Arming against terrorism

By Menardo Wenceslao / August 17, 2006

FOR the Philippines, terrorism is a double-edged threat. Not only must measures be taken to protect the country’s interior from home-grown terrorists, but efforts must also be made to prevent foreign radicals from crossing its borders and bringing their own special brand of terror with them.

The two-sided threat was discussed at the recent International Conference on Counter-Terrorism that was held in Cebu. Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, noted security analyst, told the group the Philippines’ "biggest weakness" in dealing with internal terrorism is the lack of an anti-terrorism law. Many suspected terrorists arrested in the country have been allowed to post bail, he said, thus giving them the opportunity to stage more deadly bombing attacks.

"This is a huge mistake," Gunaratna said. "Philippine law enforcement authorities can be effective on the ground only if they have legal coverage."

Gunaratna applauded efforts of the Philippine government to retain terrorism as a capital crime despite the abolition of the death penalty. He said no country has fought terrorism effectively without appropriate anti-terrorism legislation.

"It is important to have the death penalty, but it is also important to exercise discretion when it comes to sentencing someone to death," he said. "The death penalty is a very important instrument in the fight against terrorism."

Last Easter Sunday, President Arroyo announced her decision to commute all death sentences to life imprisonment. Among those who would reportedly benefit from the commutation are convicted terrorists. Members of her government have said the president is expected to exempt convicted terrorists from her order.

Gunaratna added that the Philippine war on terror extends beyond government actions to control the interior threat. The threat from outside is equally serious and requires a cooperative effort from neighboring countries.

Concerning the threat of foreign-based terror to the Philippines, Gunaratna pointed out that the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) currently has more than 100 foreign militants in Mindanao who have trained 400 to 500 native and foreign fighters for new attacks.

He said JI is patient and cunning in its planning for attacks. Gunaratna said it is "just a matter of time" before another attack takes place in the region. "The JI believes in doing a few attacks, but makes sure that they make a huge impact," he said.

Gunaratna urged the governments of Southeast Asia to launch joint military and intelligence operations against JI to head off new attacks. The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia should develop a unified strategy to fight JI and deploy joint forces to find the extremists in their jungle bases. This is extremely important because the three countries border a common sea.

Although the number of JI operatives is small, Gunaratna said, it is a lethal organization. He urged the governments of the Philippines and other countries in the region to work together to track JI leaders and kill them or put them in prison.

He warned that JI is now making efforts to "develop capabilities" like those of their counterparts in the Middle East to stage suicide attacks. He said it is entirely possible the Philippines may experience suicide bombers in the future. It is merely a question of time — and JI’s ability to recruit radicals to do it.

"Filipino Muslims are very tolerant compared to others in the region, but we’re seeing more radicalization," Gunaratna said.

During the conference, Gunaratna urged the Indonesian government to "criminalize" JI as an organization and keep behind bars its spiritual founder, Abu Bakar Bashir. Bashir’s sentence ends soon after serving only 29 months in prison for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings.

Gunaratna also revealed that a faction led by JI’s most-wanted leader, Malaysian Noordin Mohammad Top, is working closely with the Abu Sayyaf, while another led by Indonesians Umar Patek and Dulmatin is being sheltered by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Another speaker at the conference warned that some governments are underestimating the capabilities of terror groups and their links to other groups in neighboring countries. Maria Reese, head of ABS-CBN News, said there is a trend among governments to think that their domestic insurgent problems are purely internal, and links with al-Qaeda and JI are not clearly established.

Governments often feel that "conflicts are local and can be dealt with domestically." "Wrong," she said. "When you’re talking about conflicts involving Muslim issues, there are no local conflicts."

The front line in the war on terror, she said, is within the Muslim world. "It is not a fight between Islam and the West, but a battle for the soul of Islam –- between a radical minority and a moderate majority."

How willing is the MILF?

By Menardo Wenceslao / August 11, 2006

IT is comforting to note that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has expressed its willingness to cooperate with the government in running after the people behind the International Islamic Relief Organization (Iiro) in Mindanao. But this gesture of cooperation is quite late in the day.

We also find it incredulous that the MILF still has to await formal requests from the government when, on its own and on account of its public pronouncement and commitment, they have pledged to run after the supporters of terrorist organizations.

