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By Sammy Martin, Correspondent
DURING Tuesday’s commemoration of the infamous
Jabidah massacre in Corregidor Island, the only survivor of the
carnage recounts how he barely survived to tell the world about the
atrocity, which helped spark the Muslim rebellion in Mindanao.
“If I didn’t swim after I fell into the
40-foot ravine, I would be dead by now,” Jibin Arula, the lone
survivor of the massacre, said in Filipino.
The number of young Muslim soldier-trainees who
were killed in the carnage, which took place 40 years ago varies,
ranging to over 100 to less than 70.
Arula told reporters that he saw his fellow
Muslims being gunned down, which prompted him to scamper for safety.
Soldiers indiscriminately fired at him when they saw him, but
missed. Luckily, Arula was able to swim to sea, and after more than
four hours, a passing fisherman saw him and brought him somewhere in
Cavite.
He was brought to then Governor Justiniano
Montano of Cavite, to whom he narrated his ordeal. The local chief
believed his story and decided to bring him to a remote area to
fully recover.
But Martial Law was about to be declared and
Montano advised him to look for another place to hide, preferably in
the Visayas, and to seek a new life.
Arula claimed that it was their training
officers who handed the orders to eliminate them after Oplan Merdeka
was exposed. Marcos denied the existence of Oplan Merdeka, an
intricate plan to invade Sabah, which was a hot dispute between
Malaysia and the Philippines at that time.
Closure to the case
A party-list lawmaker on Tuesday said he is
planning to file a resolution that will put a closure to the
controversial Jabidah massacre.
Anak Mindanao party-list Rep. Mujiv Hataman said
that he will ask his lawyers to draft the resolution that will give
a closure to the matter, which he described as an “unwanted
event” and “unfinished business.”
At Corregidor, the commemoration of the Jabidah
massacre was held with the unveiling of an emblem at the Kindley
Airfield of the island, where the massacre took place, according to
a Muslim group.
The Muslim youths were brought to the island in
January 1968 for training in guerrilla warfare.
Hataman said the gruesome massacre sparked the
Muslim rebellion in Mindanao and was the reckoning date of the
founding of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which was
founded three years after the incident.
Up to this day, the Muslim rebellion has yet to
cease, even if the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which was formed
by a breakaway group from the MNLF, is the one carrying on the
battle.
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