There’s a saying among Christians and non-Muslims in Mindanao that if you give your hand to most Moros, they will want the whole arm.

President Gloria thought that by conceding part of Mindanao to these types, they would throw away their guns to live in peace.

The President, who’s part Mindanawon, should have known that appeasement would be taken as a sign of weakness.

Most Moros love war. Independence is just their excuse for waging war.

Give them Mindanao and they would want to have Luzon and the Visayas as well.

Fighting them would stop their insatiable appetite.

No, they should not only be fought, they should be crushed!

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Ang langaw na nakatungtong sa likod ng kalabaw, mataas pa sa kalabaw (The fly perched on the carabao’s back stands taller than the carabao) – Filipino saying.

The saying applies to a Pinoy who is more arrogant than the person(s) he works for.

An example is a lowly barangay tanod (village guard) appointed by the barangay captain to protect his fellow villagers, but abuses whatever little power he has.

Some of the Filipino staff at the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Embassy in Manila are other examples of the langaw on the carabao’s back.

The Filipinos at the embassy are the subject of complaints by fellow compatriots who apply for working visas to that small Pacific island.

“They are disrespectful and without manners,” said Celia Nuñez, describing the Filipino staff at the PNG Embassy.

Nuñez is one of several Filipino entrepreneurs in the Pacific island who deal with the embassy in obtaining visas for Pinoys to be employed in her business in Papua New Guinea.

I wonder if the arrogance and ill manners of these people were acquired at the workplace.

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My friend, businessman Simon L. Paz, had just come out of the Japanese restaurant inside the Dusit Hotel in Makati and was waiting for his car at the hotel entrance when he was attacked by several armed men.

One of his attackers pistolwhipped Paz in the head, causing a fracture and sending him to the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital.

Paz has no known enemy. In the many years that we’ve been friends, I know Simon to be a peace-loving man.

The security people at the hotel didn’t arrest Simon’s attackers even as he sought refuge in the lobby of the establishment.

My own investigation revealed that Simon’s attackers were allegedly bodyguards of a national official.