Iiro, based on unimpeachable intelligence reports, acted as conduits for funds for the dreaded Abu Sayyaf terror group which is one of the tentacles of al Qaeda. This is not surprising considering the fact that Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, was the one who organized this shady Foundation.

While it parades as a relief and civic organization, intelligence data gathered later proved that these community outreach programs are merely façade of it true nature––that of being the fund raiser and conduit of the terror confederation that operates in Mindanao.

This is not the first time that the MILF expressed its willingness to run after terrorist suspects. Of course we still have to see them come forward and exhibit one that they have snared.

This declaration of support has become a monotony, if not a classic tomfoolery, given the other intelligence fed that top terror suspects like ASG top man Janjalani and Jemaah Islamiyah explosive expert Dulmatin had been seeking refuge in MILF-held territories.

Instead of relying on the proffered assistance from the MILF, we would rather that the government go it alone in hunting these terrorist bands. They have to be relentlessly pursued wherever they go and hide especially now that the AFP have acquired new military attack helicopters and equipment.

This business of having to seek permission from the MILF to enter their territories to pursue terrorist suspects is an absurdity for suspension of operations allows the fugitives to hide in bunkers or to camouflage. In the final analysis, it is really up to the MILF to put up or shut up.

Insatiable MILF

By Menardo Wenceslao / August 9, 2006

THE Moro Islamic Liberation Front is again smarting from its commitment to sign a peace agreement with the government. This after they submitted a preposterous demand to the government that to include all ancestral areas that predates the Spanish colonial area as part of the Bangsamoro Judicial Entity. They also contend that the peace pact will not be signed this year because President Arroyo made no mention about it in her State of the Nation Address.

If we go by the gist of this recent declaration, we do not see any truce to be inked this year and in the years ahead. It has become apparent that the MILF has struck to its agenda to secede from Philippine Republic. They have used the present ceasefire agreement to reassemble their disintegrated forces after they were routed in an all out war. They have used the lull in the military campaign to stack military hardware, recruit and train combatants and expand their so-called territories.

We have seen the massive movement of their force when they recently attack and occupied a small mine site in Banay-Banay, Davao Oriental. The display of their high-powered firearms and how easily they mobilized their guerillas gives us an image of vulnerability of important government and public public installations in the Davao gulf area. The movement of troops itself is a violation of the ceasefire agreement but this too is a challenge to the government to engage them in a firefight.

This begs the question now: Are they ready to launch another war if their demand for control of ancestral pre-Hispanic lands is denied?

In a way this nonsensical demand can stifle the agenda of the MILF. If the government gives in to this proposition they might end up with an even smaller and fragmented lands. Remember that except for the immigrants from China and other nationals, our forebears are Malays. We all are descendants of the datus and the sultans or yore and the blood that flows in the veins of the people in Lanao, Jolo, and Cotabato, is the same as the blood that all of us who had differed in faith after the Hispanic era. It’s a melodramatic thesis but one cannot deny the fact.

This begs the next question: Can differences in faith or religios define who are the Bangsamoros in the context of territorial concessions that the MILF is asking for? Absolutely not! And that is why Mayor Celso Lobregat, the lumads, the Christians and the Muslims who are tired of these endless conflicts in Mindanao do not want to be part of what the MILF convoluted demand for their territories. Why? Because their ancestors are of this lands and territories too.

And yet, the frame of mind of the MILF leadership limits the definition of ancestral domain within the sphere of what best suit their agenda. In short, they want all of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. In the end, their own insatiable quest for territories will lead to their own suffocating death.

Signs of collaboration

By Menardo Wenceslao / August 4, 2006

DESPITE the progress the Philippines and her sister nations of Southeast Asia are making in their battles against terror, challenges remain. The threat of international terrorism still hangs over the region, despite a determined effort to consolidate resources and present a unified front against a common threat.

Of course, terrorism differs from country to country. Each nation has different conditions that color its own internal threat. But, in general, the pall of international terrorism creates a similar anxiety throughout the region.

Indonesia and the Philippines, in particular, have suffered most from terrorist events. The lives of hundreds of citizens and tourists have been lost in a number of terrorist attacks in the two countries.

