The scene starts with a uniformed soldier lying on his back on a grassy ground, his legs spread apart, his arms on his chest. He was still very much alive.
The video shows the soldier shot repeatedly in the head at close range with a .45-caliber pistol, his legs and whole body shaking while receiving the bullets.
The victim was wearing the jungle fatigue uniform of the Special Action Force (SAF), commando unit of the Philippine National Police (PNP).
In scenes from the video, apparently shot from a cell-phone camera, were taken by someone beside the guy wielding the pistol.
The camera then records other scenes of other SAF commandos lying on the ground being looted of their guns and equipment and stripped of their uniforms.
Shots from automatic rifles could be heard in the background. Apparently, other injured commandos were still being shot at close range.
Voices of persons speaking in the Maguindanao and Maranaw dialects can be heard in the background.
The recorded incident of violence and mayhem is sickening, especially so since the scene was shot in the cornfields of Mamasapano in Maguindanao province and uploaded on Facebook either by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) or Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF)!
What was the purpose for uploading the video on social media? Obviously to brag about the victory of the Moro rebels over the 44 SAF commandos.
Let our President, who still wants to continue to sit down for peace talks despite the massacre of government troops in Mamasapano, see the video.
Let Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Deles, avid defender of the peace process, also watch it.
* * *
My heart went out to Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina, PNP officer-in-charge, yesterday when he cried before the cameras over the atrocities committed on his men in that video.
He was like a father who saw how his children died at the hands of ruthless criminals.
Begging the indulgence of the readers, let me recount what my father, Ramon Sr., told me about his exploits as a young officer of the defunct Philippine Constabulary (PC) in Sulu.
He said his order to each of his men before they went on patrol was to save ammunition for themselves if they were about to be overrun by Moro outlaws in a firefight.
That spare ammo would be used to shoot themselves so they would not suffer the indignity of begging for their lives while they are being mutilated alive.
Mutilating their fallen enemies is the norm among Moro outlaws, according to my father, who was in Sulu during the Kamlon years in the late 1940s up to the 1950s.
Kamlon led a band of Moro outlaws who gave government soldiers hunting him down a hard time until his surrender.
* * *
Whoever uploaded that video made a very, very big mistake.
The public outrage as a result of that video would be enormous given the general sentiment over the deaths of the 44 SAF commandos.
Members of Congress who will insist in pushing through with the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law at this time could be lynched—figuratively and literally.
It would be better for President Noy to keep silent about the peace process with the MILF until the storm blows over.
It would be better for Secretary Deles to stop defending the MILF while the storm blows hard—she might be lynched if she doesn’t.
* * *
The current joke is that Gen. Pio Catapang, Armed Forces chief of staff, has changed his name to Caduwag.
“Duwag” is a Tagalog term for coward. It’s a play on words using his surname, Catapang, the last two syllables (“tapang”) meaning brave.
It looks like Catapang’s soldiers didn’t come to the aid of the beleaguered 44 SAF commandos, resulting in their massacre.