Angry Birthday Girl declares ‘all-out war’ on vicious Abu Sayyaf - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

Leave it to the villainous Mujahideen of the Abu Sayyaf to provoke President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo by insolently offering her a grisly "birthday present." The cheeky bandit chieftain, Abu Sabaya, got the President’s goat by bragging that if GMA didn’t arrange a meeting between the Abu leaders and the ambassador of Saudi Arabia by 5 p.m. next Thursday, he would decapitate their American captive, Jeffrey Schilling, and send President Arroyo the unfortunate fellow’s head as "a gift" on her 54th birthday.

When the Chief Executive heard Abu Sabaya making this threat on a Zamboanga radio station, her patience snapped. She summoned her generals, led by General Diomedio P. Villanueva (who had just taken over as Armed Forces Chief of Staff last March 17), and gave them their marching orders: "All-out war against the Abu Sayyaf!"

Villanueva, with whom I spoke briefly last night, is on his way to Zamboanga to supervise the offensive operations there against Abu redoubts in Sulu and Basilan. Villanueva said, on the other hand, he had been instructed that care should be taken by the troops not to engage in any action harmful to the civilian population. If you ask me, that’s just like sending a soldier into battle with one armed tied behind him. For, in a combat situation, how can you tell who is a guerrilla and who is a peaceful civilian?

When we were embroiled in the Vietnam War, one of the naughty questions always hurled by jaundiced foreign correspondents eager to tease those perennially harassed MAC-V (Military Assistance Command-Vietnam) briefing officers was: "How can you distinguish a Viet Cong from a civilian villager?"

The frustrated but incomplete reply was usually: "The Viet Cong is the one who is shooting at you!" In those confusing days, they all looked alike, unfortunately. They were usually wearing black pajamas. But their AK-47s and "jumping baby" mines were deadly, indeed.

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Talk about coincidences. Only last Sunday night, the President, Defense Secretary Angelo T. Reyes, General Villanueva, Lt. Gen. Roy A. Cimatu (who had just gotten his third star as deputy chief of staff of the AFP), retired General and Presidential Secretary for the Peace Process Eduardo Ermita, and this writer were just discussing the Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The President had invited us to dinner at the Ristorante La Dolce Fontana in Greenhills, to enable all of us to "talk out" the question of the controversial agreement signed by Ermita with Al-Hadji Murad Ebrahim of the MILF in Kuala Lumpur "‘for the resumption of peace talks . . ." GMA was concerned that the public – and the armed forces as well – might misunderstand the implications of that "agreement" inked last March 24, such as, she said, the impression that Camp Abubakar, Camp Rajamuda, Camp Bushra and the 44 other MILF camps "captured" last year were going to be returned to the Moro rebels.

Since the discussion was "off the record", I can’t reveal the details of our conversation during that meeting. However, at the President’s suggestion, we scheduled a "special forum" of our Greenhills Walking Corporation for next Wednesday so that Secretary Ermita, Reyes, Villanueva and Cimatu could explain the government’s plans for Mindanao – particularly the disputed former MILF "camps" and the Muslim municipalities within their perimeter – to the general public’s satisfaction. Alas, I began losing my "generals" yesterday afternoon. The Defense Secretary, ex-General Reyes, had to accompany the President to Ormoc. General Villanueva would be flying, suddenly, to Zamboanga to mount the anti-Abu Sayyaf operation. I had to cancel tomorrow’s forum. Oh, well. Those are the fortunes of "war."

Perhaps after the Holy Week. Or when "peacetime" is really declared.

In the course of last Sunday’s discussion, Ermita swore that, while Article IV of the deal he signed in K.L. (with the cooperation of Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad), indeed contained the disquieting phrase, "The Parties commit to honor, respect and implement all past agreements and other supplementary agreements signed by them," as quoted in some critical newspaper columns (including mine), there was a qualifying sentence: "Details of implementation shall be discussed by the panels." In short, he explained, this meant that the government had not really guaranteed to recognize anew the "territory" claimed formerly by the MILF.

