When you begin mewing about ‘peace’, that’s when terrorists strike

Almost on cue yesterday, a terrorist bomb was exploded inside the public market of Koronadal City in South Cotabato, killing an 11-year old girl, a vegetable vendor and a peddler of plastics. It’s always the helpless and the humble who get the worst of it in such heartless attacks.

Governor Daisy Fuentes, who’s been brave and forthright in accusing the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels of being behind the previous two bombings in the same vicinity (one in February, and a second last May 10 – the latter killed 11 victims), reacted to this latest attack by vowing that "lawless elements" would not disrupt the coming 37th founding anniversary celebrations of the province which are scheduled to begin next Monday.

But that’s not the point. The fact is that whenever the prospect of new "peace talks" is dangled, rebel groups and terrorists immediately strike anew so as to give their side "bargaining" advantage and leverage. In sum, too much mewing about "peace", sad to say, costs lives rather than saving them.

It’s pathetically believed by too many, alas, that we must continually strive to pursue peace negotiations with rebel groups, even "terrorists" sanamagan, because we don’t have the "muscle" to defeat them. That’s the root of our problem. While we talk, our enemies – whether the Communist New People’s Army or the MILF, Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah, and other Islamic insurgent movements – gain breathing space to build up and resupply their forces. They manage to acquire "muscle" faster than our urong-sulong government while we temporize. The only "muscles" we’ve been developing are in our jaws. There’s the rub: We’ve perennially got jawbone and wishbone where our backbone should be.

I sincerely wish there were some way to peace in Mindanao, or, for that matter, with the NPA, but too many decades of disappointment and treachery (sometimes, as during the Marcos dispensation, on the part of the government) have poisoned the waters.

Furthermore, what do the rebels really want? To control territory – from where they will only continue, as they grow stronger, to launch further and even more deadly assaults. To keep their weapons and maintain their armed strength – or, equally dangerous, for thousands of their own cadres to be "incorporated" into our armed forces and Philippine National Police (PNP) from which vantage point they can hit us from behind, using our uniforms, our guns and our ammunition. It’s happened before when ex-Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) "former" rebels in the military and police have turned their guns against their supposed new-comrades in the government services. The bullet in the back is just as unhealthy as the "friendly fire" in Iraq which killed so many Britishers and Americans.

My theme remains unchanged: As long as there are bands of illegally-armed men (and women) in Mindanao – whether Muslim, or Christian vigilante – there can be no peace in that troubled archipelago.

Of course we must "fight poverty". But it’s not poverty which breeds terrorism or rebellion (although the poor lad with no prospects, indeed, is quick to seize the way of the gun). What breeds violence and trouble is hatred – and its handmaiden is ignorance. It is only "education" and the truth which will make us all free. Mindanao is always billed as being cruelly neglected. That may be so, in a way, but we must remember that scores of billions of pesos have been poured into Mindanao, including into the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to little avail. One wonders where the money goes. How do the funds find their way into the wrong pockets?

Corruption exists in every country, let’s not forget. All one has to do is peruse the local newspapers in every country you visit – except, of course, those afflicted with a controlled media in nations under dictatorships or theocracies that brook no contradiction or dissent. In our land, however, avarice and lack of patriotism have – for lack of punishment or even the lack of honest indignation of an indifferent or opportunistic society (where crooks are lionized in the society columns for their wealth) – achieved disgustingly new highs.

It may be corny to call it the Golden Yesterday, but in our fathers’ time, there were such things as palabra de honor (word of honor), delicadeza (a sense of rightness), a strong feeling of patriotism, and a bedrock of self-respect which is above cheap amor propio. "Good Manners and Right Conduct" was a subject taught in all the schools. Reverence for God and prayer were the norm, rather than the aberration. Each boy was proud to become a Boy Scout and struggle with might and main to be the best in trail-blazing and to achieve "Eagle" status.

When war came, thousands of teenagers from the ROTC volunteered to go and fight in Bataan. In our National Assembly the debates, either in English or Spanish, were conducted with dignity, decorum, and knowledge.