Both countries have their own indigenous radical groups with their own specific agendas. The proximity of the two nations with long, rugged coastlines has allowed terrorists to cross back and forth with relative ease. Links among violent Islamic radicals and extremist organizations in the different countries remain a serious security threat to both regional and Western targets. These networks have launched several terrorist attacks using connections often based on radical school ties and shared training experiences in Afghanistan, the southern Philippines and Indonesia’s Muslim-Christian violence in the areas of Maluku and central Sulawesi.

The Philippines, in particular, has experienced a disturbing trend of growing cooperation among the Islamist terrorist groups from around the region. Jemaah Islamiyah, the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Rajah Sulaiman Movement have shown a new and unsettling willingness to work together. The nearly simultaneous Valentine’s Day bombings in Manila, Davao and General Santos City involved operatives from all three groups. The bombings also used more technically sophisticated explosive devices, which is another growing cause of concern.

Both countries have expressed the need for more effective anti-terrorism legislation to deal with the growing threat within their borders. In the Philippines, the government continues to urge Congress to pass a sweeping anti-terror bill. The absence of a law defining and codifying terrorist acts, combined with restrictions on gathering evidence, continues to hinder the prosecution of terrorism cases in the Philippines.

In Indonesia, despite its success in arresting and jailing significant numbers of terrorists, its counter-terrorist efforts remain hampered by the lack of meaningful internal coordination and corruption that puts further limits on strained government resources.

The Indonesian government has received considerable pressure to submit a revision of the 2003 Counter-terrorism Law to the House of Representatives. Indonesian authorities recognize the need to revise the law to include standards for introducing evidence and to add guidelines that will help to prosecute terrorism cases more effectively.

In the Philippines, part of the new law would include additional military and police units to combat extremism. An extensive overhaul of the military is already underway. It needs better equipment to deal with local insurgents with ties to foreign extremist networks like al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah.

According to a high security official, the new units will improve intelligence by forging stronger ties with neighboring countries in the region to facilitate the exchange of information and technology.

In Indonesia, where a crack anti-terror squad and widespread arrests have cut deeply into terrorist capabilities, the attraction of suicide attacks remains disturbingly high. A recent survey revealed that 11 percent of Indonesians believe that suicide attacks against civilian targets are sometimes justifiable.

Although the number is relatively small, the findings of the Indonesian Survey Institute are a wake-up call for leaders and moderate clerics who fear a tiny radical fringe may be making inroads into the masses.

The government has been trying to weed out militant Islamic ideas since the discovery of videos last November showing the last words of three suicide bombers who killed 20 people and injured 120 in restaurants in Bali last year. Authorities and moderate clerics were shocked that young Indonesians could talk so casually about the impending horrific bombings.

Since then, prominent religious leaders have been recruited to help the government discourage youth from joining terrorist groups. A number of religious leaders have publicly acknowledged that suicide bombings can never be justified on religious grounds.

Because the threat of new terrorism persists throughout Southeast Asia, all countries are showing a willingness to cooperate in regional counter-terrorism efforts. Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum) are just two of the regional groups that have become part of a unified regional front to stand up against the menacing threat of terrorism.

Key fugitive in Southeast Asia

By Menardo Wenceslao / August 1, 2006

ON April 20, Indonesian police announced they have arrested about 200 militants since the country began its tough anti-terror fight. Despite this success, Brigadier General Aryanto Sutadi, an advisor to the National Police chief, said it does not mean that Indonesia had been able to end the terrorist menace. He said even with many militants already in custody, bomb attacks still take place. Indonesia passed a tough anti-terror law following the nightclub bombings on Bali Island that killed 202 people in October 2002.

An Indonesian court on April 26 sentenced Ahmad Rofik Ridho to seven years in jail, finding him guilty of aiding the fugitive Malaysian terror suspect Noordin Mohammad Top. Ridho was found "legally and convincingly guilty" on two counts: providing firearms and explosives to Noordin in September 2004 and assisting Noordin in a string of deadly bombings.

Indonesian police on April 20 confirmed they are holding a Singapore national with ties to the fugitive Noordin.

The police anti-terror squad captured Abdul Rosyid, known also as Hamdan, on April 18 on Sumbawa. This is a largely Muslim island in West Nusa Tenggara Province. Police Chief General Sutanto said his office is in contact with Interpol, the international police agency, about where to send Rosyid.