Secretary Reyes and General Villanueva both pledged that no armed MILF leaders or cadres would be permitted to enter the areas comprising Camp Abubakar, Camp Rajamuda, Camp Bushra, and all the other 44 former MILF controlled areas. "If they do so," Villanueva promised, "they will immediately be disarmed." This interpretation was echoed by Lt. General Cimatu who was the "conqueror" of Camp Abubakar and other MILF strongholds. Cimatu, who was born in Bangui, Ilocos Norte – by the way – on the 4th of July, 1946, the day we formally got our "independence" from the United States, had commanded the famous 4th Infantry "DIAMOND" Division in the past year’s Mindanao campaign. Under his direction, the Fighting Fourth overran the MILF camps in Lanao Norte, Lanao Sur, punched through the rebels’ concrete bunkers along the Narciso Ramos Highway, and overwhelmed Bushra and Abubakar. He belongs to the PMA "Magiting" Class of 1970.

Before we forget, General Villanueva, too, is an Ilocano. He was born in Tagudin, Ilocos Sur, on May 20, 1946, and graduated from PMA in 1968. He received his first star when he commanded the 503rd Infantry Brigade in Northern Luzon, when his unit operated in the Marag Valley and Kalinga-Apayao, which were New People’s Army and Cordillera rebel army bastions. He was promoted to Major General when he served in Southwestern Mindanao as Commander of the First Infantry Division, ranged against the NPA, the MILF, and the Abu Sayyaf Group.

Aside from leading the Army drive against Hashim Salamat’s MILF forces, he is credited with having been in command in Sulu when two "hostaged" French journalists made their break for freedom, and the 12 "Jesus Miracle Crusade" evangelists were liberated from the Abu Sayyaf.

Can he save Schilling now? Not likely. When you’re in the hands of the cruel Abus, your goose is cooked.

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The Armed Forces’ determination not to allow the MILF to recover Abubakar, the rebels’ much-touted "sacred" headquarters and the symbol of their Islamic jihad, may soon be tested. A report from Davao alleges that MILF Chairman Salamat is planning to "re-enter" Camp Abubakar, which is located in Parang, Maguindanao province. Since Salamat never travels without a bodyguard of less than 200 to 500 armed men, will he be permitted to return to the area with his armed contingent?

General Villanueva stated yesterday, "No way." Let’s see, then, what happens. The Moro rebels have, in the past, been known to defy the government even during a "truce" or when peace talks are supposed to be in the offing. In this manner, they attempt to probe the steadfastness of the government’s resolve. If our military forces on the spot don’t move resolutely to "disarm" Salamat’s warriors when they appear, the MILF will decide that their "gambit" has paid off, and will be emboldened to act in an even more outrageous manner. That’s the way in Mindanao. If you give the insurgents an inch, they’ll take a mile.

While our Sunday discussion focussed on the MILF and the Ermita "deal" (I’m still suspicious too much was "given away"), I tried to steer the President’s attention to that other terrorist group, the Abu Sayyaf. I commented that the greatest beneficiaries of the "impeachment" scandal and the ouster of former President Erap and the excitement of a new government taking over, were the Abu’s leaders, led by Commander Robot (alias Ghalib Andang) who could now enjoy the ransom they raked in from their kidnapping of 21 hostages from Sipadan island and other capers, without being pursued as assiduously as before.

I expressed my strong belief that Robot and the scruffy Abus should not be allowed to get away from it, even though the spotlight had shifted from them. God moves in mysterious ways, indeed, His wonders to perform. Or it must have been the Devil who pricked the swaggering Abu Sabaya to challenge President Arroyo, out of the blue, on the occasion of her coming birthday this Thursday. If the arrogant Abu carries out this boast that he will "behead" Schilling if GMA doesn’t kowtow to his demands, you can be sure there will be a "hot time" all over Sulu tonight – as the old ditty goes.

