The "Fog"

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/16/2007



The beheadings of our marine soldiers by MILF elements has been much headlined, but is it true? The newspaper reports and headlines are not consistent: the Inquirer has persistently used ten as the numbers of beheaded soldiers, a figure it repeated a few days later on its editorial; many of the other newspapers report only four beheadings. The MILF authorities have denied its men did such a thing. So far, no report shows actual pictures of it. Even if pictures surfaced, the questions will linger.

There is no doubt the encounter was a bloody one. That it happened is a tragedy, especially as the marines have become one of our people’s favorites AFP unit since a number of its officers and men, and two of the country’s Medal of Valor awardees have been identified with the struggle to restore integrity and truth in the conduct of our politics – such as the February 2006 military protest. This heroism overshadows the collaboration of some of it officers in Esperon’s 2004 election fraud complicity.

In this encounter, the MILF accused the Marines of violating its territory. The MILF has been conducting itself very responsibly in the past years. It’s image improving with every distance it takes from the scruffy and dubious “Abu Sayyaf”. The MILF raised its stature in the last elections when it condemned the Maguindanao anomalies elections and the traditional and corrupt feudal Muslim leadership that has made elections cheating a source of huge racket while continuing the ageless exploitation of the Muslim people.

That the encounter and beheadings seemed to be so perfectly timed for the week of the “anti-terror law” raises my suspicion and skepticism. The doubts heighten when we observe the ridiculous contradicting reactions of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and AFP Chief-of-Staff Esperon, the former asking for the blood of the alleged MILF head-choppers and the latter reining in the AFP from taking precipitous action against the MILF elements. The hesitation shows uncertain rationale for punitive action.

The MILF charged that the Marine unit violated their territory and precipitated the ambush. The AFP claim they were pursuing the Bossi kidnappers; that’s another scenario my skeptic’s mind had been always been suspicious of too –perfectly timed to fans fears of “terrorism” and justify the anti-terror law. Actually, the Abu Sayyaf is better known for plain kidnap-for-ransom; yet, they are classified as “terrorist”. The MILF’s claims are given credence by Esperon’s hesitation to counter-attack, casting serious doubt on the wisdom of the pursuit and incursion in the first place.

In the final analysis the question is: “Qui bono?”, who benefits from the incident and sensational “beheadings”? The initiative for entering the MILF zones was clearly the AFP’s. Whether deliberate or not, it was clearly an error as Esperon’s hesitation in counter-attacking confirms. If the error was deliberate then it achieved a great success in inviting the incident and drum up into a massacre to set the mood for the anti-terror law. The fly-in-the-ointment was the dud mortar shells; that resurrected the issues of corruption of Gloria and the AFP top brass.

Wasn’t the Abu Sayyaf wiped out years ago? But it resurges every time a “terror” frenzy needs to be whipped up. President Estrada already erased the MILF boundaries with the capture of Camp Abubakar in 2000, but Edsa Dos and Gloria reverses that victory. Without the areas delineated as MILF territories today the MILF would have no basis for attacking the AFP entering these areas. Just as Erap established national sovereignty in the area something muddles the situation again - the fog of “endless war” designed by war professionals, geo-politicians and corrupt feudal powers.

The “Fog” pervades, in our politics and culture. The Fog afflicts many of the supposedly clear thinking members of our society – its intellectuals. Last week, Conrad de Quiros of the Inquirer wrote that the choice he faced in Edsa Dos 2001 was between Gloria and Estrada, a choice between two evils. I respond here not to mock him but because I respect him and believe he can see through the fog eventually when the facts are explained with clear reasoning: On politicians, the question of good and evil is relative to cultural, class and economic bias.

That’s why politicians are subjected to the people’s vote. The real issues at Edsa Dos were: the Rule of Law and the popular vote versus Rule of Force by an arbitrary, powerful and corrupt few. Had the people and Rule of Law prevailed there would have been none of the reprehensible “extra-judicial killings”, no E.O. 1017 or E.O. 464, and election fraud would not have become a normal Comelec habit. President Estrada’s track record in Malacañang shows an incontrovertible adherence to the Rule of Law.

French philosopher Claude Adrien Helvetius said, “Truth is the torch that gleams through the fog …” The fog in everything else Filipino emanates from the cultural fog – but where is the lighthouse of truth in the Philippine discourse? In battling to clear the national mind Hemmingway said, “The best ammunition against lies is the truth, there is no ammunition against gossip. It is like a fog and the clear wind blows it away and the sun burns it off.” The final truth: it is the dominant “civil society” intelligentsia that befogs the nation. We’re diehard for truth here.

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