MINDANAO KILLING FIELDS

The Philippines made it to the limelight again worldwide. We had the Manny Pacquiao's victory just several weeks ago, and this time another worldwide saga is unfolded. This is not the typical heroic act that you would normally expect but rather a barbaric activity propagating the Southern part of the land - Mindanao. The world just witnessed the massacre of 52 (and still counting probably as of this writing) unarmed men and women from the Maguindanao, Mindanao provoked merely by the simple act of filing the Certificate of Candidacy by one of the victims.

Mindanao, the southern most part of the Philippines is noted to be restless since time immemorial. They have longed to secede from the mainland because of ancestral claims. They claim that the land should belong to the native Muslims ( a minority in the Philippines) based on ancestral heritage. We therefore expect that lawlessness engulfs the land because of these facts, many among them would not recognize the authority of the central government and of course some factions would ride on to the issue.

There are countless groups that claim authority over this part of the country, there was the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which eventually joined the government after a peace negotiation and then comes the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) a used to be faction of the MNLF, and so on and so forth. Countless groups have existed aside from these 2 major groups, there are still sub groups, tribal groups, disgruntled groups and private groups or armies that conntributes to the instability of the entire area. All these groups claim to be heir of Mindanao and would always stand by the way of peace to get hold of their share.

There is no stopping this cycle of atrocities and it is even worsened by the propagation of private armies created by wealthy family clans of Mindanao. These clans mostly have political hold and they grow one after the other. The recent massacre was allegedly perpetrated by the private armies of the Ampatuans, a very strong clan in Maguindanao with very strong ties to the President of the Philippines.

3 days have passed since the massacre happened, there were no arrests made yet. A crime committed with this intensity needs to be acted upon swiftly, and yet despite the vulnerability of the suspects, the authorities remained unperturbed about the issue and claims lack of evidence. It was learned that the governemnt has managed to asked the younger Ampatuan to surrender to threshout the truth; but this appears to be more of a negotiated surrender to save face rather than imposition of authority.

The Ampatuans have been noted to have helped the Arroyo administration to swiftly win the election in 2007 which brought zero to all administration's opponents. This similar accusation has also brought Gloria Arroyo to humbly say "I'm sorry" publicly at the height of the hello garci scandal. If we can remember the 2004 election was rigged with massive cheating specially in the Mindanao area exactly from where this massacre happened. This cheating issue have been sidelined and seemingly forgotten and left for dead unresolved.

"Hello Garci" refers to the alleged wiretapped conversations where vote rigging in the 2004 elections was discussed by, among others, a woman presumed to be President Arroyo and man presumed to be Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano

Secretary Raul Gonzalez, chief presidential legal counsel, cautioned the government against hastily arresting the Ampatuans in the absence of solid evidence. This is definitely the kind of government designed to protect the people and yet getting cowed by the ferocity of this suspect's private army. Or are they just simply exercising their impunity by the Arroyo administration because they might just be willing enough to open pandoras box to expose the rotting truth behind the hello garci scandal.

I just hope that this is not an orchestrated scenario to thwart the 2010 election so that Gloria Arroyo can perpetuate herself in power beyond 2010 by scalating the Mindanao state of emergency to something evern stronger. If they are thinking toward that end, with the automated election giving them slimmer opportunity to cheat, they must at least start somewhere - massacre to martial rule? far flung but possible...