Since they’re as bloody-minded as Afghanistan’s fanatical Taliban, I wouldn’t be surprised if, indeed, those Abu Sayyaf renegades "annihilate" the unfortunate Schilling. Sure, he walked into their trap with his eyes wide open. But, in the past months, even the fact of his continued captivity has faded in the consciousness of the rest of the planet, not to mention that of our leadership in Manila. What Commander Abu Sabaya is doing, however, is flirting anew with disaster. For when she’s got her dander up, GMA transmogrifies from a diminutive lady with the aspect of a Teeny-bopper into a Pallas Athene, a warrior-goddess as formidable and relentless as a battleship approaching at full steam, bristling with artillery. The Abus got off lightly enough, even after they provoked Joseph Ejercito Estrada. They may not fare as well under the onslaught of La Gloria’s wrath.

If you rain on her birthday parade, Abu Sabaya, be prepared for the thunderbolt to strike you!

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Former President Ramos rang me up yesterday, in high dudgeon, to declare he never allowed a rebel group like the MILF to "claim any area or piece of territory in violation of the Constitution and of the Philippine sovereignty."

He pointed out that neither did his administration agree to "recognize" MILF camps as "independent" enclaves outside the jurisdiction of the Philippine government. It was only in February, July, and October 1999 "long after the Estrada administration succeeded the Ramos administration", he averred, "that documents were signed identifying and acknowledging MILF camps." Furthermore, he said, violent events like those in Basilan and the Sipadan island kidnappings, the Kauswagan operations and the Bumbaran killings, "took a turn for the worse" during the Estrada regime.

Of course, there were bloody incidents, and instances of carnage and kidnapping during the Erap regime, but I fear that my cousin, Apo Eddie’s memory may be selective. I distinctly remember that during his administration, the MILF’s camps like Abubakar, Rajamuda, Bushra and other fortified camps were already being regarded as sacrosanct, and could not be encroached upon, by agreement, by the military – and even by the Commission on Elections. C’mon. Ask General Joe Almonte, who’s surfaced anew as the propaganda gauleiter and eminence grise he once was in the heyday of the FVR hegemony.

It’s true enough that the "peace deal" Ramos directly made was with Nur Misuari and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), courtesy of FVR’s Executive Secretary Ruben Torres who was Nur’s buddy in the old U.P. days. But the MILF was being accorded special treatment, too.

Our frustrated Philippine Army soldiers remember only too well, and vividly, that it was during the Ramos administration that Hashim Salamat, Jaafar, Al-Hadji Murad, and their ilk, came to national prominence. It was along the Narciso Ramos highway (named in honor of the former President’s late father, Tata Nachong) that the MILF set up checkpoints at which they stopped civilian vehicles, passenger buses, and trucks, to frisk the passengers and collect "taxes." The Philippine Marines even had to barricade Cotabato City to prevent rebel incursion. During the same period, the National Irrigation Administration constructed 17 kilometers of irrigation canals and viaducts which turned out to be, instead, concrete defense bunkers utilized as "forts" by the MILF. Our armed forces had to assault and overrun those bunkers, suffering heavy casualties in the process. The Army recalls that everytime it planned a retaliation assault, in response to a Moro rebel ambuscade or attack, its hands were tied by instructions and prohibitions "from above."

Citizen Eddie Ramos told me yesterday that the Mindanao "peace negotiations" were too crucial to be imperilled by criticisms and negative reactions. "More than 120,000 people have already been killed in the conflict in Mindanao, and we’ve got to stop the fighting and dying," our former President and Chief of Staff asserted. Nobody disagrees with that sentiment. But don’t you detect the dispirited hum of "appeasement" underlying those words?

Peace we want. Peace we need. But not "peace at any cost." If we give in to Muslim rebel demands today, mistaking "surrender" for "peace", then we’re lost. What’s more, Mindanao will be lost, too.