What are the facts about Mindanao?

Last Sunday, there was a press report on a statement made by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel that 318,000 civilians have been displaced in Mindanao because of the latest military offensive against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Monday, the same newspaper quoted Presidential Chief of Staff Rigoberto Tiglao who said that only 3,500 civilians and not 318,000 as claimed by Pimentel had evacuated because of the military operations against the MILF.

On the same day, this newspaper published a report from Pikit, North Cotabato that 16 more evacuees died of different diseases in different relief centers occupied by Mindanao evacuees.

Definitely, there is a war in Mindanao. But the figures presented by Sen. Pimentel and Chief of Staff Tiglao are totally disparate. One of them must be completely off. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cut her state visit to the United States by a day in order to visit Mindanao in order to update herself on two things – first, the ongoing military operations; second, the actual condition of all the evacuation centers.

The first step towards the solution of any problem is to know the facts about the problem. There is no doubt that people from several towns had to be evacuated because of the conflict in Mindanao. But many evacuated because the MILF would plant bombs and simply loot the villages. Now, according to the Pimentel report, there is mass evacuation because of the government’s military offensive. We do not doubt that civilians have to evacuate wherever there is a military battle going on. But we never got the impression that the military was attacking or bombing villages in their offensive against the MILF. The impression we had was that villagers were fleeing from the MILF and that the government was providing them with place to evacuate where they could be provided with their basic needs till the state of emergency was over.

There is no doubt that to a very large extent the terrorist acts in Mindanao were instigated by foreign terrorists who used local people to achieve their nefarious ends. People in Mindanao, like people in Luzon and the Visayas, may have some political disagreements. But it is not due to a difference in religions. Here we have always had freedom of speech. Islam is a peaceful religion. When we Christians greet each other, we just say, "Good Morning, afternoon or evening." In Islam, they say, "Peace be unto you!" And the reply to that is, "And unto you be peace!"

We hope to see the day when peace prevails in all of Mindanao. What we must do is to put more emphasis in areas where the majority of the population is Muslims. Make sure that they are first of all provided with education. We have always maintained that the foundation of all freedoms is freedom from ignorance. Muslims, for instance, who cite the Koran for justifying jihad, are misinformed. The Koran advocates killing only in self-defense. Like Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism, Islam is a religion that advocates peace and love for one‚s fellowmen.

Peace will prevail in Mindanao when both Christianity and Islam triumph in the area.