Suicide bombing

The military has solved the twin blasts at the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel cathedral in Jolo, Sulu that killed 23 people and wounded 95 others. The dastardly act was the handiwork of a terrorist group and done primarily by male and female suicide bombers from Indonesia. I think this is the first case of suicide bombing in the country.

At least my long-held belief was not (yet) proven wrong. My theory at the time when suicide bombings surfaced as a terrorist undertaking was that no Filipino is willing to become a suicide bomber for a number of reasons, two of which is the Filipino psyche and the severity of exploitation and oppression being perpetrated by the state against the people, specifically Muslim Filipinos.

Filipinos, whether Christians or Muslims value life and are resilient, inviting comparisons to the bamboo. Meaning that we make do with what the world offers us. We make light of challenges and tests that come our way. This has been both a bane and a boon for us. When enslaved, accepting fate is simply bad for the collective effort of the enslaved to gain freedom. But it also makes enslavement bearable.

Meanwhile, the Bangsamoro struggle first waged by Nur Misuari and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has long blunted the oppression and exploitation that the state has perpetrated on Muslim Filipinos. Governments, from the administration of Ferdinand Marcos to the present, are now careful in treading the Muslim separatist issue. A policy of appeasement is in place, lessening the atrocities committed on the Muslim people.

While autonomy, as laid down first in Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the current Bangsamoro Organic Law, still sows discontent, it does not conjure as much hatred among Muslims for the Manila-based government. Both religious belief and hatred provide the fuel to suicide bombings. The hatred against US policies in the Middle East mainly is the reason why terrorists are willing to blow themselves up in suicide bombing attacks.

Even bombing via remote signal-triggered improvised explosive device (IED) bombings has not caught on in the Philippines. Years ago, there were obvious trial runs with devices planted in some sites like garbage bins but those trial runs never graduated into real bombing sorties until recently. Many Muslim separatists in the Philippines are either slow to learn how to make and detonate bombs or they just don’t think bombings will help advance their cause.

That’s probably why the suicide bombers in Jolo had to be imported from Indonesia. Also, that’s probably why terrorist groups like the Abu Sayyaf has not gotten the level of support that the MNLF and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have gotten in predominantly Muslim areas. We Filipinos put a high premium on human life, whether it is our own or that of others.

I just hope we Filipinos would continue to ensure that the culture that breeds bombings and other form of terrorist acts would not take hold in the local setting. Meaning that incidents like the bombing in the Jolo cathedral would never happen again.

At least my long-held belief was not (yet) proven wrong. My theory at the time when suicide bombings surfaced as a terrorist undertaking was that no Filipino is willing to become a suicide bomber for a number of reasons, two of which is the Filipino psyche and the severity of exploitation and oppression being perpetrated by the state against the people, specifically Muslim Filipinos.