DAVAO CITY—Peace organizations and other civic groups across Mindanao appealed for sobriety among Filipinos and the conduct of an impartial investigation in the aftermath of the annihilation of the elite police platoon in the bailiwick of Moro guerrillas in the central Mindanao province of Maguindanao.
But news debates among callers have also deepened following the disclosure that it was President Aquino who ordered the execution of what has been believed as a highly covert operation at the alleged instance of the US government to capture the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) high-value target.
A consortium of 20 civil-society organizations in Lanao del Sur and elsewhere in Central Mindanao issued a public statement on Wednesday calling for a halt on inciting violence “on uninformed positions.” “We reiterate our call for sobriety, especially for our policy-makers, pleading and imploring kind hearts not to derail nor halt the legislative hearing on Bangsamoro basic law [BBL] and to proactively pursue the road map for peace in Mindanao as the paramount agenda of our national government,” said the peace organizations calling themselves “the civil society of Lanao.”
The groups also urged self-restraint in posting and commenting “from uninformed positions in social media” as they also “asked media workers in the Philippines to practice peace journalism, stop further fomenting violence and hatred among populace and instead help lessen dissension, prejudices, and discrimination against Muslim brethren.”
In calling for an impartial investigation, they asked both panels of government and the MILF to “ensure inclusive stakeholder participation for peace in Maguindanao, including the traditional and interfaith leaders at the grassroots, to acknowledge their roles in building a community of peace and help discourage the entry of any terrorist in Mindanao.”
“We call for an impartial, collaborative, cooperative and inclusive investigation of the incident by the International Monitoring Team, the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities of both panels, the Adhoc Joint Action Group, human-rights groups and community traditional leaders to prevent the escalation of conflict and to provide policy recommendations that will improve the coordination mechanism, especially when serving warrant of arrest to suspected member of alleged terror group within the vicinity where there are presence of MILF, MNLF [Moro National Liberation Front] and BIFF [Bangsamoro Islamic Federation Front],” they said.