Of course, it was not all perfect, but those were the days in which a young nation aspired to do its best and be the best.

Our enemy today is cynicism. On the other hand, despair would mark our defeat. We must try again.

* * *

The President told me Wednesday night that she plans to go to Brunei in a few weeks’ time for a short meeting to which only three other Asian leaders had been invited by the Sultan. Otherwise, her next trips would be in September, to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Rome (to the Vatican), and to Paris where she will deliver the Opening Address at the general convention there of the member-nations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

After Paris, tentatively, she will travel next door to Brussels, Belgium, to meet with European Commission President Romano Prodi, as well as other leading European Commissioners.

Prodi, incidentally, must be amused at the discomfiture of his fellow Italian and arch-rival, Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, springing from the l’Affaire Strasbourg in which Berlusconi, heckled by a German Socialist Party MEP (Member of the European Parliament) called the offensive MEP, Martin Schulz, the perfect candidate to play the role of a Nazi kapo (commandant) in an Italian movie being made about the German concentration camps in World War II.

Since Berlusconi is European Union President (under round-robin rules which give the EU’s top post to Rome for the next six months, until next January), he now has to deal with a hostile European Parliament, whose members resentfully have ignored his very sensible proposals, such as a huge public works program along the lines of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s "New Deal" in the United States which kick-started the economy and banking system back to life in the depressed 1930s. In the 62-page document presented by the unfortunate Berlusconi, the Italian leader had pointed out that the creation of the euro had stripped EU states of the power to use interest rates, exchange rates and tax and spending policies to counter recession. If his "New Deal" project were adopted, Berlusconi urged, the money would be off-budget, drawn from the capital markets through EU agencies like the European Investment Bank. The money generated, he suggested, could be disbursed for the construction and improvement of roads, railways, airports as well as directed to scientific research and, more urgently, military rearmament.

Deplorably, owing to the bad blood generated by his Nazi jibe, and the strong German reaction, as well as the already ingrained resentment of Berlusconi among MEPs of various stripes, poor Mr. B’s program is – currently – in disarray.

Complicating matters is that there’s no love lost between Berlusconi and his countryman, Dr. Prodi, who, as European Commission President must share the helm with him for six months. Some weeks ago, as The Daily Telegraph of London reported Thursday last week, "Mr. Berlusconi came close to calling Mr. Prodi a criminal. Defending himself in his Milan bribery trial, he said Mr. Prodi was the real villain of a scandal dating back to 1986, since it was he who tried to sell off a state-owned food conglomerate for a fraction of its value to a political ally."

Susmariosep. So it’s not only in the Philippines!

Here’s the latest in the political and diplomatic zarzuela. Stung by a week of anti-German jibes by Italian politicians (Hugh Williamson reported from Berlin yesterday), German Chancellor (Prime Minister) Gerhard Schroeder cancelled his planned three-week holiday on Italy’s Adriatic coast.

Commented correspondent Williamson of The Financial Times: "Gerhard Schroeder has had enough of Italy . . . (he) had been waiting since the weekend for an apology from Stefano Stefani, Italy’s tourism minister who had labelled German visitors ‘stereotypical hyper-nationalistic blonds’ who arrogantly invade the country’s beaches every year.

"The apology never came, sparking two German government ministers to yesterday call for Mr. Stefani to be sacked."

The report noted that "Prime Minister Berlusconi at least expressed ‘regret’ for comparing a German member of the European Parliament to a Nazi, yet Mr. Stefani made matters worse by calling the MEP who criticized Mr. Berlusconi a drunken slob."

Schroeder has now opted for the very Germany comforts of his hometown of Hanover (north of Hamburg, really) a former Hanseatic city – with no beaches. I dunno. I like Hanover. Almost next to it is the wonderful medieval city of Celle – both charming and romantic. But, indeed, no beaches either.

Come to Boracay, Herr Schroeder. We’ll try to protect you from the Abu Sayyaf. And the Italians, too.