Gratitude and ignorance

It is often said that Filipinos have very short memories.

In some cases, social scientists have mistaken our “Live and let live” attitude as a case of memory failure. Somehow, the expectation was that we should dwell upon past events or never let go of past sins, especially if they were committed by public officials or politicians.

Perhaps the true reason behind our “forgiving and forgetful” character is because at the end of the day we are only too aware that we are collectively responsible or at fault for the things that happen to us.

We know only too well that even the best and the brightest among us never really choose the best and the brightest to lead us. We can curse and backbite a corrupt official or a law enforcer but we know who among us would rather corrupt than correct.

We settle for cheap products and solutions rather than pay the correct price. We are thrilled how we haggled and “binarat” a vendor to the last cent so that we are not even shocked or angry that we bought junk.

In other words, we don’t have short memory. What we have is “constant low intensity guilt” about the choices or decisions we make. You know that you know, so you accept it’s your fault but you will never admit it!

Just before “the great floods of 2009”, a number of politicians wanted to kick out the US Forces doing training exercises in Mindanao when terrorists started to engage the American forces directly by using “IEDs” or improvised explosive devices. They obviously did not want our own version of Afghanistan.

But when the typhoons wreaked havoc and there were not enough logistics for rescue and relief, no one made a peep of protest when the US troops came in. Beggars, as they say, can’t be choosers. Unfortunately Secretary Gilbert Teodoro seems to have been the only one who said, “thank you”.

I realize now that just like the “squatters” and the evacuees, the staunch critics of the US forces now have the attitude that the world owes it to them that the United States sends troopers to help. So don’t hold your breath waiting for any of them to say “thank you” like grateful people are supposed to.

Unfortunately, the Nationalists of Metro Manila would rather make peace with terrorists who want to impose their terroristic-gun point lifestyle, in an “Islamic State called Mindanao” instead of studying what the enemy is actually up to.

When Ambassador Kristie Kenney and members of the US forces were in southern Mindanao building schools and helping improve the local infrastructure, no one protested about it because of our “constant low intensity guilt” over the fact that Filipinos never gave a hoot for Sulu and Tawi-Tawi because it’s “Moro country”.

We never expressed special concern for our Muslim brothers, so if some foreigners want to help, let them. But when the IED bombing happened, the Americans got blamed for getting killed while on the way to help construct a school building. 

Because of our island mentality our politicians were not aware that in the same month there was a simultaneous number of IED related attacks globally. That one incident that killed 2 US soldiers and a Filipino Marine was just a tiny bead in a global string of attacks that happened in the same period.

The terrorists in Mindanao have a clear agenda that the Nationalists in Metro Manila take for granted because it’s not happening in their backyard. The terrorists are not waging a war against US troops or our AFP per se. The battle is between education and ignorance.

The terrorists don’t want Filipino education, they want Islamic education. Because of this, the battle between education and ignorance is actually a “religious war”. This is the simple reason why the terrorists target teachers, principals, priests, pastors and missionary workers.

About seven years ago, I received a tip that a Muslim youth group in UP Diliman had been infiltrated by a terrorist. That small tip yielded information that a Middle Eastern individual had built up a foundation and a network of contacts that would build up “Islamic schools” all over Mindanao.

The school however turned out to be a recruitment machinery for impoverished young men who were led to convert from Catholics to Muslims which according to the claims of the “Middle Eastern operative” reached as much as one million converts over the years.

The “plan” was to build up an “Islamic population” so the Philippines could not prevent the ultimate creation of an “Islamic state” that would complete the chain in the region.          

That operative eventually graduated from recruitment to direct terrorist activities or funding such operations. He was tracked down in another continent where government troopers literally flattened the house with high caliber automatic gunfire.

That however will not stop the terrorists from kidnapping priests, it will not stop them from abducting women and children, nor will it stop them from taking people who are trying to help people regardless of race, religion, or sex.

The only thing that will stop terrorists is a determined force with a just cause. Right now, the only people who have consistently stopped that determined force and subverted that just cause are politicians and Metro Manila Nationalists with good intentions with an address in hell.

Unfortunately, the kidnappers, the terrorists, the victims, the soldiers of the AFP and even the US troops have lived, fought, bled, and have died in Mindanao.

Meanwhile the critics, the politicians and the so-called nationalists all live in comfort here in Metro Manila.