Spite

Why have we been brought down to this level?

Last Thursday, nearly two weeks after the massacre, acting PNP chief Leonardo Espina publicly asked the MILF to return the arms stripped from the dead SAF troopers. Imagine your neighborhood policeman walking about with a megaphone asking the bad elements to please return the firearm stolen from him. Such a scene would be absurd.

How do we recover valuable government property from bandits who could use them to do more banditry?

In normal circumstances, a police force would be assembled to perform the recovery – with overwhelming superiority if necessary. You can take toys from children, but you cannot take guns from bandits.

These are obviously abnormal circumstances. We are pleading with bandits. We are deferential to murderers. We weep for the return of lost guns instead of sallying forth bravely to capture the perpetrators of an act of barbarity.

It is unlikely the MILF will be impressed by Espina’s pleading. Over the last few years, government pandered to the rebel group’s every whim in the name of peace. Our negotiators basically allowed the MILF to write the “basic law” according to their preferences, courting unconstitutionality. Our own president flew to Japan to meet the leaders of the MILF and even hand them some money.

In a word, we negotiated from weakness. Our peace panel thought that by appeasing the MILF’s every whim, the way could be paved towards some workable modus vivendi. That was a wrong assumption. All this approach produced was a murderous brat. Mamasapano teaches us this.

If one warrior grovels before another, he does not win respect. He harvests spite.

Spite was what we saw in abundance that tragic day in Mamasapano. After the first burst of gunfire, the Moro fighters should have known who they were confronting. Yet they proceeded to mow them down, kill them to the last man. That is spite, the sort one warrior reserves for the other who grovels.

They walked over to the wounded and finished them off cold-bloodedly. Then they stripped the dead of anything that was of value.

We heard of hardened criminals cutting off fingers to steal rings. This is the same thing writ large. One might surmise that the SAF troopers were annihilated precisely for their enviable arms.

It is therefore doubtful we will get those armaments back. We will have to take them back in the same way they were taken from us. That appears to be the operative rules of the game.

It will not be easy to win back respect from our adversaries, not with the demeanor of our government.

Immediately after the massacre, the administration spin assigned no culpability on the MILF. Instead, the spin pushed for the immediate passage of the “basic law” the MILF wanted. Instead of seeking accountability from the MILF, peace panel chair Ging Deles parroted the MILF line that described the event as a “mis-encounter.”

Dead commandos are what we reap from this strange preference to negotiate from a position of spiteful weakness.

Waterless

Petty leadership driven by petty motives is the bane of our time, bringing misery to the masses.

Right now, the people of Butuan City suffer from water shortages. The most immediate cause, it appears, was the theft of the metal cover of one of the water-collecting manholes of the Butuan City Water District (BTWD). That loss resulted in silt and other debris from the flooded Taguibo River clogged the collection and transmission pipes that delivered water to the residents. The entire system has now bogged down.

It might not be a simple case of theft that now brings misery to a whole city. The Butuanons suspect sabotage.

BCWD has been encountering all sorts of troubles from city officials since it entered into a PPP arrangement with Taguibo Aquatech Solutions Corp. The partnership  was for a bulk water project that would bring sufficient and high quality supplies to this water-starved city. The project would require no investment from the city and will likely bring down water costs for the residents.

City mayor Edmundo Amante Jr. and his brother Councilor Sonny Amante, however, seem bent on scuttling the project and awarding the bulk water deal to Abejo Waters of Cebu. The vice-mayor, Angelo Calo, for his part, prefers the project to be done by a group of South Korean investors. Another councilor, Serge Pascual, has been ceaselessly attacking the project since he lost his own bid for it in 2011.

With so many local officials angling for a piece of the project, one could imagine the tangle the local water district finds itself in.

Because of political interference, the bulk water project, agreed upon back in 2011, only recently started groundwork. Had it started on time, there should have been ample, clean and cheaper water for the city residents by this time say officials of the water district. Instead the city now finds itself waterless.

In the face of continued efforts of some local officials to grab the project for themselves, it is not likely the city’s water miseries will be relieved soon. The residents are crying for help to get their water district out of political entrapment so that it could deliver the water so desperately needed.

But who will come to the rescue of the Butuanons? Who will order the local officials to respect the independence of the water district and uphold the bidding done three years ago?

Our national officials seem mired in crisis, fighting for their own political survival in the face of an unlikely turn of events.