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FRENCH Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte pronounced: “I will conquer
first, then let the lawyers find an excuse.” Napoleon meant that
his ruthless soldiers would commit genocidal massacre, mass
slaughter, brutal pillaging of ancestral communities and massive
plunder of the conquered nation’s wealth. There shall be no
compassion, no empathy, no second thoughts in crushing and killing
the people to be conquered. A similar chilling message has just been
sent by the Philippine Armed Forces Chief when he conveyed that
armed children of Muslim communities would be dealt with in the same
manner as adult combatants. Such audacious and impulsive statements
emanated from the military general when orders were given to
eliminate the hostage-takers of television broadcaster Ces
Orena-Drilon.
Hostaged television celebrity Ces Drilon
observed that children counted among the people who had kidnapped
her, some of whom were children even younger than twelve years. She
rightly asked why children were in the company of armed rebels
rather than being in schools. It is the same problem experienced by
corrupt, undeveloped countries, where poverty has never been
reduced, much less eliminated. When Drilon asks why Muslim children
are being trained as child insurgents or soldiers in kidnapping
syndicates rather than being trained as skilled professionals and
educated entrepreneurs, there are antecedent queries that beg
resolution: Do we even have schools for the young in these
territories or hinterland provinces where Drilon was abducted? If
none, what has government, more particularly the Department of
Education, done about the situation? Why has government allowed the
deterioration of these Muslim communities, without prioritizing them
in national development programs, and thus, the corollary
deterioration of the people’s values formation and education?
Ironically, after ignoring these Muslim peoples for a long period
until the spate of kidnapping of foreign and prominent national
celebrities, government will now undertake a vicious military
campaign in these long undeveloped and disregarded Muslim
territories.
With such impulsive commands ordered by the
military chief, Sulu province may once again be transformed into
another national graveyard of the young, which will witness the
inhumane massacre of children. We have once denounced insurgency
groups, including government paramilitary and para-police
organizations, in their military conscription of minors. But what
becomes more disconcerting in this raging anti-insurgency campaign
is the massacre of innocent civilians, mostly children, and that the
anti-insurgency military campaign has only served to increase the
number of outraged peoples, and the increased conscription of child
combatants rather than increasing welfare organizations, schools and
public service institutions on the ground. Ultimately, in conducting
its anti-insurgency campaign, the government is not solving the
insurgency situation. It is fueling the insurgency. In allowing its
soldiers to massacre, slaughter and rape Muslim peoples, it is only
encouraging the Muslim peoples in their desperation to do the
same—massacre, slaughter and rape. Apparently, military
conscription of children takes place under evidently false claims
that these militant actions are for the advancement of the
children’s religions and their peoples. But military campaigns are
themselves equally evident delusions that these are intended to
advance the security of our nation.
An observation by author Nymia Simbulan is made:
these children belonging to rebel organizations have embraced the
armed conflict without coercion or torture, unlike elsewhere in the
world as in Africa and Latin America, where children are abducted
and forced into joining armed conflicts. Instead of playing or going
to school, as there are no government sports programs or schools,
then these children will be embracing the only thing to which they
have been exposed—survival and in their desperation, killing to
survive in the name of intractable conflicts whose origins date back
to the time long before their births. However, finding the root
causes of the conflict and solving the poverty desperation of these
indigenous peoples will be the only panacea to the armed conflict
and the ransom kidnappings of famous celebrities and foreigners
undertaken by rebel organizations.
Protracted social conflicts have always been
consequential results of national impoverishment, which has never
been alleviated nor prioritized by government. While such armed
conflicts and their leaders, have grown old and hoary, and the
coastal shelf of hostility and violence has deepened, armed
combatants have become ever so younger as a phenomenon of these
continuing armed conflicts. The government’s creative solution to
the long-festering conflict is appointing one of its most ruthless
military chiefs to lead the peace process. Our government’s
rhetoric of forging peace today to ensure a more stable and peaceful
society for future generations remains only that—rhetoric without
substance. There are no social investments, no commercial endeavors,
no attempts at constructing school buildings and assuring their
protection and security so that children could play and study in
peace. Children remain the most vulnerable sector, caught in, and
now active participants to, the crossfire of men blinded by their
hatred, their incorrect religious and political ideologies and petty
resentments. With military generals drumbeating their courageous
slaughtering crusades against child combatants and military generals
heading the peace process, the armed conflict will never see its
proximate conclusion. Such fires of hatred and outrage are
continuously being stoked.
ericfmallonga@yahoo.com
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