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Lanao lawmaker calls for ‘maturity’ over Mindanao clashes

Sunday, October 23, 2011
A LANAO del Sur lawmaker called Sunday for maturity, responsibility, and reason in the aftermath of armed clashes between government troops and Moro rebels even as a military convoy was ambushed in Lanao del Norte that day.
The ambush Sunday morning, which took the lives of three soldiers of the Army’s 104th Infantry Brigade and left three others wounded, was just the most recent since Tuesday.
On Tuesday, 19 government soldiers were killed in a clash with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels in Al Barka town in Basilan. The Armed Forces of the Philippines has said its troops were ambushed but the MILF rebels said the Army attacked them.
The attacks have given rise to calls from some lawmakers for a military solution to the clashes.
Lanao del Sur Representative Pangalian Balindong said, however, that “we must reject these calls and remain vigilant against anyone or any group who would take advantage of the situation to sow more fear and disorder.”
Although Balindong called the Basilan clash “an outrage that should be met with unreserved condemnation,” he said pursuit operations must be “against lawless elements, but not against the MILF.”
“We must say no to total war in Mindanao. To wage ‘total’ war is by definition to take huge numbers of innocent lives — and perpetuate the cycle of senseless violence, death, and destruction,” he said.
A senator and former national police chief said, however, that the most recent attacks are part of a vicious cycle that has plagued peace and order in Mindanao for years.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, who was Philippine National Police director general during the Estrada administration, said the government’s peace negotiators “should now wake up to that reality.”
“Review history and you will easily see the pattern and timing of escalation of the MILF rogue’s atrocities,” he said in a press statement.
He said it has been an “annoying common experience” that soldiers and police officers have been killed for failing to see the difference between “between ‘real’ and ‘rogue’ MILF fighters in the past several years,” he added.
“It has become a vicious cycle: the ‘rogues’ conduct atrocities, kidnap civilians, or attack and ambush our troops then seek refuge within the confines of the MILF encampments or โ€˜territoriesโ€™,” he added.
“Even when I was still the Philippine National Police chief, I was being told the same story by my own police forces in Mindanao. This is the main reason why our soldiers are losing many battles against the MILF,โ€ he said.
Lacson has taken a hard-line stance against the MILF since an ambush in Basilan killed 19 Philippine Army soldiers last Monday, calling for an “all-out war” in response to the clash. Several other clashes between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the MILF have been reported since then.
His classmate at the Philippine Military Academy, Senator Gregorio Honasan, along with two senators from Mindanao — Teofisto Guingona III and Aquilino Pimentel III, has called for the government to keep a ceasefire with the MILF in place.
Earlier Sunday, Senator Franklin Drilon called for public support for the peace process, saying only a peace deal will prevent future conflicts.
“Let us support the President in this undertaking. We believe that in time, we will succeed in our efforts to attain peace,” Drilon said.
Senator Manuel Villar Jr., meanwhile, cautioned against making rash judgments over the incidents.
“We should not go to war immediately, but we also cannot go on and ignore what happened,” he said.
“We lost 19 soldiers and we cannot just let that pass,” he said.
“This is a time for maturity, a time for responsibility, a time for reason. It is my prayer that we can all come together in respectful dialogue as Filipino citizens to forge peace, no matter how difficult, complex, and trying this may be,” Balindong said.
But Lacson has a different take: โ€œEverybody wanting peace in Mindanao is a no-brainer. Pray tell me, how can we have real and lasting peace when we allow an organized group to bear arms and worse, unofficially allow their belligerent status?โ€ (Jonathan de Santos/Sunnex)

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2011/10/23/lanao-lawmaker-calls-maturity-over-mindanao-clashes-186673

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