't so at all. This was what I gathered:
The bombings were truly the handiwork of the Muslim groups. What triggered it was a sortie by government troops at nighttime in Patikul, generally held as an MNLF "area of control." A heated exchange ensued between the duly-elected councilor and the leader of the troops. Fearing for their safety, the soldiers opened fire, killing the councilor, his wife, his two children, and his brother. The councilor happened to be an in-law of a high-ranking MNLF official. The entire Muslim community protested the incident, to no avail. The official military version was that the troops had encountered a renegade band.
Fuming over the atrocity, the MNLF and its allies retaliated by raiding a military camp. Fuming further over their unrest being depicted as caused by the fate of Nur Misuari rather than by the atrocities wrought upon them by government-the military apparently routinely shelled civilian areas with mortar fire-the groups decided to give government "a taste of its own medicine." They bombed three key cities to make the rest of the country experience what they were experiencing.
I don't know how much of this is true. But even if it were so, it does not justify anything. At the very least, if the Muslim groups felt aggrieved and scorned and wanted to bring the war to the capital, they could have attacked Camps Aguinaldo and Crame. Doubtless, government and the media could still depict that as an act of terrorism, but it would at least be understandable, if not defensible. Why in God's, or Allah's, name massacre the innocent? The boy who died in Davao and the folk who were charred beyond recognition in a bus in Ayala never did anybody any harm.
As 9/11 shows, if massacring the innocent does anything, it is not to make the public see the original provocation, it is only to make the public see the results of the retaliation. It is not to make the public feel sympathy for the perpetrators, it is to make the public feel hatred for them. It is not to prevent the people, or their own, from being harmed further, it is to assure they would be so. Terrorism is always counterproductive. All it does is to silence the groups calling for sanity and give credence to those calling for unleashing the dogs of war.
But none of this as well justifies a knee-jerk anti-Muslim, or anti-Moro, campaign, couched in the language of anti-terrorism. None of this justifies escalating the conflict by painting the country as drowning in flames. Muslim Mindanao has been like this for decades-Elmer Jacinto, who topped the medical board exam, spoke of gunfire being background noise while their teacher taught in their high school in Basilan-and nobody has thought to say this. Escalating the conflict can only bode for more atrocity, the very thing that sparked the bombings to begin with.
I caught Gen. Edgar Aglipay and several top PNP officials being interviewed on TV, and they were saying the bombings ushered in a new phase of terrorism that would see violence spreading throughout the country. Yet government officials, who endorse this depiction, are first to bristle whenever the United States and other countries issue advisories against their nationals visiting this country. We suggest we are the next Belfast, Beirut, or Baghdad, and we fume that potential visitors refuse to buy the DOT ads proclaiming us to be the next paradise? It is not too late for talks to stop the madness.
Certainly, none of this justifies giving GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) emergency powers to deal with terrorism. She is the scariest person to give added powers to. That is by no means hypothetical, as the months immediately following 9/11 showed. She made us look at the world through the eyes of the National Security Council.
I'm glad that Joker Arroyo, like Nene Pimentel, has not lost his libertarian instincts, and has spoken out against the proposal to allow wiretapping, warrantless arrests, and the other things dear to Ping Lacson's and Alfredo Lim's heart. By themselves, these powers are dangerous, as those who experienced 9/11 themselves have learned over the last three years: The Homeland Security Act does not stop terror, it institutionalizes it. You put those powers in the hands of someone who, as Jovito Salonga says, has shown she would stop at nothing to remain in power, heaven help us. Those will not be used to fight terrorists, they will be used to fight critics. To this day Horacio "Boy" Morales continues to be tagged as a "destabilizer."
You do not compound a wrong by another wrong. The MNLF should have seen that. Let's make sure we do.
posted by Dante at 4:09 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home