Firestorm in the middle of the peace process

The nation is in mourning and while waiting for President Benigno S. Aquino III to deliver a message in connection with Sunday’s slaughter of some 44 members of the elite Special Action Force by elements of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), I’m left wondering how he will confront the firestorm that is dangerously pushing the country over the precipice of war.

The scene of the bloodbath was Mamasapano in Maguindanao, considered a lair of the MILF.  The elite police force descended in the MILF territory to serve the warrant of arrest against Malaysian terrorist Zulkipli bin Hir alias Marwan and Filipino Basit Usman, both bomb experts linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror cell.  Intelligence reports have it that the JI terrorists were hiding in Mamasapano and coddled by MILF.  The intriguing part of the intel report has it that the MILF was cohabiting with the breakaway BIFF.

International groups and countries like the US, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore, Thailand and even the Philippines tag the Jemaah Islamiyah as the al-Qaeda cell in Southeast Asia.  The linkages with the JI and al-Qaeda show that Muslim rebels in Mindanao have long modified their struggle from political to religious, – a global jihad that is in line with Osama bin-Laden’s guiding principle against the United States and moderate Arab countries.

The SAF mission was fraught with danger but top authorities gave it the green light apparently because they expected the MILF would allow the police authorities to enter Mamasapano.  A cease-fire agreement is in place while the Bangsamoro Basic Law is being hammered by the government peace panel and the MILF.

Despite the savagery of Sunday’s massacre which claimed the lives of more than 60 (according to the head count of the MILF), the government is hellbent on delivering the Bangsamoro Basic Law but I doubt if the Muslim rebels are rejoicing over the supposed landmark measure because they expect that once President Aquino signs the BBL into a full and complete law, Mindanao politicians will raise the law’s legal infirmities before the Supreme Court.

That is exactly what happened in 2008 when then President Gloria Arroyo came up with the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain MOA-AD.  Even before the government peace panel and the MILF could initial the law in Malaysia, politicians and legal luminaries questioned the MOA-AD before the Supreme Court because of certain legal flaws.  The High Court didn’t delay in issuing an injunction order.

As a professional journalist for the past 40 years, I have observed that the Muslim rebel groups have never approached the negotiating table with limited demands.  From Nur Misuari’s Moro National Liberation Front in 1976 during the time of President Ferdinand Marcos, up to the present time, the cause of an independent Islamic state has always been the endgame of Muslim rebel groups.

Obviously, the goal cannot be achieved through an organic law so that the MILF does not believe either that the government would be able to deliver on the substance of the BBL given the objections of Mindanao politicians, lawmakers and legal luminaries.

In other words, the BBL will simply be a cause for widespread dissent among Muslim separatist groups and even for the Christian majority.   For rebel groups and young Muslims exposed to the ideology of the MILF, the measure will become a convenient instrument for more hostilities that will dangerously push us to the brink of war, a situation that augurs well for the attainment of JI’s goal — an Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia.

The political climate in fact may just be obtaining, as people are asking for a full-blown investigation because of reports alleging that President Aquino ordered Executive Secretary Ochoa to direct the operation through suspended PNP director general Allan Purisima.  A police general who knew of the operation made the shocking revelation to the Manila Standard because according to him, people should know what really happened in Maguindanao.  Meantime, some people like former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada are urging the government to launch an all-out war against the MILF.