Indonesian police raised the level of security alert following reports that Noordin had recruited more suicide bombers for possible attacks in Poso, in Central Sulawesi. The Malaysian terrorist is still on the run and thought to be hiding on Java. Noordin is considered one of Jemaah Islamiyah’s (JI) main leaders and still remains a major source of worry for Indonesian police.

The fight against Jemaah Islamiyah and other terrorists goes on in the Philippines as well. On April 28, the National Police said they stopped Abu Sayyaf Group terrorist attacks planned for the first of May Labor Day celebrations. Criminal Investigation and Detection Group officers raided a bungalow in Marikina City and seized bombs, grenades, blasting caps and other materials. The police said that high-level Abu Sayyaf guerrillas rented the building, which had been under surveillance for a month. Nevertheless, the house was unoccupied at the time of the raid; no arrests were made.

Philippine soldiers did arrest a militant with links to al-Qaeda. Major Bartolome Bacarro said troops seized Sharie Amiruddin, suspected of a series of kidnappings and bombings since 2000. He is a member of the Abu Sayyaf group. The arrest took place on April 24 in Zamboanga City.

"He was the planner of the Dos Palmas kidnapping," Bacarro said. Amiruddin is also blamed for bomb attacks in three southern cities in 2002.

Rohan Gunaratna is head of the political violence and terrorism center at Singapore’s Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.

On April 21, he said the terrorist threat must be addressed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia acting together against Jemaah Islamiyah. Speaking at a counter-terrorism forum in the central Philippines, he said police must dismantle training camps and limit terrorist movements.

Gunaratna said it is especially important that Indonesia ban JI as an organization and not free the group’s spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, in June.

"Everything must be done to make sure that he is not released," Gunaratna said. JI has a few thousand members around Southeast Asia, with some 100 in the southern Philippines.

Gunaratna also addressed the funding of terrorists, with large amounts of money coming from the Middle East. A large portion of private funds intended for projects in poor Muslim communities is given instead to terrorists. He said he believes the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim rebel group in the southern Philippines, continues to shelter a faction of JI hiding on Mindanao Island. The other JI faction, led by Dulmatin and Umar Patek, is working with the smaller but more radical Abu Sayyaf group.

The Philippines has once again asked for increased security cooperation among countries in the Asia-Pacific region. National Police chief, Director General Arturo Lomibao, made the appeal to delegates at the annual Symposium on East Asia Security, meeting at the police headquarters in Camp Crame on April 25. A total of 26 delegates from Australia, Thailand, the United States, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Singapore and Vietnam attended the symposium.

The shame that bin Laden brings

By Menardo Wenceslao / July 25, 2006

THERE was a time when the Islamic community was admired around the world. From the seventh century to the fourteenth century, Muslims were the most educated, most democratic, most scientific, most adventurous and most eloquent people in the world. Islam brought with it a political, social, cultural and economic revolution in the Middle East and Africa, in Central Asia and in Europe. People in those regions converted to Islam because of its message of peace, social justice, harmony and development.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi echoed these ideals on May 3, when he spoke of modern conversion to Islam. However, Gadhafi, in the speech that aired on the Arab satellite network al Jazeera, was harking back to another time not so long ago, before the terrorists brought shame to Islam. Today, all that has changed. Thanks to Osama bin Laden, even innocent people are increasingly being branded as terrorists. Islam, once seen as a religion of peace and harmony, is being fouled by a few involved in terrorist acts.

The extremism of Osama bin Laden is based on intolerance, exclusion and self-righteousness. It grows out of arrogance. He interprets religious laws, even though he has no training and is not recognized as a religious authority. He boasts of his superiority, degrades others, denies dignity and encourages intolerance. The extremist ideology is the same as insanity. Religious fanaticism is dangerous in itself, but there is an equal danger in the isolation of entire Muslim communities because of the few individuals who abuse religion.

Are these terrorists really Muslims? Their terrorist acts are conducted wrongfully in the name of Islam. They violate the Holy Quran and show disrespect for the Prophet Mohamed. Their terrorist acts murder thousands, most of the victims being Muslims, and create an atmosphere of fear throughout the world. In Europe especially, Muslims once lived peacefully side by side with Christians. Now all over the world, legal barriers are being erected against terrorism, and these new laws affect everyone, even the majority who are not terrorists.

