Editorial: The problem with tit for tat

PROPAGANDA is an art and just like any art, it needs to be thought of, designed, and checked for flaws. Thus, the tit for tat that is going on between the government and the New People’s Army (NPA) over the grenade lobbing during a fiesta-related activity in barangay Fatima, Paquibato District is one telling experience on who’s got the rational edge.

NPA admitted responsibility and promised to do something about what it admitted was a mistake, its spokesman Rigoberto Sanchez said in a statement. We say, admitting one’s mistake even if it was a very big one is a good move for a group that is claiming to be working for the “masses” especially because the “masses” were the ones injured in the grenade attack.

That’s one point for the NPA if not for a similar admission to a mistake in the killing of Vicente “Centing” Ferrazzini. They did it before, make a mistake that cost the life of an innocent person; they did it again. For a movement claiming to be for the masses, that is one mistake too many.

The military, however, was not at its logical best when it jumped on this admission.

Brigadier General Ariel Bernardo, commander of the Army's 10th Infantry Division and chair of the Government's Coordinating Committee on Cessation of Hostilities, dared NPA to surrender their members responsible for the Fatima blast to prove their sincerity on the peace negotiation.

To some, that may be a logical response. But taken in the context on the military role as security forces and law enforcers, behind such statement lingers an unspoken admission of the inability to pin down who.

No matter how we look at it, a grenade lobbed at a crowd is a crime and the lobber is a criminal. Which means that law enforcers have to hunt them down.

NPA again came out with another statement. They will compensate those they injured, promise. That is the only way open for them if they intend to continue claiming to be serving the masses. Blowing up a grenade in the midst of the masses is a hundred giant steps backward in whatever gain they have earned in that area.

We can expect more discourses of remorse coming from the NPA, considering that hundred giant steps backward. For a blunder as big as that, there is no other recourse for them but to take on the most remorseful act. A wise military, however, will just shut up and do their best to win the people’s hearts right at this very moment and beyond, and leave the talking to people like the Vice Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte, whose words many Dabawenyos still hold in high regard.