An act of God

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

A member of Congress was quoted in a national daily as referring to the Bangsamoro Basic Law as having become a victim of collateral damage in the bloody Mamasapano massacre where 44 young men, from a crack unit of the Philippine National Police, lost their lives.

The BBL could be considered as another victim of the bloodbath in that Maguindanao area, because, after Filipinos realized how the members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and its alleged splinter group, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, regard the legitimate agents of the country they are supposed to be wanting to belong to.

The policemen on the special mission, members of the Special Action Force of the PNP, belonged to an elite group, specially trained and qualified, which was why they were given that very sensitive mission: to capture, or neutralize, the man behind so many deadly bombings and explosions, both in the Philippines and in other countries in the past few years. Hundreds of lives, most of them of innocent tourists, students, businessmen and women, office workers, had been victims of his craft.

And he was not only handling and guiding local terrorists and rebels, he was also known to have trained about 300 local muslims in bomb-making and assembling of explosive devices.

This was the man being sought by the SAF, and it is to their credit that they did discover his lair – right in the heart of a community of MILF and BIFF members.

For him, the BIFF and MILF attacked and killed in the most grisly manner the 44 men who were there to rid the country and the world of one of its worst killers.

And these are the people our government is working so hard, and yielding so much, to join the rest of our people in the peace and harmony envisioned by the BBL?

It was an act of God that had allowed the Mamasapano sacrifice to awaken us to what we could have brought upon ourselves if it had been passed into law. Our lawmakers must look this proposed law over and over and over and de-bug it thoroughly to ensure that it will not lead to dismemberment, and further unrest in this country.*