More fighting happening in Mindanao

Is Mindanao burning? It's the 17th day of the Zamboanga siege and despite the pronouncements by Malacañang; the rebels are still there. The Armed Forces of the Philippines says that the MNLF are holed out and literally surrounded, but then that was what they were telling us a week ago. So now that Pres. Benigno "PNoy" Aquino, III has left Zamboanga City after staying there for five days…the fighting is still not over.

Sure, flights may have resumed in Zamboanga, but as we already wrote, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines should never have stopped those flights in the first place. It was a monumental error for CAAP to do so. When the Zamboanga siege will end is still up in the air. Meanwhile, there were again new sightings of MNLF fighters along the coast of Zamboanga in Barangay Talon Talong where Commander Allya an official of Habir Malik was captured. So unless Pres. PNoy sits down with Nur Misuari to effect a ceasefire…this siege will never end.

While the Zamboanga incident is far from over another flashpoint has erupted, this time it happened in Midsayap, North Cotabato where some 300 heavily-armed fighters from the Bang-samoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) attacked five barangays there. The BIFF is against the peace talks between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front. These rebels took 15 hostages including four teachers from the Barangay Pulumugen Elementary School. The rest were farmers.

According to Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the 6th Infantry Division, one of the farmers was beheaded, while four rebels were killed in an encounter. To add to the troubles of the AFP, yesterday elements of the BIFF attacked the Del Monte Packing Plant in Tulunan, North Cotabato. As of this writing the fighting is still going on.

It is time for us to reflect…when Pres. Benigno "PNoy" Aquino III signed that Peace Deal with the MNLF in Malacañang Palace, it did not take long for the MNLF… and now the BIFF to go to war. In short, the Aquino's Peace Process is a total failure…and that's because his political advisers…many of them belonging to leftist groups promoted their own agenda…the agenda of the Communist Party of the Philippines that the Year 2013 is the year for the CPP to gain historic momentum.

Meanwhile the sporadic attacks by the New People's Army have been happening also in parts of Mindanao, where in Compostela Valley the NPA's even used Improvised Explosive Devices. So now let's look into the pork barrel of the leftist groups like Bayan, Gabriela, Anakbayan that have Partylist Representation in Congress…because part of their pork barrel may have been used to buy arms, ammunition and IEDs. How come there is no NBI investigation into this?

At this point…we'd like to know from the Aquino Regime if they can still handle the situation. Right now the Department of Justice is preparing criminal charges against Nur Misuari for what happened in Zamboanga. But what about the BIFF? I didn't hear much about this group…whether they are allies of MNLF or MILF?

Above all, we should be wary of that hostage incident in Nairobi, Kenya, where Al Shabab rebels took hostages inside a shopping mall. Sixty hostages have already been killed in four days. This should put us all on heightened alert. I just hope our security forces are still able to handle the various flashpoints in this country.

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I was watching the media circus that was the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chaired by Sen. T.G. Guingona, who over live TV, got mad at Department of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima for not bringing to the on-going Senate investigation the whistleblowers that she said that she would allow to be heard in the Senate. Her reason was…this case falls under the Office of the Ombudsman and therefore the Senate has to ask the Ombudsman for them to appear before the Senate.

A fuming Sen. Guingona used the case of AFP comptroller Gen. Carlos Garcia who appeared before the Senate hearing even if his case was under the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman…and therefore he issued a subpoena for the whistleblowers to appear before the Senate tomorrow.

Now is the time to ask ourselves…what is going on here? Why all of a sudden are we seeing the DOJ Secretary becoming uncooperative with the Senate investigation? I reckon Sec. De Lima is sensing that those whistleblowers may have the beans on administration lawmakers and it could blow the entire investigation sky high and she is trying to do damage control.

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