The European Union on May 5 widened the fight against Islamic extremism. The EU’s Austrian president announced an international partnership agreement with Russia and the United States, to step up cooperation in fighting terrorism. "The European Union must find an answer to the threat to security posed by terrorism, organized crime, corruption and drugs and to the challenge of managing migration flows," Austrian Interior Minister Liese Prokop said.

Also signed was the Police Cooperation Convention for South East Europe. It aims to develop cooperation between the EU and countries in the western Balkans, to increase information-sharing and cooperation in terror investigations and pursuit of suspects. The convention was signed by Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia-Montenegro and Romania. Austria, Germany, Croatia and the EU police force Europol will provide special expertise.

In a bilateral agreement, Russian and French secret services are exchanging anti-terrorist information. The first deputy head of the Russian Federal Security Service’s international cooperation department, Denis Sibayev, described the agreement at a May 4 press briefing at the French Embassy in Moscow. "Our cooperation is growing evermore specific," he said. Another area of cooperation is aircraft security. Sibayev said, "National anti-terrorist practices of the French and Russian secret services make a contribution to the common campaign against crime."

In a related move, on May 17 France’s lower house of Parliament passed a strict immigration law aimed at attracting skilled workers while keeping the less skilled out. The law would also restrict so-called "marriages of convenience," used to bring in immigrants who would otherwise be excluded.

In the Baltic region, the Estonian government on May 11 created a commission to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The commission is headed by the Finance Ministry, and the body will include officials from the Justice, Interior and Foreign Ministries and the Bank of Estonia.

It is not only Europe that is making new anti-terror laws. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East are moving against fanaticism. Pakistan is fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban. Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia are fighting the terrorists in Southeast Asia. All these laws are the fault of Osama bin Laden and his disrespect of Islam and Muslims. The campaign of death that Osama bin Laden promotes will run its course in a few short years. He will die or be killed, and his followers will all be captured and imprisoned. He will not be mourned or even remembered very long. All that will remain is the shame he brings on Islam.

In defense of Secretary Cruz

By Menardo Wenceslao / July 7, 2006

DEFENSE Secretary Avelino Cruz said it more succinctly and rightly that the P1 billion allocated by President Arroyo to combat the New People’s Army is not only to equip the government forces with the necessary hardware to fight the NPAs to the finish but also to win their mass base by infusing assistance to make them productive.

We are in full accord with this scheme and hope that this program will be sustained until such time that the mass base will be liberated from poverty. In Davao, it is not difficult for Dabawenyos who had experienced the terror and nightmare of the reign of the communists and their armed NPA partisans to understand why insurgency can easily take root and quickly germinate in the ghettos where hunger pervades and gangsterism and crime are a commonplace.

But even the most impoverished would later realize that the NPAs would suck the blood from them. The continued pillage of communication installations and transport facilities owned by firms who refuse to yield to the extortion activities of the NPA "taxmen" indicates that what they exact and collect from individuals and business establishments is no longer sufficient to support the armed militants and the lifestyle of their leaders who are based abroad.

As certain as the sun rising from the east, the taxmen will turn to the mass base and demand contribution, in cash or in kind, to support their guerilla front. Sooner or later they will crush under their weight when the mass base are pushed against the wall and have nowhere to run to but fight. Such is the Davao experience.

Moreover, Secretary Cruz is right. Why wait for the pygmy to become a giant if they can route it now? Why wait for the mass base to reach that flash point when the opportunity to alleviate them from poverty and want are achievable with adequate government support? Why listen to the usual mesmerizing double talk of their foreign-based negotiators when the insurgents are here?

The likes of Senators Kiko Pangilinan and Ralph Recto can go on with their ministrations that waging an all-out war will only incense the bystanders and stoke the flame of insurgency. We do not take it against these fair-haired duo who have not heard of NPA sparrows. Ensconced in the safe confines of well-guarded subdivisions of Imperial Manila, these two school boys have not heard of ‘‘Nicaragdao,’’ and are blissfully ignorant of the broad-daylight "salvaging," in the name of justice, in the streets of Davao City.

It will be a miracle if less than a dozen men, women and children are murdered daily. Incredible?

