Sunday, August 26, 2007 Malilong: Let our soldiers be By Frank Malilong The Other Side
READER Jay Gementiza wrote to express his disgust over the continued reference by both print and broadcast media to the criminals who robbed at least two banks in Cebu recently as the ”Bohol Robbery Group.”
He has reason to be sore. We can forgive the police for the utter lack of sensitivity in coming up with the label but must editors perpetuate the slander by adopting as their own a product of simple-mindedness? How would we have felt if the people suspected of involvement in the street lamp scam were called the “Cebu thieves”?
There must be at least a million Boholanos who are either based in Bohol or spread, like other Filipinos, all over the earth and we are being extremely unfair to them in referring to five or six bad eggs among them by a name that makes it appear as if they are Bohol’s official team in the world of crime.
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Who can stop the winds of change? The question, asked in Visayan, is one of a few frames that hang in the walls of the office of Compostela Mayor Ritchie Wagas.
Ritchie’s more popular brother, Gilbert, said the question was a take-off from one of the many that were asked during the last election campaign. It has apparently evolved into a battle cry of the town’s new officialdom.
I was in Ritchie’s territory last week to join in the judging of an inter-high school oratorical contest featuring students not only from Compostela but also from Danao and the neighboring towns. The theme was “Is the Filipino Worth Dying For?” which was fitting because the contest was held on the eve of the death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino.
I was amazed by the presence of so many good and promising student orators and I congratulate Ritchie and Gilbert for coming up with something that promotes interest in and awareness of the life of the man whose death signaled the dismantling of a hated dictatorship. In fact, I find it odd that it is only now that someone has thought of the idea although I am not surprised that it had to come from the Wagas brothers. “We may be a very small town,” Gilbert told a friend, “but that does not mean we cannot become the province’s intellectual capital.”
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So the war in Basilan and Jolo could spill over, bringing it closer to our homes. The discovery of an explosive with sufficient capacity to maim if not kill many people on board a vessel that called at the Cebu port only served to remind us that no place is safe from terrorists.
Can we now expect the clamor to “stop the violence” in Mindanao to become noisier and more frequent? I hope not. Let’s talk peace but not at the expense of national honor and dignity.
The reason the bandits have not only survived but thrived despite vows of total annihilation made by the past and present administrations is because of our indecisiveness. Our forces attack the terrorists’ lairs but just when victory is at hand, they are ordered to stop because the bleeding hearts are shrieking that they have seen enough violence already. Really, whose side are they on?
Our soldiers are paying a heavy price to make our part of the world safer to live in. The least that we can do is to let them be.
