EDITORIAL – Remembering the SAF 44

A month before the 10th anniversary of the killing of 44 police commandos in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, two rebel commanders linked to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were convicted of 34 counts of homicide and sentenced to up to 14 years in prison for each count.

The Taguig City Regional Trial Court Branch 153, in a decision promulgated on Dec. 16 last year, found Abubakar Guiaman, alias Commander Refy, and Mohammad Ali Tambako guilty in what was initially dubbed as the Mamasapano massacre.

While lauding the conviction, relatives of the 44 Special Action Force commandos who were slain on Jan. 25, 2015 in the town of Mamasapano are still waiting for full justice. Will they wait another 10 years or more before this is attained? Will they be waiting in vain?

The SAF commandos were hunting down top Islamist terrorists Zulkifli Abdhir, alias Marwan, and Abdul Basit Usman in the village of Tukanalipao when they came under heavy fire from combined forces of the MILF and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. Apart from the 44 SAF commandos, the firefight left 18 MILF and five BIFF gunmen dead. The operation, code-named Exodus, neutralized Marwan.

In the years after Mamasapano, the government forged a formal peace agreement with the MILF and created the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, replacing the ARMM that arose from the peace initiatives with the original Islamic separatist group, the Moro National Liberation Front. The MILF has played a key role in the BARMM government, with the first parliamentary elections to be held this May.

Peace in the Bangsamoro remains fragile. Just days before the 10th anniversary of the Mamasapano encounter was marked, two soldiers and two other people were killed and 12 soldiers wounded in an ambush in Basilan staged reportedly by members of the MILF’s 114th Base Command. The soldiers were escorting a United Nations Development Program team that was working on a program related to fostering peace, in Barangay Lower Cabengbeng in Sumisip. After the attack, the MILF members reportedly burned an Army truck and posted a video of their handiwork on Facebook.

The military says the soldiers’ presence in the barangay had been coordinated with the MILF. The MILF says there was no such coordination or there was poor communication. Even if there was no communication, what might justify a lethal attack on the security escorts of a UNDP team? Some quarters have blamed the attack on peace spoilers. The MILF has launched a probe. Justice must be served faster and more decisively than in the Mamasapano case. Peace is made stronger by justice.