The enemies within

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/31/2011



The enemies of the Philippines’ nationhood are running circles around its people, Armed Forces, media, and even its progressive forces. At the forefront of these bewildering issues is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)-GRP maelstrom that has left our soldiers and citizens unable to tell for certain who the enemies are and where they lie — whether across or behind our lines. Many Juan de la Cruzes are beginning to feel that some of their government officials behave like the enemy, making public statements more sympathetic to the motley secessionists than our own soldiers; and granting them cash donations while our armed men suffer crucial shortages.

Confusion will continue to reign as long as Filipinos are blind to the existence of the “enemy within,” or the “traitor class” that persists in executing the will of foreign interests in key institutions of society — be it in government, the church, “civil society,” or the academe. Without the purgation of these elements, there is simply no saving the nation.

The Oct. 18 encounter in Al-Barka, Basilan was never a result of legitimate issues of territorial delineation. This much was admitted by no less than the chairman of the MILF negotiating panel, Mohagher Iqbal, in statements to the press two weeks later on Oct. 29 that say: “The ceasefire agreement provides that such a movement of troops… should be coordinated first through the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH) or the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (Ahjag), set up in 2002 for joint efforts to go after criminals and ‘lost commands.’”

Basilan Special Operations Task Force commander Col. Alexander Macario, however, in accusing the MILF of treachery with the death of the 19 soldiers (including three young lieutenants), who were going after wanted fugitives, positively stated that they were coordinating with an MILF official, Hudlimaya Salim, before the operation was launched.

Colonel Macario argued that government soldiers merely banked on the “sincerity” of the MILF, and from what I read of his statement — even if a mistake was perceived to have been made after the initial encounter — why did the MILF reinforce its allies and finish off many of the soldiers, even disemboweling them? If there was a sincere intent to adhere to the spirit of peace, couldn’t it have initiated some truce at the very least?

Then, as if to further rub salt on an open wound, sources in media raised the ignominious idea that the pursuit of the fugitives could have been for the “reward” of several millions each — this as our military officers were just about to explain their actions. Despite the fact that investigations into this angle are just underway and Colonel Macario’s clarification that the two fugitives carried no reward on their heads, the damage to the soldiers’ reputations has been done. To jaundiced eyes, some behind-the-scenes deals must have been entered into despite the fact that rewards are not given to soldiers but to informants.

It’s true that there are many issues to look into; but what should demand intense scrutiny is the P5-million “donation” of government to the BangsaMoro Leadership and Management Institute (BLMI).

The BLMI can be found in the Asia Foundation Web site as one of the NGOs it supports, and apparently it was with prodding from the Asia Foundation that the GRP peace panel took the cue to donate the P5 million. The Asia Foundation, according to AllGov (a US Web site entirely about the US government), “was established as a Central Intelligence Administration (CIA) proprietary in 1954 with the mission ‘to undertake cultural and educational activities on behalf of the United States government in ways not open to official US agencies.’”

The fact that government peace officials, namely, Teresita “Ging” Deles and Marvic Leonen, as well as their boss, BS Aquino III, are only too willing to accede to the US advice to donate the said amount, or to extend favors that serve as an “aid to the enemy,” depicts these officials’ real traitorous bent.

When news of the murders of our soldiers at the Al-Barka site and the Keystone Kops reaction of Malacañang came out, one of our youngest, twin sons, who once fervently wanted to join the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), remarked, “How stupid can these leaders in Malacañang be?” That’s when I explained that the reason I couldn’t allow him to join the PMA was this kind of political leadership which had no loyalty to its people. I told him, “You could have been one of the three young second lieutenants who were killed in vain at Al-Barka. I could never allow that.”

I have many friends from the PMA — very courageous men — who have exhibited to me up close the best that soldiery has to offer. I pity that they should serve under political leaders who deep down have only scorn for our Men in Arms. I know, for I have also seen these so-called “moderate reformists” up close — from the Ateneo “Sarilikha” that included Deles and company, to the UP’s UPSCA from whence the likes of Leonen and other “leftists” sprung.

The Filipino people’s struggle to preserve the nation’s territory and vast richness, which the founding fathers of the Philippine Revolution strove to establish, is doomed unless the enemies within, the Fifth Column, are vanquished, along with all the appendages of foreign interventionists.

This Fifth Column numbers only a few hundred but is ensconced in Big Business, the country’s banking and financial system, the religious hierarchies, “civil society,” foreign funded NGOs, academia, the underworld and even within the military and police establishment. Their “capo di tutti capi” sits astride Manila Bay, which ominously, was inundated by the raging torrent of an angry sea. Could this be a portent of how the nation can rid itself of its enemies within?

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