IT was 200 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) versus 40 of our soldiers in an ambush of an outpost, hampered by the civilians in their midst; 19 of our soldiers were killed, six went missing. Now we know 25 are dead.
The six were killed in captivity, like the Marines who were captured and castrated two years ago, screaming their suffering into microphones held by the MILF to their mouths, so their agony would carry far.
Their Commander in Chief, our President, reacted by castigating the survivors and the dead. Hadn’t they learned from the past? he said.
Pray what lesson was it they failed to learn?
That we have been at peace with those who are at war with us?
That is why, against the laws of war, our soldiers are repeatedly ambushed, tortured and killed in a time of truce.
That is why our enemies can amass to outnumber our troops, because we dare not watch them gather.
We keep telling our soldiers to stand easy, relax; do nothing to upset our enemies. No wonder our soldiers are sitting ducks.
That is the reason why, against the laws of nature, our soldiers are told that they may fight back only when they are already under attack but not before. They are never to take the fight to the enemy when they have recovered. The wounded soldiers are begging to be taken back to the place of their comrades’ carnage for redemption and revenge.
Pray what lesson might that be?
That there is a part of Philippine territory that is no longer our own; that there is a part of our land where our soldiers cannot roam, without becoming invaders of their own home? They hadn’t even entered the “forbidden zone” where the MILF hides its assassins.
Or is the lesson what a member of the government panel of negotiators said—that the massacre of our soldiers, and the subsequent torture and execution of those who were not lucky to die, is the price our soldiers must pay for not reading her book on the Muslim insurgency? But that book is still in the original Arabic and has not been translated by a Tokyo Rose. Or shall we update her name to Pashmina Petunia aka Code NGO?
Another member of the government peace panel said the ambush was an isolated incident. This was followed by another ambush where scores more soldiers were wounded or killed.
Pray tell, isolated to what? To wherever the MILF happens at the moment to be killing our soldiers? The very places where they hide the assassins excluded from the peace talks, along with our legitimate Armed Forces.
The Commander in Chief of the slain soldiers has underscored, with anger etched in his face, even as the wounded writhe in pain and widows and orphans weep: That we shall never fight back, that the peace we proclaim and the other side disdains, shall never be sacrificed for the war that is already upon us—even if war is the price of a just and lasting peace.
What a message to send to the world, not to mention our expanding neighbor next door: That we shall never fight, on the beaches or in the hills, but we shall, as we did during the Japanese invasion, surrender and collaborate, but this time swiftly and without putting up a fight at all. A prince of capitulation, heir apparent of appeasement, a sovereign of surrender and the farthest thing from a commander.
Ours is no longer an army of men but of fish in a barrel for our armed enemies to shoot at will.
