Wednesday, August 20, 2008 Malilong: Arming civilians for self-defense By Frank Malilong The Other Side
THE sight of bodies lying on the road and burning houses in the background is certain to arouse anger and evoke calls for immediate retribution. That call is not only justifiable but compelling and any reaction that does not involve hunting down the enemies and bringing them down to their knees would be cowardly and unacceptable.
But let’s not get carried away by our emotions. The volatile situation in Mindanao demands sobriety and patience at their highest. We cannot take any action that is not well thought of. If the conflict has to escalate, let it not be said that we go into it guided less by reason than by passion.
But this is not the same as saying that the civilian population should not be allowed to do anything to protect itself. Self-preservation is a basic and an inherent right that does not need any guarantee by any Constitution for it to be enjoyed.
The Armed Forces or the police cannot be trusted to be everywhere to protect the people from harm at all time, not for lack of courage or of willingness but because of the sheer impossibility of the task. You can’t assign soldiers and policemen to each and every neighborhood that is at risk without spreading their lines too thinly and rendering them vulnerable to the enemy.
Private citizens should be allowed, nay, encouraged to organize and arm themselves for self-defense. They won’t be allowed to venture out and take part in any offensive action. Their only mission is to defend their homes and their families from hostile forces. Right now, because of a misguided government policy that bans private initiatives geared towards self-defense, these people are sitting ducks.
The argument that the presence of armed civilians works like a magnet to marauders does not wash. On the contrary, and as past and recent events have shown, poorly defended communities attract armed attackers as a carcass does a vulture.
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Ironic or hypocritical?
People can see President Arroyo’s latest order to the military and the police after the “sneaky and treacherous attacks” by certain elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) either way, depending on their biases.
Mrs. Arroyo looked angry when she directed the AFP and the PNP to “defend every inch of Philippine territory against MILF forces.” But didn’t she propose earlier to give away not just inches but thousands of hectares of Philippine territory to the MILF?
In fact, the President and her peace advisers ought to have known that the deadly attacks were inevitable. Even a child will go into tantrums when you give him something only to take it back before he could even enjoy it. Older people generally don’t go into tantrums anymore but they express their anger and disappointment more strongly and, in the case of the MILF, violently.
The government was right in condemning the attacks especially those directed against unarmed civilians. But our officials should take some soul-searching and ask themselves if they, too, had not been equally responsible for the lamentable loss of lives and property as the ones who directly perpetrated them.
