Too steep a price to pay

The act of whoever showed those videos showing how mercilessly the Muslim rebels who attacked and outnumbered the Special Action Force members sent on the mission to find and arrest or “neutralize” the long-wanted multiple killer, identified to be behind some of the most senseless and goriest bombing incidents in so many countries, was very deplorable, to say the least. Not only did it prove conclusively how heartless and wicked they are, but also how insensitive they can be.

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Not only were the scenes gruesome, their presentation seemed to be aimed at intensifying the grief and sense of loss of the loved ones of the victims. Were they human beings, those gunwielders who would shoot even an already wounded man, instead of helping him, as most of other human beings would? No wonder two supposedly staunch and hardboiled soldiers, now police generals at that, could not hold back their tears, nor could any person, no matter if they are not related, or never know the victims. And people like them will be among those who would have benefited had the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law been passed.

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Note how some of the attackers of the SAF had justified their acts. Aside from giving blatant excuses that they had thought they were the ones being attacked, some even said it was because the SAF men did not coordinate with them before going into their territory. “Their territory”! Is that how they will consider their towns and cities once the BBL is in place, and all of us other Filipinos must defer to them before going to “their territories”? Will the time come when they will require passports and pay dues to enter “their territories”? Heaven forbid. Maybe the BBL is too steep a price to pay for imaginary peace.

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But I hope it is true, the statement of Maguindanao Governor Mangundadatu, that the other one, the Filipino Abdul Basit Usman, had been wounded in the siege of Mamasapano, and is now hiding somewhere in Mindanao. Those working for the BBL should show their sincerity and commitment by helping government forces to locate Usman, and others of his ilk, to show that they are committed to what they want the BBL to cover. Otherwise, let us forget that there ever was an attempt to unite with people who talk differently from each side of their mouths.

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Seems Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago got to centerstage again yesterday when she was able to lambast and insult the unfortunate people who had been summoned to the inquiries being held in the Senate on the Mamasapano tragedy. I missed the entire show on TV but a lot of people told me it was vintage Miriam again, scolding people, among them prominent officials, as if they were her children (?) or her hapless students. One cannot help recalling how one of her sons died. Had the boy ever been subjected to that kind of scolding that seems to be dehumanizing?

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While snorting at one of her victims, she admonished him for giving an answer she must have felt insulted her intelligence. “Buti sana kung wala ako doctorate in law, or graduated from U.P.”, she told the guy who looked chastened, to say the least. What she said, for our foreign readers, was “That’s all right if I did not have a doctorate in law and graduated from UP”, which we take to mean that, if not, he could have fooled her.

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But she can be game, too, when someone speaks up. Once she was dressing down a congressman from her own province, Iloilo, and told him, “You were my student at Law school, I should have failed you”. But the guy, who didn’t cower as expected, shot back, “But ma’am, I got a higher grade in the bar examination than you”. I forgot the rest of the exchange, but credit it to Madam Miriam, she took it with a sense of humor. Note how she even makes fun of her “fourth stage cancer”. The Senate will surely be very different if she is not there.

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I caught a brief interview of a former diplomat from Denmark who is in the country and said he was here 30 years ago. And he said he was really surprised at all developments, like the flyovers and roads, and other improvements. Did he say “flyovers”? Ah, such “improvements” will be banned in Bacolod, and will not be adopted even as free gifts. And maybe unless the prefabricated ones being given to Bacolod can be broken up and made into bridges. Maybe then the world will see a city with upside-down flyovers being used as bridges. Maybe they will become tourist attractions.*

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