BLOGSHOT: One more, for a year-ender, on the Maguindanao massacre

Let’s admit it, the MILF is a goner, thanks to the ravages of peace. It has no mettle in the face of the return to power of warlord politics.



I should think it was both spontaneous and also method (as in method to madness and madness to method). You never know who is client to whom. But for sure it is a parasitically reciprocal relationship between Maguindanao and Malacanang. I’m sure Malacanang knew all along about the ever increasing bodycount going on there on both sides of the clan war and we knew all along why the evacuees could not go back to their homes: it has little to do with the anti-terrorist military operations or the AFP-MILF battles. The warlords and business have so much to gain if people cleared out of there. And I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the evacuees in Maguindanao had “sold” their lands altogether to the ruling families there. I myself did find it incredulous at first, preposterous, the idea that many of the evacuees are more keen on sending their daughters abroad to work as domestic servants in the Middle East and live off that rather than go back to the warlords’ domain. The hope is, if their daughters’ indentured labor pay off enough, they will find a new place in another town or province to eke a living in. The reason why I don’t like all this drama over the plight of the evacuees in Maguindanao is that most of it is yes, Lila, bathos, sentimentalism. I sometimes suspect it is very diversionary, you know, like the soap operas at ABS-CBN, it keeps attention away from the maneuverings going on in high places, and also in low places (if we think of the little fiefdoms in Maguindanao as low places). This is also the reason why I’m not so fond of this lobbying thing aka advocacy work, all this paternalistic welfarist politics. Why take to task a government that is up there in power only for itself. It is such a waste of political energy. I mean, NGOs and Church organizations, especially those with good track record in grassroots organizing, should leave charity and mercy work to DSWD and to Jaycees and do some really solid self-organizing work. That which will make people see their condition and do something rather than stretch their hands out longer and longer for more and more dole-outs. I’m sure everyone is entitled to and would choose a little dignity than all that they have been getting all these years. It will be harder, so much harder than we wish, of course, but I’m sure there are sincere people out there and even in the international aid and humanitarian organizations, who would be willing to invest in more coherent community organizing projects, even in organized resistance work, if only to get this damned country out of the mire of backwaters politics it is wallowing in. Let’s admit it, the MILF is a goner, thanks to the ravages of peace. It has no mettle in the face of the return to power of warlord politics. I’m sure so many of them are in the employ, as part-time security maybe, of the ruling families and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those who fired the guns at the journalists were former or part-time rebels. The Ampatuans can even summon history to their side to justify such dastardly act if they like. Who knows what exhortations better than drugs they used before they sent their men to execute the order to kill? Remember Bud Daho, Remember Bud Bagsak, all those massacres committed by the kaffir Christians the infidels and their friends the Melikans against the Bangsamoro? Remember Palimbang Massacre? remember remember all those genocides committed against the Bangsamoro nation. This is the moment, this is our jihad, our moment of vengeance, of justice takbeer! I could go on and on. I could also imagine what the Ampatuans said about the Mangungudatus. Then as before the Melikans and those in power have local collaborators. If history is guiding us right, the Ampatuans should be rightful heir to that race of collaborators. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But what right have these upstart Mangudadatus to suddenly feel good and martyred for putting themselves in the service of the Melikan’s multi-million (Is it billions? I’m sorry, I don’t keep track.) good governance projects? Mow the rascals down.

“I wouldn’t be so stupid so as to escort a bejeweled bai on her way to file a COC for her datu husband!”, a Muslim friend who used to be with Moro human rights work, said to me. “And why are there so many of them escorting the Mangudadatu party, anyway?!? Is it the pay envelope? Or just the scoop?” Right. Bakit andami nga naman nila. Of course, it is provocative. Kung ako siguro Ampatuan, mapipikon rin ako. Di ba, Orak? You are somehow sorry kasi karamihan sa kanila mga pobreng bisaya, local reporters na tiyak kapipiranggot ang suweldo. I propose there was no pay envelop involved: It was a convoy of good-hearted good governance citizens for free and honest elections.

I myself never liked riding air-conditioned vans, a point of irritation for the NGO driver and fellow commuters I had to go with each time: the Glade freshener brings on my migraine, makes of me a vegetable upon arrival at destination point, but if that’s the way everybody gets a ride nowadays to get in and out of Moro country, would I have a choice of not riding to save my ass if I were there scavenging for news or some signs of hope?

Life is cheap. You are either predator or prey. From moment to moment of history’s unfolding. And spoils is all.