MNLF, MILF harboring terrorists?

President Du30 was reported to have “pleaded with” (read: begged) the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) not to provide safe haven for “ISIS-contaminated” Moro terrorists (“Duterte asks MNLF, MILF: Don’t give sanctuary to terrorists,” News,  1/27/17).

That is, by far, the clearest admission by government of what everyone else has been suspecting all along: Those bandits could not have gotten strong and bolder if not for the fact that the MNLF and the MILF have been keeping them under their wings.

What took Du30 too long to realize that? Observers have been suggesting all these years that, as nonnegotiable proof of their sincerity in the ongoing peace process and since they are in the best position to know exactly where the terrorists are, the MNLF and the MILF should be at the forefront of efforts to capture them.

Alas, that is all wistful thinking.  How could the MNLF and the MILF members rat on their own blood relatives? The Mamasapano fiasco made the handwriting on the wall just bigger: Terrorists and several members of the MILF (and more likely than not, also of the MNLF) are interchangeable personas.

DINO M. CAPISTRANO, [email protected]