Friday, August 31, 2007 Editorials: Peace and order headache
WHEN the terrorist problem in Sulu and Basilan finally caught up with the President’s harried consciousness earlier, she reportedly warned politicians against exploiting the situation for their own ends.
She then ordered the military to wage a “full offensive” against the Sulu terrorists.
What the President did was actually nothing new. What seems new is just the nomenclature of the protagonists.
Conflict
Historically, Sulu is among the Philippines’ peace and order headaches.
Long before Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was born, Sulu was a part of the country that, while appearing to abide by the leadership at the nation’s capital, did only accede to be ruled so but refused to come to terms with national policies when a conflict arose with what they take as their birthright, or policies that did not go with the flow of their common interest.
The pacification campaign the Americans waged against the Sulu populace when the colonizers first came in the early part of the 20th century failed to bring the people to their knees, and the conflict went on across the years.
Unexpected
Actually, what we are witnessing now in Basilan and Sulu is just a reprise of what has gone on and off before.
What may be new is the believed tie-up of elements of the Sulu rebels with the international terrorist group Al Qaeda, which give the prevailing problem a foreign flavor.
Otherwise, the Sulu conflict is not entirely an unexpected one.
Defiance
When an American lawmakers visited Zamboanga recently and saw what our soldiers are up against, there is a better than even chance that they have read the past history of the conflict in Sulu.
That part of our country has defied “conquest” by Spaniards, by Americans, by the Japanese, and now even by brother Filipinos.
Thus, the promise extended by the American legislators that the US will increase help to the Armed Forces of the Philippines in its fight against the terrorists and insurgents is well-taken considering that the problem of global terror ism has made this republic a sort of a front in the American war against terrorists.
