On Jabidah: Inquirer dupes nation
(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 03-23-2015 MON)
On March 19, 2015, the Philippine Daily Inquirer front-paged a huge photo of Corregidor’s military ruins with two smiling Muslim women taking a selfie. The caption read: “It began with Marcos military plot.” And on the site that now sports “a new marker on the Jabidah massacre 47 years ago” is where the newspaper claims, “Soldiers shot Muslim recruits who tried to escape Corregidor where they were being trained for a Sabah invasion. When the Muslims discovered the plot, they rebelled but were executed. Only one survived.”
All this is, of course, based on a lie, with the marker an all-out farce.
As the Yellow tale goes, then Sen. Ninoy Aquino supposedly exposed the alleged massacre on the Senate floor. This notion by itself has formed the basis of almost 50 years of unrelenting disinformation spewed from Philippine mainstream media onto social media and beyond.
But anyone really interested in the truth only has to type in his search engine, “’Jabidah! Special Forces of Evil?’ by Senator Benigno S. Aquino Jr., March 28, 1968,” and the 5,708-word speech will reveal Ninoy’s own words belying the claims of a massacre. Here are some:
“This morning (March 28, 1968), the Manila Times… quoted me as saying that I believed there was no mass massacre on Corregidor Island. And I submit it was not a hasty conclusion, but one borne out by careful deductions… For the truth, as I found it in Sulu, is: the probability of a mass massacre is dim… I could make big political capital out of all of this. But, Mr. President (Senate President Arturo Tolentino), I say: Let us pin blame only where the blame is. And, by my findings, a wanton massacre is not among the things that we must hang on Mr. Marcos’ conscience and Mr. Marcos’ soul...
“Meanwhile, in Jolo yesterday, I met the first batch of 24 recruits aboard RP-68. This group was earlier reported missing--or, even worse, believed ‘massacred.’ William Patarasa, 16 years old, one of the leaders of the petitioners, in effect corroborated all the points raised by Jibin Arula (the supposed lone survivor). But he denied knowledge of any massacre. Like Jibin Arula, up to yesterday he claimed he had no knowledge of what had happened to their four leaders (supposed mutineers)… though, (there’s) suspicion among the petitioners that the four had been ‘liquidated’ by Major (Eduardo) Martelino’s boys. One of the leaders has since presented himself to army authorities.
“Some quarters have advanced the theory that the trainees were liquidated in order to silence them. But then, 24 boys have already shown up in Jolo safe and healthy. To release 24 men who can spill the beans and liquidate the remaining 24 ‘to seal’ their lips would defy logic… Jibin Arula… his fears, which in his place may be considered valid, may not be supported by the recent turn of events. Twenty-four recruits have turned up.”
Arula claimed he swam straight to Cavite to seek refuge with Cavite Gov. Delfin Montano; he later changed his story, saying he was picked up by fishermen. The courts found Arula’s testimony incredible.
Instead, the beginnings of the many variations of Muslim independence and secessionist movements should be traced to the UK’s wanton disregard of the decision by the British Court’s North Borneo Chief Justice C.F.C. McCaskie who said that “It is abundantly clear that the successors in sovereignty of the Sultan of Sulu are the Government of the Philippines Islands.” It was followed by the treacherous act of the British on July 10, 1946 in annexing North Borneo (Sabah), a few days after the Philippines gained independence. It was an annexation that Gov. Francis Burton Harrison, the American advocate of self-determination, called an “act of political aggression.”
Then, on July 31, 1963, in the Manila Accord signed by Malayan Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein (father of PM Najib Razak), Indonesian FM Dr. Subandrio, and Philippine VP Emmanuel Pelaez, registered as UN document No. 8029, the three governments agreed to “bring the (Philippines’) claim to a just and expeditious solution by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration, or judicial settlement,” which the newly-formed Malaysia later treacherously refused.
And that’s where “it all began”--before the launching by Malaysia and its Philippine Fifth Column of the Jabidah disinformation.
Thus, it is only fitting for the Inquirer, the congressmen who signed the 47th Jabidah memorial press statement (led by Dina Abad and Sitti Hataman), the ignoramus nuns, the National Historical Commission chair, and BS Aquino’s Peace Panel members to all be charged with treason--along with BS Aquino and his mother who dropped from the 1987 Constitution the Philippines’ territories “by historic right or legal title.”
The patently fake Jabidah marker and all its sponsors should rightly be placed in the nation’s historical Hall of Shame, along with the assassins of Andres Bonifacio and the quislings who served the Japanese puppet government during World War II.
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