Maybe Eid Kabalu has a crush on Angelina Jolie

Eid Kabalu, the spokesman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which the Philippine government wants the United States to brand as a terrorist organization, is in the news again because he wants American actress Angelina Jolie to mediate the conflict in war-torn Mindanao.

Kabalu, who probably gets an erection each time he sees his name in print, has recently been hard-pressed getting a good press, thanks to his band of ruthless killers who kill innocent civilians in an orgy of pillaging and torching villages.

So what more effective ploy than to latch on to the star appeal of Jolie? My only concern is if Jolie bites and actually comes over, deluded into feelings of great importance by that incongruos appellation called United Nations ambassador of goodwill to a world at war.

I am concerned because there is a very thin line that separates genius and stupidity, madness and naivete. It is not beyond Jolie to come, even if the issue is beyond any of her capacities of resolve, both personally and officially.

I also sincerely wish she wouldn't come, not because of the futility of it all, but also because of the danger her coming would pose, not only to herself but also to the Republic of the Philippines. After all, Eid Kabalu is not beyond a little mischief. And more so the MILF. 

When I was a young boy growing up in Cebu, I would occasionally hear Moros being described as traitors. It was good I did not understand what the word traitor meant at the time. Had I known, it probably would have defined my attitude toward the Moros forever.

Now I am a grown man and I have come to fully understand what the word traitor means. I must admit, though, that looking back at my childhood, and the world as I see it today, I still have to make up my mind about the description as it applies to Moros in the Philippines.

A part of me says the description is unfair. Treachery, after all, is more of an individual trait than a sweeping characteristic of an entire people. But another part of me has seen so many individual examples of treachery among Moros that I begin to doubt my own doubts.

Let me take a very recent example, one that has been published in the news. According to this story, Kabalu -- yes the same Kabalu at the beginning of this piece -- has identified North Cotabato Vice Governor Manny Pinol as the one person that Moros hate the most.

At first I thought, well, maybe. After all, who was I to judge the preferences of the Moros. But as I read on, I discovered that the Moros were not asked who they hated the most from their own memory.

The news report said Kabalu gave the Moro respondents a list of 10 people and asked who among the 10 they hated the most. Under such circumstances, having Pinol end up being the most hated person by Moros is neither factual, credible or fair. It is nothing more than incidental.

It was in fact a treacherous manipulation. You do not produce the man most hated by Moros from a list of only 10 people, in the same way that you cannot determine the most loved Moro from a list of the same number, even if you have to include the name of Eid Kabalu.

So Angelina Jolie beware. Do not come. You risk getting kidnapped and being held hostage for use as a leverage in a war conveniently labelled as about ancestral domain but in reality is nothing more than a turf war among the Moros themselves, at the expense of all Filipinos.

On the other hand, there is really no telling that, for all our suspicions, Eid Kabalu merely has a crush on Angelina Jolie. Who knows? Just as the heart can be very forthright, it can also be very cunning and deceptive. War and love, after all, make for a very good mix.