Ask a Dabawenyo who went through this scourge and reign of the CPP-NPA.Maybe they’ll tell you a more gory story.

Patience running out on two fronts

By Menardo Wenceslao / July 6, 2006

IT is odd––the Moro Islamic Liberation Front ministration to the government over the recent declaration of an all out war against the New People’s Army, the belligerent military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines. This merely underscores the unholy alliance between the MILF and the NPA. This partnership does not find cog in the Islamic world which frowns on the communism. The MILF has warned against the repercussion of an all-out war. It seemed to have forgotten the fact that the only time war against the MILF military forces was launched, the government counter-offensive dismantled and practically obliterated the MILF camps of its armories which yielded high-powered arms and ammunition. In the aftermath, the ruins yielded pieces of evidence indicating that the MILF was coddling members of Jemaah Islamiyah who has been recruiting and training extremists MILF elements in the art of explosives making and suicide bombing operations.

Given that background, the MILF hierarchy ought not preach to the government how to deal with the CPP-NPA. We have a situation where the legal communist fronts, like those in Congress today, enjoy the mantle of protection of democratic institutions even as they engage in destabilization campaign against the present administration while enjoying the perks which includes millions in pork barrel. In a parallel move, their NPA armed partisans are assaulting government forces and engaged in extortion activities and demolition of government and private installations.

The government cannot just sit watching while our soldiers are being shot in ambush and private communications and transport facilities are being pillaged by the NPAs.

The National Democratic Front and other communist legal fronts cannot have the best of both worlds forever. The politicized church leaders, militants and the traditional political opposition are either in the state of denial or just plain stupid in not being able to absorb lessons from the secessionists’ agenda, which, no matter how irrelevant they have become, somehow remain to be twin problems of the government.

It is rather unfortunate that the political adversaries of President Arroyo are so consumed with power grab that they ignore the secret alliance of the MILF and the CPP-NPA.

The latter has been dubbed as a terrorist organization by the super power. If the MILF pursues and sustains that unlikely alliance with NPAs it stands the risk of being treated the same way as their pals. As of now however, the government is hedging because unlike the CPP-NPA it has ongoing peace talks with the MILF.

But with the way the secessionist talks and stand in the way in the government campaign to eliminate armed NPA insurgents they merely showing their sympathy to their comrade.

Patience has ran thin on the NPAs and if the MILF continue with its saber rattling they might end up in the same category as the NPAs. Which we hope will not because the ceasefire accord with the MILF holds firmly while that of the NPA’s remains an elusive task.

The recent assault on the 57th Army Battalion in Tupi, South Cotabato, where they rained rocket propelled grenades and assorted high-powered firearms on the unsuspecting government soldiers, indicates that they have stored enough armaments to again carry out another episode of bloody war.

The display of firepower is as threatening as it is challenging. Tupi is a progressive farming town. The fields are vast and hardly can one suspect that enemy forces will have the boldness to stage an attack. But they did. It was in Tupi where they initially started mounting an assault on the military and police forces keeping as shields the civilian commuters whom they held hostage as they staged their offensives.

 President Arroyo remains to the optimistic that peace negotiators in Kuala Lumpur will eventually settle all the contentions issues. We were told that what remains to be unresolved is the ancestral domain. The autonomous government is such a vast territory. In fact, without them demanding, peace-loving Muslims who had fled the conflict areas had already settled elsewhere and had been absorbed by communities outside of Mindanao. Now it looks like some quarters in the MILF hierarchy has an insatiable quests for territories and every move that they are doing presently dovetails with their ultimate goal for an independent Islamic state. To achieve this agenda they are now saber rattling.

We cannot allow a replay of the first episode of war when the MILF government forces attacked and held hostage civilian populace. The Muslims and the Christians inhabitants in what was once the area of conflict are now locked in arms and reject the resumption of armed confrontation. Life is so good in the atmosphere of peace. The government and the world community under the stewardship of the United Nations Multi-Donor Program have poured in unquantifiable assistance to restore normalcy and resettle families who had been displaced by futile conflicts. They now have their new homes, new livelihood, renewed hopes. Hostilities have no more place in Mindanao and the MILF ought to understand that and should realize the consequence of another act of violence.