Sunday, October 22, 2006
Editorial: Get your acts together
LAST week's yet another spate of bomb attacks once more brought to fore the obvious inability of government, police and military officials to agree on matters that involve the security of the people and of the country.
While Cotabato governor Emmanuel Piñol was quick to denounce to lay the blame on the attack to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), some police and military officials were disagreed on who the perpetrators were.
It was not several days after when PNP chief Director General Oscar Calderon declared that the MILF has no participation in the bomb attacks that killed six people and wounded at least 26 others.
Somebody should remind these people in government that opening their mouths too much too soon would only exacerbate the volatile situation in Mindanao.
It less assured no one when AFP Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon immediately called for the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Bill long pending in Congress.
Coming at the heels of intensified political killings and deadlock in the peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and MILF, one could not blame others to deduce that the series of bomb attacks were designed to instill fear and make people believe we are under siege and that a regime of police state should be put in place.
Government authorities should heed the call of local businessmen that the continued rash of violence in Mindanao is dampening efforts to resuscitate its reeling economy.
The last thing we need is another wave of violent attrition and outbreak of armed conflict, both recipes for civil war.
For Bisaya stories from General Santos.Click here. (This section is updated every Monday)
(October 16, 2006 issue)
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