Thursday, July 19, 2007 Editorial: Justice without compromise
THERE'S something wrong with the logic in the explanation parlayed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) concerning the beheadings and mutilation of the 10 Marines in Basilan sometime last week.
According to the MILF rebels, the main reason behind these killings is that the MILF were angered by the death of the imam allegedly at the hands of the military and, thus, the murders of these Marines was in retaliation for this.
To further compound their faulty position, they claimed that they cannot present the killers because these suspects are not within their ranks. To cover their respective behinds, they are seeking international intervention on the incident.
The latter part is nothing but a convenient excuse similarly being exploited by the militants and the communists to cast the government in a bad light and of course, justify their rebellion and agenda to topple said government and impose their own communist regime.
Now, the MILF is also correcting the actual number of casualties by placing it at 23 or 30, whichever account they deem to be factual. What makes this ludicrous is the gall with which the MILF blames the government for this atrocity.
The actual number of casualties, while important, is not the point of contention though it may be a matter of bragging by the killers who perpetrated this monstrosity. And in this instance, the MILF can't even take the effort to capture the killers.
One of the things to consider is the reliability of the MILF report which absolves their people and places the onus of blame on the government for allegedly "encroaching on their territory" when in fact their peace talks even stalled with the issue on ancestral domain.
There's nothing legal about their claim on "their territory" other than the firearms and number of rebels they placed on this area. A claim that can be corrected with sufficient deployment of force as shown in the fall of Camp Abubakar during the time of former President Joseph Estrada.
Aside from bringing the perpetrators to justice, the national government should look into parties that threaten to sabotage the peace talks, if any, between the national government and the MILF.
However, the government should pursue justice without compromise and penalize to the fullest extent of the law those murderers of the Marines. Unless that compromise satisfies the aggrieved party and demands for justice they made.
