If the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is indeed coddling terrorists, based on hard intel evidence from Senior Superintendent Ricaredo Marasigan (Inquirer Feb. 5, page A6), a member of the 38-man SAF assault team, it is amazing why the Philippine government is even talking with them. If you coddle big-time terrorists, then you are yourself a terrorist. Why are we forging peace pacts with terrorists? They offer peace with one hand and a bullet in the other. The insincerity of the MILF in peace talks leaves an indelible mark on the irrelevance of peace talks.
The immediate decision from the very start without flinching should have been 1) scuttle the peace talks right away, 2) abrogate the BBL right away, 3) consider the MILF as a dangerous terrorist organization. The peace talks are triggering more wars, more massacres. Some say ‘give peace a chance’. The best way then is to forget peace talks which cause wars.
Marwan is a prize catch. He is a world-class Malaysian terrorist with a $6 million prize on his head, whose bombs have killed hundreds in Mindanao in the last few years. Now that DNA from his cut-off finger has proven he is dead, we should celebrate. Marwan’s deputy Usman, the other big fish who got away, and who has a $3 million prize on his head, has now no option but to go back to Malaysia, or suffer being hunted down.
Marasigan also gave intel evidence that the MILF and the BIFF are working together. Their combined forces of 1,009, in a lightning move, trapped the SAF assault team as soon as Marwan was killed. This was instant retaliation for the prize catch. Operation Wolverine to get Marwan and Usman was crafted as early as December 2014, and mobilized January 2015.
Former MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu himself admitted that the MILF will never surrender their arms, which is a precondition to the peace agreement. Without surrender of arms, there is no peace agreement. In the past, there have been media coverage of surrender of arms, but these were mostly rusty obsolete rifles just for show. As long as there are arms in the jungle, there will be no peace.
There were recent TV coverage of arms manufacturing plants of the MILF. The MILF is ‘over-armed’ to the teeth. They can surrender arms and make new ones later. A Catch 22 in peace talks is forging a deal with the MILF induces new splinters like the BIFF. As soon as the peace agreement was signed, the BIFF began its assaults. With MILF as a hidden partner, the vast implication is peace talks indeed induce wars. The latest news is a new war between MILFF and BIFF. First, is this true or is it staged for the media to dispel the notion of their partnership? Second, if it is true, then the peace agreement is now fomenting wars among Moro factions.
The second Catch 22 is the peace agreement provision that government troops have to tell the MILF (tantamount to asking ‘permission’) before they enter an MILF lair. This pre-empts any assault on terrorists being coddled by the MILF and BIFF. This is why the SAF never told the MILF about the assault, because they have intel data saying they are coddlers of known terrorists.
The peace talks are a never-ending PR circus. All presidents since World War II have been conducting peace talks because it is political suicide to have a war on your hands. Anything to delay, to momentarily stop these conflicts are good enough politically. So the attitude is to appease rebels who can black mail the government into any and all types of concessions, including the scandalous BBL provision that the Bangsamoro government has a right to put up its own army and police. This is tantamount to arming the enemy to kill you later. Peace talks which give arms are ridiculous.