The grand subterfuge called BBL
It is not only wishful thinking but downright naive for anyone to believe the Bangsamoro Basic Law that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front wants Noynoy Aquino to ram down the throats of all Filipinos is what it takes to attain peace in Mindanao. There will never be peace in Mindanao for as long as the thinking is that peace can be achieved through the barrel of a gun.
You strike a deal with the MILF now and you will have to contend with the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters later. You deal with the BIFF later and you will deal with yet another incipient group tentatively called the Justice Islamic Movement. There is never any end to the charade about peace because government is dealing with the wrong people since the beginning.
There is a reason why governments the world over do not deal with hijackers. Because if you deal with one hijacker, you will be dealing the rest of your life with all the future hijackers that will come later, all of them inspired by the first act of negotiation. The same thing with terrorists, kidnappers and all the other criminals who think they can get away with crime by negotiating their way out of their criminal liability.
It cannot be denied that government has been negligent about its responsibilities toward Muslim Mindanao. But that is the fault of the kind of political system we have allowed to develop out of our rapacious kind of democracy. We are too Manila-centric in our politics, to the point that a vast number of outlying regions in the country have been left out of the economic pie that is divided along political power lines.
But of all these neglected regions in the country, of which there are very many, it appears that only the Muslim areas are giving the government the kind of trouble it is giving. None of the other neglected regions have chosen to take up arms against the government. It is only in the Muslim areas that armed groups have sprouted to rebel against the government.
Yet a closer look at these armed groups will reveal that they are not exactly for the development of the neglected areas in Mindanao. Had calling attention to the neglect been the sole purpose of taking up arms against the government, all the violent acts of these groups would have been devoted solely to attacking government forces and installations.
But no, these groups are in the habit of waging random acts of terrorism against anyone. There are no distinctions between the targets. Anyone is fair game. And that exposes these groups as being nothing more than armed hooligans sowing fear as a means to make a name for themselves and boost their stock at any negotiating table that this government foolishly allows them to sit around.
Some groups like the Abu Sayyaf do not even have any qualms about the real nature of their being. They engage in outright kidnappings and demand ransom, never for once denying their true character nor pretending to be what they are not. In a way, the Abu Sayyaf is more truthful than the MILF, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front from which the MILF split.
The MNLF, MILF, BIFF and all its future spinoffs are all embarked on a grand subterfuge to fool the government. They all took up arms to rebel, using the rebellion to wrangle huge concessions and then pretend to talk peace to wrangle even more. The profession of robbery never had it so good, one gets away smelling of roses and a patina of respectability that comes with sitting on the table with government.
Everybody wants peace. Yes. But it has to be an honorable peace. It has to be a just and justifiable peace. It has to be a fair peace. The one thing that this kind of peace is not is the peace that the MILF and Noynoy Aquino pretend the BBL will bring. Just look at how Noynoy Aquino describes the BBL -- "if you are not for it, you are against peace." Now what kind of a peace will ensue from such an idiotic statement as that.
There will be no peace in Mindanao even if the government hands the BBL to the MILF on a silver platter. Forget about Mamasapano. I have purposely omitted discussing that incident here. Even if Mamasapano did not happen, it is still very clear that the BBL is only for the benefit of the MILF and anybody who thinks otherwise will be proven wrong as they have been proven wrong in electing Noynoy Aquino president.
All the billions upon billions of pesos that will come with the BBL, billions upon billions that should have gone to the other neglected regions that did not take up arms against government, billions upon billions that should have gone to rehabilitate the Yolanda-stricken areas, all of these will go to the MILF in order to strengthen its own self. It will not go to Muslim Mindanao because a fully developed Muslim Mindanao will only erode its terroristic stranglehold of that place.
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