Friday, August 29, 2008 Time to crack the whip By Edwin G. Espejo
MINDANAO's youngest governor has been tossed to the limelight of facing Mindanao's oldest problem.
Sarangani Governor Miguel Rene A. Dominguez, at 30 years old, was not even born yet when hostilities between the Moro rebels and the government broke out in the 70's.
His father, former presidential assistant for Mindanao during former president Fidel Ramos term, Paul Rene Dominguez, was a moderate activist playing second fiddle to the late Edgar Jopson who would rise to become a top cadre of the Communist Party of the Philippines after martial law was declared in 1972.
The elder Dominguez was the vice president of the Ateneo de Manila University student council. Jopson was its president.
"We belonged to what the mainstream Left denounced then as the clerico-fascist clique of the student movement," the governor's father once told a journalist.
So when Maasim town was raided by armed men said to be elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), it came as surprise to everybody that for a young man that he is, the governor would be issuing scathing statements and spewing combative words.
Behind the sound bites and the press statements, however, few knew that Governor Dominguez has been earnestly and zealously trying to reach out the MILF rebels in the province.
In fact, a week or less before August 18 attack at the Maasim town proper by some 80 MILF regulars, an emissary sent by the governor held talks with local commanders of the Moro rebel group operating in the province.
"Yes, we have held dialogues with them," he confirmed.
But he also insisted that the move was within the framework of the existing ceasefire agreement between the Arroyo government and the MILF.
"We were told by Moro elders that several armed elements of the MILF from outside the province arrived in Maasim a week before the attack," the governor revealed.
Dominguez said he sent an emissary to negotiate with the MILF and asked them to leave the area.
The new arrivals were reportedly led by Amalil Umbra and Alo Binago who introduced themselves as MILF commanders.
"We were given assurances that they would leave and apparently they did," he continued.
But unknown to him and other local government officials, the MILF rebels would come back Monday dawn on board four motorized bancas.
What happened next was a 30-minute of hell for residents who were shaken from their deep sleep.
Two people killed during the attack and another was wounded.
Only the gallant stand of policemen on duty prevented the MILF rebels from totally overrunning the town?s police headquarters and occupying the town hall.
The governor said he felt betrayed.
"We could have flushed them out the moment we learned they were in Maasim," referring to Binago and Umbra's group.
Binago is said to be based in Palimbang, while Umbra is believed to be from Catabato.
He said he used all peaceful means to avert armed confrontation.
"I have learned my lessons. We have to show these brigands that there is no place for terrorists and bandits in the province," Dominguez said.
If ever he has given orders for the police and military to pursue the attackers, it was in retaliation for their "brazen and treacherous attacks," the governor maintains.
It was not the first armed assault by MILF regulars in the province.
In June, Moro rebels also raided and occupied several villages in Maitum, a Sarangani town, which share boundaries with Palimbang in Sultan Kudarat.
For one tense full day, the attackers held hostage scores of residents in the villages of Pinol, Mindupok and Maguling sending hundreds of civilians scampering to evacuation centers.
The attackers later withdrew after government soldiers were sent to the area.
In July, armed men strafed the Maasim police station and later hurled grenades at the sub station facilities of the South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative (Socoteco 2) also in the same town.
"I can not allow our people to be harassed and violently killed. We have to defend them. And the only way to do so is to go after these MILF brigands," Dominguez reasoned out.
But he is also quick to add that the operation is not against the MILF organization.
"We will continue to respect the peace process but the perpetrators of the criminal acts in Maasim and Maitum should be punished," he said.
