Down south, is the ‘price of peace’ too exorbitant?

Yesterday afternoon, a few days too late if you ask me, we received a strange-looking "Press Release" supposedly coming from a certain "Tito Guingona".

It said: "I did not say during the MOPC affair that I am running for President in 2004. The LAKAS party is not in disarray. The party stands behind the unit of the President and the Vice President."

Salamabit. Is this weird statement genuine? If it was, it was crudely issued. I heard the Vice President say it with my own ears. But in this flipflop, and frequently counterfeit and koryente society, nothing surprises us anymore.

Pardon me while I laugh.

* * *

The sulking Vice President Tito G.’s favorite President, Her Excellency GMA, of course, was in Davao City yesterday, and today she’s scheduled to be in "Camp Abubakar" to surrender it anew to the Muslims.

Remember the name of that fecund area? It was the fortress-headquarters of Ustadz Hashim Salamat, his war chief Al-Haj Murad, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), until the Philippine Army, with the help of the Philippine Air Force, overwhelmed the rebel defenders by dint of blood and effort, and captured it – as well as 44 other camps insolently held as rebel "territory" by the Islamic jihadis.

Now, under the … ugh, "agreement" signed in Malaysia by Norberto Gonzales, the President’s adviser on "special concerns" (he’s one of my special concerns, admittedly), GMA is giving the place back. The rationale, it must be added, is that Camp Abubakar is being restored to the Moro civilian families, while the rebel cadres mustn’t bring weapons into the place.

What? Is such a deal possible? Those who know Mindanao will tell you that most, if not all, Moro males feel naked without a gun. (Sus, in violent Luzon, I’ll have to concede, too many so-called Christians feel the same way.)

There’s such a thing, Madam President, as trusting too much – including the trust you repose in many of the flatterers and whisperers around you.

In the meantime, Press (and PMS) Secretary Silvestre Afable should perhaps stop making comments about Guingona. Having been the agent of the embarrassing flipflop episode, Yo-yo should realize that his credibility on that specific subject has worn thin. Of course, Guingona can even resign from the Vice-Presidency, which he won’t. Why on earth would he? It’s his only card. But despite his now frequent denials, it‘s clear he can‘t see eye-to-eye with his boss-lady, La Gloria. He ought to bow out of the Cabinet.

It’s easy enough: Tito can just advise Malacañang – whose denizens are taking daily potshots at him, anyway – to reissue the resignation acceptance "letter" which had never been meant to be sent. This time La Presidenta can mean it.

* * *

Did the President, when she visited Davao, know that the last issue of TIME Magazine (July 1), the one with Tom Cruise on the cover, featured another guy cruising around on his motorcycle, namely longtime Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte?

TIME Correspondent Phil Zabriskie headlined his piece on Rod, "The Punisher." The subhead blares: "Hard-riding, tough-talking Mayor Rodrigo Duterte keeps the peace in a once lawless city. But his brand of law and order comes at a price."

Zabriskie, like the usual Wild West novelist (great shades of Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey), begins with Rod "sitting in his favorite bar, After Dark, a glass of brandy in front of him, a .38 pistol tucked in his waistband. He’s wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt loudly adorned with wine bottles and bunches of red and green grapes – the same outfit he wore to work. While other guests take turns singing along with the piano player, Duterte tells a strange and disturbing story. In 1993, Davao’s San Pedro Cathedral was hit with three grenades during an evening Mass. Six parishioners were killed. The attackers were Muslim militants, the sort easily found in Davao, a time-honored haven for kidnappers, bandits, communist rebels and roaming private armies. Four of the attackers were quickly arrested. Just as quickly, Duterte relates, ‘They went missing.’ Disappeared. Dead. ‘Then,’ the mayor says flatly, ‘it got ugly.’ Further killings? ‘More like assassinations,’ he says. The targets – other militants – didn’t receive the courtesy of arrest, much less a trial. Were they dispatched on his orders? ‘Oh, no,’ he responds. ‘I don’t believe in state-sponsored killing.’ A pause. ‘I can’t say any more, but I taught them a lesson.’"

Gee whiz, Rod. Say any more? Said too much, if you ask me. Our officials tend to blab a lot when confronted by a foreign correspondent. They can’t curb their propensity to brag. (When questioned by local journalists, on the other hand, many of them develop lockjaw).

