Justice sans truth?

“WE have exhausted all remedies. We have to wage war to have peace.” Thus said former President now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada after the “Fallen 44” PNP-SAF were treacherously bushwhacked by combined MILF- BIFF forces. Estrada, in the vernacular, cited bombings, kidnappings, and beheadings of Philippine Marines in Al Barka, Basilan, at the height of the “peace talks” to make his point. To exonerate themselves, the MILF, then as today, answered, “No coordination.” But Secretary Jesus Dureza countered, “…the ceasefire agreement and the implementing guidelines between the GRP and MILF clearly never required prior coordination in operations against high- value, priority targets… I had to go back to my records as I clearly remember that I signed as GRP Panel Chair in October, 2001 with my counterpart, then panel (now MILF) Chairman Murad, the Manual of Instructions for CCCH (ceasefire) and LMT Monitors in Malaysia. Subsequently, the implementing guidelines, even the recent ones of AFP- PNP, clearly excluded [prior coordination] in operations against value targets like Marwan and Basit Usman.”

A computer research on Google on the mayhem and bloody incidents the MILF fathered, exposes several decades of unrivaled terrorism in the country. The casualties are not limited to military targets but include civilians, victims of the most innocent kind, e.g., children, nuns, etc. and in agoras of ordinary people – markets, in front of churches, piers, airports, and especially on public festivities. It is the nature of the beast. Terrorism is improvident with human life, loud with its raison d’ etre for existence – in velvet ideo-religious slogans, and recreant with excuses. Yet to this day, in our civility (or innocence) to gain peace, we honor the MILF with the sobriquet “rebels”? Rebels with a cause for a cost? Personal and Malaysian? We humanize the MILF, allowing professors and educators with theories on peace approaches and university-hardened interpretations of a bi-polar history to negotiate with counterparts with calloused hands, and dyed-in-the-wool realists, trained, funded, and taking cues from Putra Jaya. That is “real politik,” Madam Professor.

I pray, the government peace panel does not consider the Philippine Constitution an obstacle to their dissertation for peace. Which one, Dear Professor, needs rewriting? I suspect, if given the chance in an academic environment, someone in the Government Peace Panel, deep down, is dying to “come out” advocating that Bangsamoro set up their own state. To prove her thesis of historical (archeological – my term) justice equals peace.

While Erap’s foreword has basis in history – 1950s Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay Sr. was successful vs. the Huks and became President; President Marcos jailed the leading figures of the twin insurrections capped with an OIC and Libyan nod, but who set them free? President Erap captured Abubakar and 40 MILF satellite camps, and everything stabilized. Which administrations re- ignited MILF prominence with Malaysian tutelage? If there is to be justice for the “Fallen 44”? The whole truth has to be told and investigated without fear, favor, or prior presidential exclusion. Or is this, pardon the expression, a “Moro-moro”?