A SAF trooper bravely hit the nail on the head when he bluntly told Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas: “This country is not worth dying for, sir, if our government cannot even protect its own warriors.” Following the massacre of 44 of his fellow troopers on Jan. 25 at Mamasapano, Maguindanao, all these notions of a commander-in-chief standing by his men against all odds were rent asunder as it quickly appeared that President Benigno Aquino III was willing to sacrifice his own troops in order not to scuttle his peace initiative.
The Fallen 44, as they have come to be known, has punched a glaring hole in the presidential guarantee of sanctuary and safety for its fighting men and women and, at the same time, puts into question the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s sincerity in achieving peace.
That the Philippine government sent troopers well inside MILF-controlled territory without informing the MILF speaks volumes of the government’s deep mistrust in this latest Islamic liberation front to supposedly prefer peace in Mindanao. So why negotiate with the MILF if we cannot even trust them to be true to their word? And what was the MILF doing when it suddenly and inexplicably colluded with its supposed breakaway faction, the Bangasamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in slaughtering our own troops?
The penultimate question is why the MILF has denied ever harboring known terrorists in their midst or knowing of their presence within earshot of not just one but three of its camps, Camp Omar ibn al-Khattab, Camp Abubakar al-Siddiqu and Camp Badre. It behooves the mind, in fact, to think why the Philippine government continues to foist the Bangsamoro Basic Law (Babala, as one writer calls it) even as the BIFF continues to refuse to be part of the peace process.
Why negotiate for peace at all when already lurking behind the MILF is another armed Islamic group ready to wage another war in Mindanao? Or is the BIFF in fact nothing more than a well-funded and well-armed clone of the MILF ready to take over its military campaign in case the so-called BBL fails to achieve its objective of carving out a territorial part of the Philippines into a separate, independent Islamic state?
These and many more questions hover on the horizon as calls for justice for the Fallen 44 echo ever so loudly all over the country. I fully agree that a Truth Commission should be carried out to seek answers as to why the Philippine Government chose to sacrifice its men and failed to send much-needed reinforcements in Mamasapano.
But such a Truth Commission should not be headed and manned by people from Manila.
I therefore agree with calls that such a commission, to be most impartial, should be composed of people from Mindanao. For far too long, politicians in Luzon have been making decisions for the people of Mindanao and when all hell breaks loose as a result of their actuations, it is the people of Mindanao who suffer.
The Truth Commission on the Fallen 44 can in fact be handled by Protestant and Catholic bishops based in Mindanao, people of the faith who have no stake in the coming elections or in the political arena but who have seen the sufferings and sacrifices of the people of Mindanao.
The people of Mindanao owe it to those young men, many of them from Luzon and the Visayas, who died at Mamasapano. I would not be surprised if we learn that for many of these men, it was their first – and tragically their last – time to set foot in Mindanao. Those of us who were born and grew up in Mindanao or those who continue to live there must rally together and insist on an impartial, Mindanao-based Truth Commission.
This much we can do to assuage the pain, the anguish and the despair of the wives, mother, and children of the Fallen 44.
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