President Aquino is finding himself on the horns of a dilemma in acting on the case of the MILF members who have killed a total of 33 people, including six civilians, in the past week. If he declares an all-out war, he’ll be called a war freak. If he does not wage an all-out war he’ll be called a wimp.
The President has chosen not to be moved by emotion into waging an all-out war against the rampaging MILF members. But he said last Saturday that the state would “defend its citizens against all enemies in the territories under its control.” He, however, reiterated his position that no all-out war would be declared against the MILF, some of whose forces have owned up to the ambuscades that have exacted a heavy toll on government forces.
Many people, senators among them, have urged the government to wage an all-out war against the MILF, similar to that ordered by President Joseph Estrada in the year 2000 which culminated in the capture of the rebel group’s Camp Abubakar. The President has not been stampeded into an all-out war but has chosen what might be called a calibrated response.
There is a ceasefire between government forces and the MILF, but it has been honored more in the breach than the observance by some groups within the MILF. The trouble is that there has been no clear definition of terms. As Prof. Clarita Carlos, political scientist of the University of the Philippines and consultant in the peace talks, has said, the central concept of the Bangsamoro has not been clearly defined. Who is the government talking with? Is it with just one unified group or several Moro groups?
Another problem, Professor Carlos said, is that the local governments in the affected areas seem not to be involved in the peace process as well as the peace-keeping process. Why are they leaving everything to the army?
Yes, the government won the “all-out war” waged by President Estrada against the MILF in 2000, but did it also win the peace? Did it lead to a permanent solution to the so-called Mindanao problem?
In contrast, President Aquino has taken a “softer” approach to the problem. It is understandable why the President has chosen not to wage an all-out offensive. He does not want to endanger the peace process. Reviewing the experiences of the past 30-40 years, he knows that an all-out war would hit hardest the most vulnerable and weakest sectors of society in Mindanao—the non-combatants, the women, children and old people who are caught in the crossfire, who are displaced, dislocated, who will lose their means of livelihood and will be left hungry and sick once the conflict explodes into a conflagration. War would inflict tremendous losses in terms of lives and also mean the destruction of food resources, harvests and business and tourism opportunities.
Nobody wins a war; everybody loses. We saw that in the Mindanao conflict in the 1970s in which an estimated 120,000 were killed, more than one million were left homeless and more than 200,000 Muslim refugees were forced to flee to Sabah. The rich natural resources of Mindanao were left undeveloped.
The President might have taken the right path leading to peace, but his delayed response to the MILF raids and killings has strengthened the perception of a chief executive who is lackadaisical and slow in acting on life-and-death issues. This is a problem that involves the lives of hundreds, probably even thousands of people. It is a problem that calls for quick, immediate action. The President should have acted immediately and ordered hot pursuit operations against those who perpetrated the deadly ambuscades. These were criminal acts, and the MILF members who committed them should be treated like common criminals, pursued, captured and immediately brought to justice.
The government and MILF panels appear to be close to making progress in their peace talks. It would be a pity to waste the progress that has been attained. The alternative, an all-out war that would figuratively send most of Mindanao up in flames, is too horrible to imagine. We have seen what war has done to the region in the ’70s and ’80s, and again, in a limited way, during the term of President Estrada. What Mindanao needs now is peace, not war.