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The other night (July 8), at its “Night of the Generals” the
Manila Overseas Press Club had for its guest speaker Armed Forces
Chief of Staff Gen. Alexander Yano. Among the guests in the audience
was Philippine National Police Chief Gen. Avelino Razon.
Serving until September next year, Yano is the
first armed forces boss from Mindanao. Frank and sharp with his
answers during the open forum, he came across as a man who does his
job seriously and confident of bringing strategic defeat to the New
People’s Army (NPA) by 2010. With 5,379 members, the communist
guerillas are only a fifth of their peak strength of 25,200 in 1987.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines has captured
the NPA’s North Central Mindanao headquarters in Bukidnon and
recovered land mines, high-powered firearms, and sacks of
bomb-making materials. Yano reported of leadership vacuums in
several guerilla fronts, loss of mass base, financial difficulties
and ultimately lower armed capabilities. The NPA is now present in
only 1,615 barangays or 3.8 percent of the country’s 41,995
barangays. Their guerilla fronts are down from the 107 peak in 2005
to only 67 fronts.
Yano is pursuing peace initiatives with the
11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) whose ranks are
being depleted by surrenderees. However, there has been a recent
spike in MILF-initiated incidents, 40 from May 1 to June 30 this
year alone. These include ambuscades, raids, harassments and eight
sabotage operations against Transco towers and power plants.
He revealed that the 360-man Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)
has become leaderless after the death of Khaddafy Janjalani, which
makes them even more dangerous because having split into smaller
groups, they now operate with money as their main motivation, not
the advancement of the al-Qaeda objectives. But assures Yano, “we
shall deal with the ASG with finality.”
My conclusion: Our three major enemies, NPA,
MILF and ASG, will remain with us for some time. The following is my
welcome remarks during the Night of the Generals.
“There is no better time to welcome the armed
forces in our midst—than now.
“We have just been through a great storm and a
great flood that resulted in the flooding of most of Iloilo, the
rice granary of central Philippines, the worst maritime disaster in
20 years, the death of more than 800 and the possible loss of lives
of 800 others. I tried logging on to the National Disaster
Coordinating Council (NDCC) website to get the facts straight but I
couldn’t do it.
“NDCC’s motto, by the way, is “pag alerto,
malayo sa peligro.” Maybe, it should the motto of the new Comelec.
“Or of Pagasa, the weather bureau, which
claims now that making a mistake in tracking a typhoon by 180 kms is
‘a standard deviation.’ You know how far that is? It’s like
saying the typhoon will hit Manila and instead, it goes to
Pangasinan. And you say you are still accurate.
“The last time we had a typhoon as deadly as
Frank was in July 1972. Typhoon Rita stayed for three weeks in the
Pacific. Manila Bay and Lingayen Gulf had a date or met in Central
Luzon, flooding the principal granary of the country. More than 200
died. The following month, in August, martial law was declared. Many
Filipinos, me included, lost not just our jobs, but our freedoms as
well.
“Today, we need to cope not just with the
devastation of Typhoon Frank but also with the economic devastation
of the twin evils of record-high food prices and record-high fuel
prices.
“As a result, we have the highest inflation
rate in 14 years. At 11.4 percent in June, this inflation rate means
that your 100 pesos last year can buy only 88.6 pesos worth of goods
this year.
“In effect, we are reeling from the effects of
three typhoons, all of them starting with the letter F—Frank, food
and fuel. The effect is that we are all fucked up.
“The solution? Well, we have another kind of
F—forces, as in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Do we call in
the army to airlift and distribute relief goods. Do we call in the
army to retrieve the dead and the dying? Do we have to call in the
army to rehabilitate the devastated areas?
“Most crucially, do we call in the army to
instill discipline in our civilian officials [many of whom happen to
be former military men] and force to do what should be their job in
the first place—help the people in their misery.
“Are we prepared again—to lose our freedom
in exchange for economic redemption?
“At the rate things are going, this is no
longer a rhetorical question. The economic situation presents a
clear and present danger.”
Footnote: General Yano did not touch on the
economy.
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