Ex-AFP chiefs pushing peace

COLORS OF PEACE A woman peeks from a row of mannequins garbed in the happy colors of the hijab inside a stall at the Barter Trade Center in Cotabato City. The center is known for selling locally handwoven fabrics as well as textiles imported from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand in colors that might as well be the colors of peace when it dawns on Mindanao. REM ZAMORA

MANILA, Philippines–They are warriors who, in two separate venues and by happenstance, joined sober voices calling for peace, not war, during a forum on Thursday, the 39th day since the Mamasapano fiasco.

During the gathering sponsored by academics and international agencies, President Aquino was urged to show statesmanship and acknowledge responsibility for the botched raid that led to the slaughter of 44 police commandos in Maguindanao province on Jan. 25.

“Unfortunately what has been lost in Mamasapano was the trust in the presidency,” said Sedfrey Candelaria, dean of Ateneo Law School. “It takes a lot of humility on the part of the presidency to once and for all say that ‘I am accountable as the Commander in Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Philippines.’”

“If only to save the peace process perhaps we should think as a nation to help the President walk through this process. It’s very difficult, but if we go through it perhaps that is the tipping point we are waiting for,” Candelaria said.

Coincidentally, also on Thursday, a young Special Action Force (SAF) commando who took part in the Mamasapano operation that neutralized Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias “Marwan,” posted an online petition asking people to support the peace process and abandon “demands for an all-out war.”

Retired generals Rodolfo Biazon and Emmanuel Bautista, who both served as chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, made a similar plea for peace during the peace forum in Makati City.

In sum, these three men said that those calling for war in the aftermath of Mamasapano did not know what it was like to see blood spilled, to live in fear.

The SAF trooper, who used the pseudonym “Jason Navarro,” uploaded his petition on the global online platform, Change.org, at 7 a.m. By 5 p.m., the petition had 335 supporters.

“I lost 44 of my comrades and was wounded in battle. I will carry physical and emotional scars for life. Even so, I grieve to hear demands for ‘all-out war.’ For I, too, am a child of Mindanao. In childhood, I watched the flight of thousands of people from nearby towns. Entire families desperately seeking safe haven, war having obliterated their communities,” Navarro said.

Mothers, children

“I wrote this petition to give voice to the many who share my belief in peace. I write for the countless mothers who have seen offspring sacrificed to war. No mother wants to see her child with a gun, not even when their husbands are warriors. Mothers and children suffer the most. No prize, no victory will ease their pain. War does not distinguish among faiths. War snuffs out lives—Filipino lives,” he added.

As the saber-rattling in Manila became more pronounced in the Senate investigation, the media, and on Facebook, the commando said the villagers he saw in the cornfields on Jan. 25 filled his mind—the women and children fleeing for their lives.

“I couldn’t forget their worried faces. There was a mother pulling a carabao with a wagon where her children sat with their belongings,” the commando said. He initiated the petition, addressed to the government, because “it is them, the women and children, whom I want to protect.”

Scared of war

At the forum, Bautista was introduced by Biazon as the “son of a general who was killed while pursuing peace.”

“I was 37 years old when I was fighting in Jolo together with the father of General Bautista. Now I am 80, and the reason for which General Bautista’s father died is still the problem we have to address,” Biazon said.

“It is going to be a very difficult one but we cannot abandon the search for peace. We cannot drop the Bangsamoro Basic Law. I am scared of the possibility of the collapse of the peace process,” Biazon said. “I am scared of war.”

‘Peace ultimate justice’

Brig. Gen. Teodulfo Bautista and 33 other officers and men were gunned down by Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels in Patikul on Oct. 10, 1977, when they arrived unarmed for a meeting with MNLF leader Usman Sali to talk about a ceasefire.

The younger Bautista was then a cadet at the Philippine Military Academy.

Bautista admitted that he had also thought of avenging his father’s death, that he was overcome by anger and rage. “But later on, you come to realize that what kind of justice would you want to achieve? My father had advocated peace. What was the purpose of him giving up his life? Should I turn my back on that and perpetuate conflict?” Bautista told reporters.

At the forum, he said “justice is served when we give peace. Peace is the ultimate justice we can get.”

Inclusive charter

Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy president Amina Rasul-Bernardo said that as the peace process moved along in the past four years, “everyone thought we were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“We didn’t know it was [instead] a train,” Bernardo said.

Almost all the speakers said the passage of a good Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) should be the next step to attain peace.

“It is not a cure-all to all the problems in Mindanao but it will create the conditions, the prospects of peace and prosperity if we have a representative and inclusive BBL,” said Sen. Sonny Angara.

Successful mission

Abhoud Syed Lingga, an MILF peace negotiator, said that part of moving on was the acceptance that the SAF had a successful mission, that of taking down international terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias “Marwan.”

“We were drowned in the issue of what led to the deaths. We should disaggregate the issue and then we can move forward,” Lingga said, stressing that he was speaking as an academic and not as an MILF negotiator.

Lingga said that the Bangsamoro people, and not just the MILF, continued to support the peace process and the passage of the BBL.

“Although the BBL [aims] to devolve [certain powers] to the Bangsamoro region, it will not lead to dismemberment of the Philippines. Moros are Filipino citizens and the Bangsamoro region will even strengthen the central government,” Lingga said.

Stop finger-pointing

Misamis Occidental Rep. Henry Oaminal, vice chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on the BBL, said everyone should “refocus” on the BBL and “calm the emotions” in the aftermath of the Mamasapano tragedy.

“We should minimize the finger-pointing,” he said. Calling for justice for the deaths of all those who were killed in Mamasapano was right, he added, “to make sure that what happened will not happen again.”

“But the passage of the BBL remains very important,” Oaminal said, adding that there would certainly be amendments “but not a watered down law.”

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