Mindanao wars: who fights for what?

Sometime this week I overheard over ANC a Marine Corps spokesperson try to wax poetic and said, “You (the people) may be paying for our salaries with your taxes, but we Marines pay it back with our blood” or something to that effect.

            That is true in many respects.  Yet before we hasten to liken this frustrated Robert Frost with other extremely quotable warlords such as Douglas McArthur of the “I shall return” fame or Jacob H Smith of “The more you kill and burn, the more you please me” notoriety, let me try to put some perspective to what he said.

·        The Bangsa-Moro suffered massacres, deprivations, discriminations, abuse, neglect, and all sorts of high crimes against all Manila governments for centuries—from the Spaniards, British, Americans, Japanese and Filipino neocolonial governments.  Self-respecting peoples would keep the fire of resistance and sense of nationhood if made to suffer the same fate;

·        There was a ceasefire agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which controls territories in Moroland.  Whether one agrees that a belligerent force controls areas known to be inside Philippine boundaries or not is beside the point—because there is a different government aside from the GRP existing and operating in these areas. That is a fact, else the GRP wouldn’t bother sitting across the peace table with the belligerents nor allow the Malaysian government to broker the process if they do not recognize this;

·        Part of that agreement is that the GRP should notify the MILF before their forces are to pass through said territories;

·        Under the pretext of running after alleged Abu Sayyaf bandits suspected of kidnapping Italian Catholic Priest Giancarlo Bossi last moth, GRP forces trespassed on MILF territory without heeding the “notice” clause of said agreement.  That was when the encounter happened where 10 Marines were ambushed.  Six of the dead were later grotesquely hacked even when already dead;

·        Bloodlust revenge for the humiliation drove Malacañang and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to unsheath their swords and send more Army and Marine battalions to that unfortunate part of the country.  The result, as every interested person knows, is dozens more deaths on the part of the AFP while not knowing how many rebel casualties there were in return.  What I am sure though is that the soldiers are so desperate for revenge they shoot at just about anything that moves—even children and unarmed civilians (This my source from a military hospital told me.);

·        While all these were happening, a wire photographer snapped a picture of United States Armed Forces personnel imbedded among the Filipino soldiers on their way to the battles.  (The same source said that his patients in a military hospital told him the Americans gave them war materiel and command directives, which did not work and are not working against the rebels.);

·        Those provinces are mineral and oil rich and foreign countries are tripping all over themselves to get to them.  We do not have to guess which is the most rapacious foreign country there is; and

·        The MILF is open to talks; the GRP said no.

Don’t get me wrong.  I do believe that violent deaths are such a waste.  The tragedy of it all is sufficiently driven into everybody nowadays as the networks and papers are outdoing each other in showing how the dead soldiers are breadwinners of their respective families or avid texters of endearments to their sweethearts.

Truth to tell, though, I am not entirely sure the soldiers and their young officers in the first encounter were sent after the Abu Sayyaf.  When Bossi was released, he revealed he was kept on mainland Mindanao throughout his captivity and not in the Jolo archipelago where the fighting is now. I hope I am not oversimplifying when I write this, but here goes: there are four groups of armed groups in that area now.  One is an armed bandit group which was put up by veterans of the Afghanistan War of Liberation and were originally trained and equipped by the US Armed Forces.  Another is a revolutionary force who are peoples of Moroland and are fighting in and for their ancestral domains.  Still another is a national armed force which is being equipped, trained and directed by a foreign armed force.  The last is of course the foreign armed force who has no business being in the middle of all these but is there nonetheless.

Yes, Marine, the deaths of your fellow soldiers are tragic and sad.  But more tragic because…