make peace, not war

in trying to grasp what’s been happening in zamboanga since monday, most overwhelming is the sense that we’re not getting enough information, we ‘re not getting hard facts, about this war raging anew between the AFP and the MNLF, and we are expected to simply trust that the president knows what he’s doing, and that what he’s doing will redound to the good of nation.

but how can war be good?  how can killings be good?  how can the suffering, the terror, of civilians caught in the crossfire, the evacuations, the burning of their homes, be good?  surely there were, are, ways of resolving the conflict other than by bloodshed.

the MNLF says it was government forces that fired the first shot.  if true, then what defense secretary gazmin means when he says that the MNLF started it must be in terms of the MNLF forces being armed, and suspected of sinister motives connected with leader nur misuari’s august declaration of bangsamoro independence, when they started gathering in those seaside barangays for a protest march the next day monday.

understandably, it must all have been perceived as an imminent MNLF attempt to take over those areas, which would establish it as still a force to be reckoned with, no matter how small, rather than as a spent force.  something that the aquino admin couldn’t allow, it is said, as it would be disruptive of the said-to-be nearly-concluded bangsamoro deal with the larger MILF.

and so it would seem that because the rebels were armed, government was justified in engaging them in a firefight, never mind that they were embedded among unarmed civilians, maybe some of them old friends and neighbors back in the old days in sulu, unfortunately all perceived as unwilling hostages by government?

i wonder how it started.  was there an attempt at communications first?  like, maybe, what’s this all about, let’s talk, walang armas armas,  but the rebels refused to talk or lay down their arms?  or did the AFP just start shooting because that was the order from on high?

five days later when the president flew to zamboanga himself, i thought we’d finally see a ceasefire.  alas, tila lalong nagkabanatan.  this, the day after benhur luy testified in the senate, made it easier to believe speculation that the zamboanga war was meant to distract from the pork barrel scam rocking imperial manila.  but another 3 days later, it seemed like the reverse was true: that the cases filed vs enrile revilla estrada et al in manila were meant to distract from the zamboanga war na naglevel-up na, air strikes na, grabe.

puwede namang nagkataon lang ang pagkakasabaysabay.  synchronicity.  meaning, magkasimbigat ang muslim mindanao problem at ang pork barrel problem.  the roots of the mindanao problem are poverty-related, the fruits of the pork barrel problem are poverty-related.  ang lahat ay kabitkabit.  as i’ve said in a previous blog:

the bangsamoro people deserve autonomy, but only as much autonomy as every other local government unit deserves and isn’t getting either in luzon, the visayas, and other parts of mindanao. poverty, along with landlessness and joblessness, is a nationwide affliction, and it is the fault not of the moros and other rural and urban poor who make up, what, maybe 70 %, maybe 80? of the population, rather it is the fault of imperial manila, of a central government that is loathe to share its considerable powers and resources with local governments, despite theLocal Government Code of 1991 that mandates decentralization, devolution, and autonomy, complete with implementing rules and regulations. 

re the current military operation vs the MNLF, this from tony la vina makes a lot of sense.

I was always uncomfortable with the dichotomy between the peace processes we have pursued in Mindanao. I have come to the conclusion that the bilateral approach to negotiations must be replaced by a quad or quintet approach so that everyone is brought to the same table, including the MNLF and other groups with legitimate interests (Lumads or indigenous peoples of Mindanao for example as well as local governments of affected areas).

for now, we beg that a ceasefire be declared and implemented, now na. please, mr. president, make peace, not war.

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p.s. to those in social media who are so quick to condemn nur misuari and the MNLF without any sense of the history of the bangsamoro struggle and government response over the decades, i beg you, magbasa muna, find the time, please, or forever keep your silence.

p.p.s. to nur misuari.  time to write a no-holds-barred memoir, but nothing hagiographic please.

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Faith

By Katrina S.S.

The task, to me at least, seems simple enough. We want to continue the fight against pork barrel. We find it in our hearts to come together, no matter our politics, our religious beliefs, our social class.

The latter of course, as it turns out, is the worst division there is, mostly because it is not something we like—or know— to talk about. Anyone who even had her eyes wide open at the August 26 rally would know that the class distinction of that gathering was about as stark as the white that the middle and upper classes decided to wear. And it was fantastic of course, to see this social class come out of their homes and spend a holiday in a park all the way in Manila with family and friends.

The greatness of each and every instance when the usually apathetic or apolitical go out to the streets is a measure of collective anger and disgust yes; but also it is about faith in collective action.

But no rally happens in a vacuum, and certainly there is no reason to imagine one rally grander than the other, or one kind of protest “new” versus the “old.” We are but the protests that we have been part of, but even more so the ones we ignore. The ones that happen without our hand in it, the ones that are constant and consistent, because these are premised on fundamental issues that have to do with governance and our rights as a people. Those rallies where countless are hurt by police who do not know what maximum tolerance means, or those rallies that don’t get permits because these threaten the powers-that-be. There were the rallies violently dispersed during Martial Law, if not at that last State of the Nation Address.

And yes there was Edsa 1986, as there was Edsa Dos in 2001, and Edsa Tres that same year. We don’t know what to think about second one even as we might have been there; we are scared of that third one just because it wasn’t “us.”

