Please turn off the noise
It is a time of great tragedy. We lost over 60 Filipinos, 44 of them elite police operatives, 18 MILF fighters and at least two civilians in a firefight that should never have happened. The nation is in mourning.
Yet there is no respectful hush that would allow for grief, reflection, prayer or discernment. Instead we are surrounded by noise — the self-righteous bombast of media commentators, the sanctimonious prattle of some bishops and politicians, the hurt and hurtful pronouncements of angry and grieving policemen, the cries of widows and orphans, and the unrestrained hate speech on social media.
The President has called for the formation of an investigative team to get to the bottom of the debacle in Mamasapano and everyone has gotten into the act. The Senate, the House of Representative, the PNP, the AFP, the Ombudsman, the MILF, the Joint Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities, the CHR and DOJ are simultaneously conducting investigations. Instead of one independent commission to get to the truth, there are at least nine bodies of varying quality and persuasions that have been formed to look into the circumstances that led to the military disaster in Maguindanao.
The investigating bodies will be getting their information from the same survivors, the same broken chain of command, the same witnesses who will be made to tell their stories over and over. Which means the noise will not dissipate. It will only worsen.
Consider that we are entering campaign season — a bit early — but it is here, with politicians gearing up to earn political points in advance of the election. I predict there will be more sound and fury than light that will come out of these numerous initiatives with everyone trying to cover their behinds and legislators investigating purportedly in aid of legislation, but actually grandstanding to push their political objectives.
Going by the debates on Facebook, almost everyone has made up his and her mind about what happened anyway. The cacophony of voices calling for justice and/or blood — emotional but mostly uninformed — will not be quelled. People will simply adopt the investigative outcome that matches their own pre-judgment.
Newspaper columnists, radio commentators, political pundits, amateur military strategists, and just about every Juan and Juana on Facebook has weighed in with their opinions: it was a massacre, a misencounter, a stupid move, a noble act. There is no argument about the sympathy for the plight of the orphans and widows, that someone should be made accountable for their loss. But who? So far, depending on who you listen to, the candidates for accountability are the MILF, the BIFF, the PNP-SAF, the AFP, the SAF commander, General Purisima, President Aquino, Executive Secretary Jojo Ochoa, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, the peace process itself, and the Americans. Recently, it was reported that private armed groups also joined the bloody fray.
There is much at stake in this national tragedy. The peace process with the MILF that has taken two decades to reach the stage where it is almost within reach, is now in grave danger of failing again. While the public praised it when the going was good, now there is a growing call among our legislators and the public that the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law pending in Congress should be set aside.
Give them war, say the hawks led by Mayor Estrada who during his short disastrous presidency, tried but failed to decimate the MILF by declaring total war. But this is, in fact, the right time to strengthen our commitment to building peace, say the doves. This horrible incident has illustrated very graphically what war looks like. Do we really want this carnage to continue? We’ve come so close to disarmament and normalization in the Bangsamoro area. Let’s not drop the ball now.
The lines are drawn between the hawks and the doves, and to a large part, between Luzon and the Visayas on one hand, and Mindanao on the other. While the so-called keyboard warriors in the north rattle the sword of war from the comfort of their desks, the residents of Mindanao are calling for sobriety. You don’t know what war is like, they plead with us in the North. War is hell on earth.
Mindanaoans have lived with decades of insecurity and underdevelopment due to armed conflict. Masses of people have been killed, and those who have survived have had to evacuate repeatedly and run for safety every time the war between the rebels and the government spills into their communities. Thanks to the ongoing peace process between the government and the MILF, the people say that the last few years have been relatively quiet, pleasant even, as the ceasefire has held and the children have been able to play and study without fear of violence breaking out in their neighborhoods.
May I suggest that we turn off the radio and television, stop reading the newspapers, get out of social media, leave the garrulous barkada behind, and individually, stop to reflect, in the silence of our hearts, on the big picture — the cost of war on the daily lives of the communities in Mindanao, the women and children who must dodge bullets as they go about their daily lives, the soldiers and their families who live with the reality that their children could be orphaned, the vicious cycle of underdevelopment – the poverty, illiteracy, joblessness that the people must live with due to the armed conflict. Then let us decide what should be done about the war in Muslim Mindanao.
I say peace now, not later. I also say justice now, but based on facts, not runaway emotions. Peace and justice. These two values are not incompatible. But first, we need to turn off the noise.