* * *

My old friend Garth Alexander, a Brit who now writes from New York for The Sunday Times of London, came to town several weeks ago to do a magazine article on the Mindanao problem, spending, for instance, a month in Basilan. Garth, it has to be pointed out, previously lived here more than a dozen years (was hounded by the Marcos military, at that) and knows the turf pretty well. But even he was amazed at how glibly a provincial governor down south boasted about his "death squads". Sanamagan: and we wonder why we don’t get any tourists – or investors?

In his TIME piece, Zabriskie asserts that in Mindanao where "a Muslim separatist rebellion has raged… for decades" and "Al-Qaeda members have roamed the island"… "foreign businessmen and missionaries must constantly be on guard against kidnappers."

Then he notes: "But Davao, a sprawling port city on the southern coast, has emerged as the exception – an oasis of peace in the middle of the Philippines’ lush center of chaos."

Residents, he points out, "have a simple explanation: the mayor." Zabriskie recalls that Duterte, first elected in 1987, was returned to office twice until term limits made him move to Manila as a Congressman. "Last year he returned, running for the Davao mayoralty on his eternal platform to bring peace and order the Duterte way. The city’s 1.3 million residents swept him back into office, and no wonder. On his watch, Davao’s per capita crime rate has sunk to the nation’s lowest. The local tourism board calls it ‘the most peaceful city in Southeast Asia.’ People once fled the place in fear; now they flee other troublespots in the Philippines – for Davao."

The journalist even quotes former Manila Mayor Fred Lim as saying: "If we had 20 more mayors like Duterte, the peace and order situation would improve."

Zabriskie comments wryly on the other hand: "That’s one way of looking at it. Others say Duterte has achieved his results at a grim price, disregarding due process and anointing himself legislator, judge, jury – and possibly executioner – all at once. Justice in Davao, says Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a highly-decorated former armed forces chief, is ‘not about following the law. It’s about who’s willing to go further’.’"

Biazon ought to know. He was once himself a brave Marine Brigade Commander in Davao at the time the murderous New People’s Army (NPA) rampaged all over it at will (even the Matina district was "no-man’s-land") and made it the "killing fields".

The Communist NPA grip of terror was repulsed only when former NPA rebels themselves joined hands with Major Frank Calida to organize the Alsa Masa vigilantes and literally "fought fire with fire". Did the Alsa Masa bother with the niceties? No way. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as the case may be), those tactics worked. "Peace" came to a Davao where friends used to meet timorously for coffee every morning to count heads, and find out whether one of their number had been gunned down in the night.

* * *

I remember the classic story of the late Interior and Local Government Secretary Luis Santos. Louie had been a former Huk rebel, would you believe? Then he became Police Chief of Davao City, finally Mayor himself of Davao. One day, just before Christmas, an NPA hit squad went to the Davao golf club and shot the manager to death – just like that. They casually strolled off, after the assassination, across the golf green. They came on Santos (he later recounted) who was walking – puzzled about the sound – in the direction of the gunshot. "Merry Christmas, Mayor," the killers smiled, waving cheerfully at him, then sauntered out of sight.

That was decades ago. Newcomers are, of course, always surprised and indignant that "gun law" still prevails in peaceful Davao. But the old-timers could tell them a thing or two.

Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry"? He might have felt right at home in Davao.

As the TIME writer concludes his article: "At the very least, the mayor has created an atmosphere in which the death squads feel free to operate with impunity. Last October, Duterte went on television and read out a list of suspects wanted for drug offenses, including policemen. Two of those named were killed within a week, Jun Pala, a former Alsa Masa spokesman and now one of Duterte’s fiercest critics, was ambushed last July and shot four times. Pala has suspicions – but not evidence – about who ordered the attack. (Duterte denies involvement. Pala argues that Duterte deserves no credit for Davao’s rebirth. ‘How can he say Davao is safer when children’ – that’s to say teenagers – "are being killed indiscriminately?’ It is, he adds, ‘a reign of terror’."

I know Jun Pala and am familiar with his fearless tongue. He’s a fighter. I haven’t been back in Davao for some years, but I remember Rod Duterte well, too. I’ve ridden behind him on his famous motorcycle, and seen many a time his trademark .38 caliber pistol – luckily, not on the receiving end. I can only recall that in the old days, we used to quip that Davao City was Tombstone and Dodge City East combined.

There will be many enough who’ll end up in Boot Hill in that town before this decade is over. That’s a given. It’s up to those who live there to decide whether the price of "peace" is too steep.