My tendency is to believe that there is value in these rallies, in each and every one, no matter that it’s a motley crew of faculty members dancing in the middle of the State University or thousands of people at a million people march, no matter that it’s an Edsa Shrine filled with people at a prayer vigil or a stage in Luneta that promises a program that includes prayers and speeches, and a rock and rage concert after it.

What matters is how these actions function as signals to government that we are not backing down from this fight against the pork barrel system. What matters is that this time around, activists and militants are not the only one screaming against a systemic dysfunction – which is actually what the disbursement of those pork barrel funds to congressmen and senators is about.

The PDAF and the pork barrel system are one and the same if we consider how these both abet patronage politics and palakasan and kampihan. Because Malacañang’s proposed “new way” of disbursing pork barrel funds to congressmen and senators still allows the fund to be used as the Presidential bargaining chip so he might get his way in Congress and the Senate. This is what we should be discussing at this point, but social class seems to be getting in the way.

Because while we bring to the idea of a rally our class and ideological limitations, our reactions to another’s rally, our preconceived notions about another’s protest action, also reveal exactly the biases that render us disunited.

Edsa Tayo had everything going against it. It called for an Edsa gathering on September 11, a day that people apparently so hate because it is Ferdinand Marcos’s birthday. I honestly think we should just erase it from our calendars, proving as we have that we’d rather not even do anything on this day. And then it wanted to gather at Edsa, which is also apparently a no-no because there is “stigma” attached to the space. Nothing organizer Junep Ocampo says has changed people’s minds, and I have a feeling that it’s because the Edsa Tayo rally has done this anti-pork rally so differently from August 26.

That is, they are not speaking in English, and they are obviously not of the middle to upper class mold. They also decided to push through with the September 11 date, and it seems like this is enough proof for people to think that they are nothing but pro-Marcos destabilizers.

Except that they aren’t. Edsa Tayo – like the August 26 rally – has revised what it said in the beginning, about occupying Edsa and staying there until the pork barrel is scrapped. Edsa Tayo has become a prayer vigil that has the support of the Edsa Shrine’s Rector Fr. Nilo Mangusad who will lead the mass. Edsa Tayo is but a small group of individuals that made a call on Facebook that the next anti-pork protest action be on Edsa. They spoke in Filipino. And they have been wrongly judged. By the time this piece comes out, the people behind Edsa Tayo will have proved the world wrong.

But people on this side of the world aren’t ones to admit mistakes, especially when there is a social media echo chamber that allows us to believe that we are correct about everything, that what we say – as long as enough people agree with us – is the only truth. It becomes easy as such to spread suspicions and make these into truths; it becomes easy to put up a Facebook status or write an opinion column, never mind that it is absolutely misinformed, if not turns upon its own ignorance – or arrogance.

Meanwhile, we let ourselves be used by government in its task of dividing and conquering its critics. And while we like to imagine that this only proves we are diverse, I think that ultimately this proves our lack of faith in others. We have no faith in the possibility that another group, another set of people, another individual, another organization will take this cause on. We have no faith in collective action, the kind that unseats dictators, yes. But also the kind that can demand for change and see it through.

You want to be suspicious? Start with government and its maneuverings and its spins. You want to continue this fight against the pork barrel system? Have a little more faith.

benhur in the senate

it’s great that benhur luy is such a credible witness and we’re hearing our suspicions confirmed, finally, about the ins and outs of the pork barrel scam, napoles-style, which could be the template of sorts of PDAF diversions by other legislators.  and this is why i’m quite unhappy that this is happening in the senate.  after all, many of the senators in attendance, even if they’ve not been named as napoles clients, benefactors, accomplices, whatever, but who have been in the legislature like forever (think upper and lower, think dynasty), are themselves under public suspicion of likewise enriching themselves in office via kickbacks, commissions, whatever, from their own PDAFs in the past.  nakakairita na nakukuha pa nilang magpatawa, like innocent babes.

to top it all, absent sina joker arroyo at ping lacson, the only senators who have refused their PDAFs all these years.  why kaya did they snub the proceedings? they don’t want to be part of the farce?

there’s so much else happening on the side, from the most silly (kris aquino taking the MRT and raving about a notoriously NOT user-friendly transport system, hello?) to the most serious (firefights in zamboanga, bangsamoro in crisis yet again), but let’s not be distracted by events such as these that are out of our hands.  unlike the scrapPork movement: this IS in our hands, we have a handle on it na, huwag tayo bibitaw.

whatever the distractions, let’s not drop the ball, let’s not lose momentum, let’s keep up the protests, in large crowds and small, in social media and mainstream, let’s drum it into the president and the supreme court, the senators and the congressmen, the DOJ and the NBI and the ombudswoman, that we are serious, we want all pork abolished, we want all, as in ALL, culpable ones (not just the napoles network) investigated, made to return plundered public monies, and made to pay for the betrayal of public trust.  we can do this!

EDSA UNO… the book, at the manila int’l book fair, sept 11-15

copies of EDSA UNO, A Narrative and Analysis with Notes on Dos & Tres (2013) are available in the booth of U.P. Press at the Manila International Book Fair, SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City 1300, September 11-15.  go get a copy, now na :))