A resolution declaring the whole of Davao Region as already free from insurgency was adopted in a meeting recently among top officials of the various military commands in Eastern Mindanao.
While we have full trust and confidence in the country’s military, we have some reservations about believing the claim. We’d rather take it as still far from the proverbial “hook, line and sinker” swallowing category. Why, because it was only recently that the rebel New People’s Army conducted an attack (NPA) on a military detachment (or was it a convoy?) in Banaybanay, Davao Oriental.
Other than the usual report of “the soldiers are in hot pursuit against the rebels,” we haven’t heard of any other development in the so-called hot pursuit. Honestly, even though most of our time in the late afternoons is used to listening to or viewing radio and television news, what we see and hear on the said media outlets that we normally confirm in reading both the local newspapers’ printed and online editions, still we cannot find enough basis to agree that indeed the rebels are either already back in government or are totally annihilated by government forces.
Say, we have yet to hear or read of reports about the Banaybanay raiders, to use the military language, “neutralized. Meaning, the armed elements of the NPA are still out there waiting for another opportune time to hit a convoy or a detachment of soldiers.
Top commanders of the guerilla units, like the son of the late Kumander Parago, who used to lord over in the vastness of whatever was left of the Paquibato jungle, are still not accounted for. The likelihood, therefore, is that they may just be in the quiet of their hideouts, creating the “lull before the storm” situation.
The military and other law enforcement units must be wary of this lull in the rebel offensive. Certainly, in the doctrine where the basis of their armed struggle against the duly constituted government is anchored, the elements of surprise and deception are tapped to the fullest.
Hence, if the lull or absence of rebel activities would lead the government forces into complacency, chances are the so-called declaration of Southern Mindanao as an insurgency-free region could only end up being a false expectation.
****************************
Of late, the social media arena is literally flooded with comments and observations on the accomplishments, or the lack of them, during the last 100 days in office of President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos, Jr. With the negatives dominating the scene, it is apparent that all those scathing denunciations of the President’s supposed failure to accomplish something to the satisfaction of the public clearly emanated from the opposition or those who are against Marcos Jr, on their personal capacity and judgment.
Of course, some of the reasons for their negative observations are valid. However, personally, we believe that these are borne out of their frustration on the defeat of their supported standard bearer and the unexpected (by them) domination of the electoral contest by the younger Marcos Jr.
On our part, we can see the efforts of Marcos, Jr. in putting up a functional government bureaucracy that is ready to battle against all ills that are stagnating the country’s growth as one major accomplishment in the 100 days in office of the President. But we are also one with Manila Times columnist and former diplomat Bobby Tiglao that one glaring failure of BBM is his inability to resonate with the masses, which to him (Tiglao) were dominant among the 31 million plus Filipinos who catapulted him to the Presidency.
We, however, have one more failure to add. That is, to make good his promise of a unity government – apparently the reason for crafting UniTeam as his campaign pitch. We assume that he could have put the flesh in that promise had PBBM appointed people from the opposition to important positions in his administration, like what former President Rodrigo Duterte made during the early days of his term.
That way, he could have erased the people’s doubts about his sincerity in working for the unification of all Filipinos.
Of course, some of his appointees to influential positions in his government are known to have worked with Presidents who were political enemies of his family. But most of them are either former acquaintances of the President himself and his family, or are coming from regions known to be under his family’s influence.
Hence, the government of unity promised during the election is nowhere to be seen. That, indeed, is one monumental failure even at this early stage of BBM’s administration.
