Reds to Duterte: ‘Form Own Probe Body, 
Don’t Allow AFP to Manipulate You’

By Carlos H. Conde
Bulatlat.com

DAVAO CITY – The National Democratic Front in Mindanao urged Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte yesterday not to rely solely on information, including so-called intelligence reports, being fed him by the military and the police. Instead, the communists said, Duterte should conduct his own investigation into the airport bombing last Tuesday that killed more than 20 people.

At the same time, the NDF said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has a standing “tactical alliance” with the New People’s Army, “will not just be a sitting duck” if Duterte makes good on his declaration of war against the MILF and the other revolutionary movements. “If he includes us as targets, that would be too bad because we cannot allow anybody to attack the movement without paying the price,” said Ka (Comrade) Oris, the NDF’s spokesman for Mindanao, in a phone interview yesterday.

In a highly-charged speech on Thursday, Duterte practically declared war against the MILF as well as anybody who, he said, opposes government. “We will arrest anybody opposing government, fighting government. I do not now consider them rebels because that is a very noble crime. But when you explode a bomb, when you kill young men young women, children, bullshit, how can I categorize you a rebel?” the mayor said.

But Ka Oris said that “although most of what (Duterte) has said so far are mere rhetoric, we are urging him not to lose his cool, to remain level-headed. Otherwise, dali ra siya masulod sa bulsa sa militar (he can be easily manipulated by the military).”

Ka Oris warned Duterte that relying too much on information from the military and the police regarding the airport bombing would be the mayor’s undoing. “He has to keep in mind that the armed forces is as much as suspect in this violence as the Abu Sayyaf,” he said.

AFP gameplan

According to Ka Oris, the airport bombing as well as the previous bombings in other areas of Mindanao are “part of the gameplan of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines)” to expand the scope of the Balikatan exercises to include mainland Mindanao. This, he added, will also facilitate a more direct U.S. intervention in purely internal affairs of the country.

Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal, the spokesman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), said on Thursday that “the objective of all this is to create an atmosphere both in the U.S. and the  Philippines favorable to the deployment of U.S. combat troops to fight in the Philippines… not so much because they want to crush the bandit group, but rather because it is a test to determine how they will justify the deployment of troops against the NPA and MILF, which are, in fact, their real targets."

The U.S. and the Philippines had planned to send at least 1,700 U.S. troops in Jolo to combats the 200 or so Abu Sayyaf bandits thought to be hiding on the island. Pentagon claims that the Abu Syyaf has links with Al Qaeda. The plan, however, was put on hold after an outcry over the U.S.’s insistence that the troops be put on combat, not merely on training exercises. Because of the political backlash, Reyes floated the idea of a possible transfer of venue for Balikatan 03-1. (At least three provincial governors have expressed willingness to host the Balikatan 03-1 if Jolo became untenable.)

It was around this time that Abu Sayyaf leader Hamsiraji Sali announced that they would be moving their operations to mainland Mindanao. There, he said, they planned to bomb power lines and structures in order to cripple the economy. Soon enough, power facilities were bombed one after the other.

Military asset

Sali’s group has claimed responsibility for the Davao bombing, as well as the airport bombing in Cotabato City last Feb. 20 that killed one woman and burned a row of establishments beside the airport in that city.

Although Abu Sayyaf started out as a fundamentalist group, it is widely acknowledged – even by people in the military and the police – that it had been infiltrated by government agents, causing the group’s degeneration into kidnapping and banditry. At the height of its kidnapping spree in the late ‘90s and in 2000-2001, there were accusations that people in government had influence in, or even control over, the group. The government’s failure to crush the bandits only bolstered this accusation.

Sali himself is widely thought of as an asset by the military. “His actuations are strange and I can only conclude that he is a military asset,” said a retired Army major in Mindanao.

In August last year, Sali was reported to have had a meeting with Col. Ralph Villanueva, head of the Army’s intelligence service. The military said at the time that they were negotiating for Sali’s surrender but Sali told journalist Arlyn dela Cruz, who wrote about the Basilan meeting in the Inquirer, that he was merely trying to help the government “keep the peace” in Basilan.

Questions later surfaced why Sali, who is supposed to be one of the most wanted men in the Philippines who has a reward on his head, could meet and talk to top military officials and then walk away just like that.

On Thursday, CPP spokesman Rosal said “the whole thing (the airport bombing) is a bloody hoax with callous disregard for the loss of life and  limb.” The supposed admission of Sali, he added, “is part of the AFP script, to make it appear that the MILF and the NPA are in league with the Abu Sayyaf and involved in the Davao bombing and other terrorist actions in Mindanao.”

Meanwhile, Ka Oris said “Davao City was the last bulwark of peace in Mindanao, so it was a perfect target for saboteurs. This will anger people like Duterte and when he is angry and emotional, he can be easily manipulated.”

Manipulated

Already, he added, “Duterte has suddenly reversed his position not to allow U.S. troops in Mindanao. And on the basis of what? The AFP’s information. Duterte is not part of this gameplan so clearly he has been manipulated.  He should be aware of this.”

Ka Oris urged Duterte to steer clear of Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes. “Remember, it was Reyes who masterminded the all-out war in 2000. He is capable of doing the worst against the Moros. Duterte has to keep in mind that when a series of bombings occurred in Mindanao years ago, it was also the time that Reyes was AFP chief of staff,” he said.

The NDF spokesman said they are not challenging Duterte to make good on his threat of war against the MILF and other revolutionaries “but we encourage him to be more fair-minded and conduct his own investigation. He should be able to come up with solid findings, unlike what they did in this case when the smoke had not even cleared but they already insisted it was the MILF.”

Duterte, Ka Oris went on, “should not jump to conclusions. He should not just round up people without evidence.” If he goes on with this, he said, the mayor would be igniting backlash from the Moros and this will result in more violence. “What he is doing is an extension of the Christian chauvinism that has characterized the Christians’ attitudes toward the Muslims in Mindanao for ages,” he said.

The mayor, he said, “should be careful because the Moro people have been hurt so much. While we mourn the loss of lives at the airport bombing, we should also remind Duterte that the Moros have been in pain for a long time now” and that behavior like what the mayor is displaying “only serves to prolong that pain.” Bulatlat.com

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