05
March 2003
WE, THE Akbayan (Citizens’ Action Party), condemn in no uncertain
terms the bombings yesterday in Davao City and Tagum City. We are
aghast at the boldness of the act and the cold-bloodedness of the
perpetrators. We are saddened by the loss of innocent lives.
Mindanao again! This time in Davao—supposedly the safest city
in Mindanao! We are angry and saddened but we are not altogether surprised.
It is not surprising that after the recent heavy-handed moves of the
government and the military, something like this would happen. They
have made Mindanao--any place in Mindanao—fertile ground for
unruly dissent.
It is this unruliness that deeply bothers us. The bombings were clearly
terrorist acts because they served primarily to sow terror. Given
the current Mindanao political context, however, we cannot help but
think that they carry as well a message of dissent, and that of ungovernability.
The problem of government’s response to the Mindanao peace
issue is its over-simplification of the problem. This is not only
about peace and order. It is mainly about governance. It has everything
to do with how "those governing" relate with "the governed".
Government has consistently refused to recognize the legitimate dissent
of Mindanaoans and, by doing so, has made Mindanao vulnerable to extreme
opposition and reactions. The land question remains unresolved until
today. Government merely pays lip service to Moro autonomy through
political constriction and manipulation of the Autonomous Region of
Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Much worse, it has made Mindanao a "free zone" for any
group with armed capacity to advance whatever vested or particularistic
interests they may hold. Who committed the bombings? The Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) or the so-called Third Force? The Abu Sayyaf?
The New People’s Army (NPA)? The hard and sad truth is—we,
the citizens, may never know the real perpetrators. Any armed group
can take advantage of the turbulence in Mindanao. With coup rumors
repeatedly surfacing, we cannot even count factions of the military
out of the equation. We definitely would not even discount the US’s
Pentagon or the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as suspects.
We are not saying that government wants such unfortunate event as
yesterday’s bombing to happen. What we are saying is that government
has to be held into account for the recent military initiatives in
Mindanao that provoked yet another war in Mindanao. More precisely,
the government and the military—under the stewardship of Sec.
Reyes-- should be taken to task for reinforcing a "culture of
war" in Mindanao. It is not difficult to see that our government
has become part of the problem rather than the solution to the Mindanao
peace situation. Government, for instance, tried to mislead the public
in the upcoming Balikatan 03-1 "military exercises" by denying
that the participating US troops are to be deployed for direct combat
duties.
To President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo: your governance in Mindanao
has rendered Mindanao ungovernable. You should not do "public
relations" or PR work for the Philippine military; you should
behave as its Commander-In-Chief, including sanctioning it for violations
of civilian processes like peace talks and cease-fires. We reiterate
our call for the President to sack Sec. Reyes as the country’s
defense chief. As to Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes: your military
tactics have achieved no tangible and positive contribution to the
peace situation in Mindanao. Both of you have failed. All your instrumentalities
and strategies have failed. You have not solved the problem in Mindanao
because you simply refuse to appreciate the complex realities that
surround it.
The situation has changed from bad to worse. We are one with the
citizenry’s quest for peace and justice in Mindanao. We challenge
government to seek political solutions to end the war in Mindanao.
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