No quick fix

So we think GI Joe will swoop down on Basilan, pluck the Burnhams and Deborah Yap from the clutches of those evil Abus, then annihilate Abu Sabaya and his gang as promised by President Arroyo. And that’ll be the end of that.

There are several things wrong with this picture. First, with all the protests from concerned groups about US intervention as well as grumblings from our own military officers, and after visiting Basilan and Zamboanga City, I’m inclined to believe the official line that it’s our very own troops, trained by the Americans and backed by American high-tech equipment, who will eventually neutralize the Abu Sayyaf.

Second, that jungle dotted with caves is one of the worst places to launch a hostage rescue. As we often say, let’s hope for the best but brace for the worst when the decisive encounter comes.

And finally, neutralizing the Abu Sayyaf won’t end the insurgency. Khadaffy Janjalani is believed to have slipped out of Basilan, Nur Misuari and his men are still a threat, and Sulu is turning into the new hotbed of Muslim unrest. Poverty and illiteracy, the roots of insurgency in the South, won’t be solved by GI Joe or Task Force Comet, formed by the military high command to go after the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan and Sulu.

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Last Sunday Christians and Muslims of Barangay Balobo came together again for the first time in nearly six months. On Aug. 2 last year, Abu Sayyaf terrorists came down from the hills of coconut and rubber plantations and raided the predominantly Christian village in Basilan’s Lamitan town. Near the San Jose chapel, the marauders beheaded 10 residents before fleeing.

Muslims, who make up about 20 percent of the Balobo population, were lured to the village square last Sunday by the promise of free medical and dental services, courtesy of the Manila-based EDSA Shrine Community and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

To muster a bigger crowd, "Danger Zone" and "Stairway to Heaven" blared from the public address system. Col. Alexander Aleo, commander of the Army’s 103rd Brigade, said that contrary to popular perception, Filipino Muslims love listening to pop music. Bring a live band to the village square, he said, and you’re sure to draw a big crowd of both Christians and Muslims.

The soldier in charge of securing Balobo, Cpl. Alfredo Luardo, has used entertainment, including a three-day cockfighting derby and girls’ volleyball, to lure back residents who fled after the Aug. 2 massacre. Luardo, one of only two AFP regulars assigned to Balobo, set up a possé of 21 civilian volunteers, arming them with rifles to secure the village, in line with the AFP Southern Command’s tack of setting up community-based or "territorial defense teams." Residents are staying – for now. But many worry about how long the calm will last.

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Balobo is surrounded by predominantly Muslim villages. Many Muslims not only provide refuge to fleeing Abu Sayyaf but also harass and attack Christians passing through. Identifying felons can be tricky since many men are holders of several residence certificates bearing different names. Crimes in these communities are not reported; residents prefer to settle scores among themselves.

Such villages have resisted government efforts to set up public schools. Instead children attend Islamic schools where they are taught Arabic and the ways of Islam as interpreted by local teachers. Few reach the equivalent of high school, and girls often get no formal education at all.

Even electrification has hit bizarre snags. In some areas of Mindanao power companies have given up trying to provide electricity to households. Why should they pay for electricity, the residents argue, when they’re not paid for the use of their ancestral lands to generate hydropower or for the installation of lamp posts in their own yards?

There is general agreement that in this no-man’s land, an integrated approach to promote development is the long-term solution to unrest. In Lamitan, the town where Abu Sayyaf kidnappers gave government troops the slip in a hospital compound in May last year, members of the Army’s 52nd Engineering Brigade are paving part of a circumferential road planned for the island of Basilan. But is development possible without peace and order?

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As a new graduate of the Philippine Military Academy, the first assignment of Roy Cimatu was to fight Nur Misuari and his forces in Sulu. That was in 1972. Three decades and a failed peace agreement later, Cimatu, now a three-star general who heads the AFP’s Southcom, is seeing a new front against Muslim insurgents opening up in Sulu, with Misuari’s forces again the enemy.

Cimatu can only hope that 30 years from now, today’s young AFP officers won’t be fighting the same foes.