DOWN SOUTH
Our collective Stockholm syndrome
After months of pressure from various sectors to get the military to suspend offensives in Compostela Valley, the guns are finally expected to be silent there for the Christmas season.
The clamor began as early as some months back when a series of interfaith fact finding missions was undertaken in Comval to document military atrocities. Finally, a caravan of internally displaced Comval Lumads descended on the Bangkerohan Gym in Davao City in order to publicize their call for the cessation of hostilities in their area of residence.
A report I had no time to verify then suggested that these Lumads weren't indigenous to the place. It was claimed that they were migrants to that part of the mountains and that their presence there was not exactly welcomed by the resident Lumads in the area. The free trip to the city was a heaven-sent respite from the hostile atmosphere up there in the hinterlands alright. Yes, I thought that maybe the one who fed me that information was a donor-fatigued cynical soul.
At the Bangkerohan Gym, mandatory press conferences scripted by the groups that brought the idps over were held. Mandatory press write ups were put out with statements from these groups airing out the plight of these Lumads. The attention made the Comval governor come down to Davao City and arrange for the idps to be trucked back to the province where he had been taking care of them before they agreed to be abducted for the city lights and the news camera.
The governor's rescue couldn't have come at a better time as food provisions were exhausted, the Bangkerohan Gym was turning into a garbage dump, and the idps were starting to make embarrassing complaints about their needs not being met by the ones who brought them over.
Still, I stayed away. The groups that brought them had not bothered to return any of my calls last year asking about the Buya family. Fat chance anyone from those groups would do me the courtesy of returning my calls on this one or at any other time when I won't perform according to their script. These groups are only after making a case against the military and are extremely paranoid of anyone who could tear down their contrived case for the house of cards that it is.
(It could be remembered that 9-year-old Grecil Buya was killed in a New Bataan crossfire in summer last year and that I had initiated efforts to heal her family. Suffice it to say that my efforts were rudely interrupted as soon as these groups entered the picture. All things considered, I am not sorry for putting then-1001stInfantry Brigade commander BGen. Carlos Holganza through the wringer for his unit's treatment of Grecil's death. However, Holganza may not have been the only personality I alienated on the matter of the Buya tragedy. No, I am not sorry either about losing mercenary acquaintances. I am most sorry about their successful effort to make me lose touch with the Buya family though.)
Many more protest actions were to feature at the Freedom Park soon after. On days when I would be so exhausted from work, I'd take time off to look down from the Finster Hall balcony from two floors up and take in the rallies against militarization in Comval. It was amusing to observe the persistent attempts of Maj. Medel Aguilar, chief of the Philippine Army's Civil Relations Group 5, to get whichever group it was to allow him time at the megaphone. Poor Medel. His persistence is proof of his sincere belief that pro-democracy groups adhere to equal opportunity practices.
And even as Kato and Bravo grabbed headlines and shifted the public's interest – mine included – to Central Mindanao and the Lanao provinces, street action calling for a halt to military offensives in Comval continued to play out on the roads right across my smoking areas downtown. What was missing this time was the sight of Medel Aguilar buddying up to some of my former students and former nodding acquaintances at the picket line. By that time, Medel was somewhere else where he was probably more needed.
One day some weeks back, I saw Digong Duterte's picture on the front page of the local papers. He was shaking hands with Leoncio Pitao, better known as Kumander Parago of the Pulang Bagani Command of the New People's Army. I waylaid an army sergeant passing on the sidewalk and asked him to identify the insignias on Parago's fatigues. The old fogey told me the insignias could be bought anywhere and that Parago is yet to abduct a lieutenant colonel from the Philippine Army's First 'Tabak' Division. No, he didn't think the insignias meant that Parago had this unconscious desire to abduct a lieutenant colonel from First Tabak either.
I rewarded the soldier's curious look with my most inane smile. Manang Nympha, long used to my accosting her customers with my crazy questions, just grinned and turned away.
It turned out that the good mayor was initiating talks for the release of two prisoners of war abducted in early November. These abductions had resulted to an escalation of offensives in Comval as military troops conducted aggressive pursuit operations along the NPA's mobility corridors there.
Digong did not publicly call on the military to stop its Comval offensives. His picture in the papers was followed by a series of press statements from reputable groups – one of which was convened by the Davao City Vice Mayor - all appealing for a ceasefire in Comval.
Then the captors fed separate video footages of the two captives echoing the call. It was obvious that what were being dangled as enticement were the safety and the orderly release of one abducted policeman and an army officer, captured at an encounter when he ran out of bullets. The policeman, on the other hand, was escorting a senior officer on official business to the Commission on Human Rights to file cases of human rights violation against some NPA guerilla fronts in Comval.
Until the AFP high command issued a suspension of operation of military offensives on 17 December 2008, statements from the Philippine Army's Eastern Mindanao Command, the 10thInfantry Division, and even the CRG5 suggested the military was not biting the bait. Two days before, in fact, 10ID chief MGen. Jogy Leo Fojas even publicly pronounced no letup to the offensives. The pursuit operations were not to be compromised. The 17 December SOMO, however, came from higher authority. What are those below to do but follow?
True enough, after a week of relative quiet, the abducted policeman was released, ostensibly as a goodwill gesture for Christmas. These people do understand the spirit of Christmas, or so they would have the rest of us believe. Just a few days more of respite from military offensives and we can expect another goodwill gesture for the New Year. Gee, one wonders what in Comval is so important and requires no interruption in the days between Christmas and New Year.
Well, what do you know? I wonder if I'm the only one who feels a sense of disquiet over this turn of events on Christmas Eve.
That there should be a halt to hostilities in Comval is something we all agree on. It's hard to agree, however, that the only way to do it is to put the military in a situation where it has to agree not to do its job – Christmas or no Christmas. Like, hey, they don't stop when it's Ramadhan in Datu Piang, do they? I was down there two days before Christmas and the municipal administrator told me that the family of the 8 September casualties in Barangay Tee received a grand total of PhP15,000 as assistance for the wrongful death of six of its members.
Why is the military in Comval in the first place? Why does it have a job to do in Comval? Negotiating with those who most want the military to halt its offensives in Comval is to my mind a defense by the negotiators and lobby groups of the right of the AFP's enemies to be in Comval. It's a defense bought at the point of the gun, and that, I think, is the tragedy: This conspiracy by politician negotiators and lobby groups – unintended it may be - to paint a collective illusion of the abductors' respect for human rights and being pro-democracy. It proceeds from the acknowledgment that the abductors have us most vulnerable and the only way out is to recognize, accept, and defend their power over us.
Heck, to hear him tell it, the freed policeman ate and slept better than his captors and even had his own bodyguards throughout his captivity. It seemed like he was in fact having a ball at a time when the public feared for his fate as his abductors had made it known that he was being tried for his crimes against the people. Upon his release, he said he was treated like a king by his abductors. He made it sound like he were an honored guest. It makes one wonder why he agreed to be released.
Such a statement is not uncommon though from people just released from the kind of ordeal where their defenses had all been stripped away, rendering them most vulnerable and believing in the reality of their impending death such that the only way to survive it is to recognize, accept, and defend their aggressor's power over them. When the mind is ready to believe, it loses its ability to test reality. Such statements are likely to be uttered by someone who still does not fully apprehend the reality of his release.
Take away the propaganda that distorts the circumstances of his capture. The truth is that this was a botched abduction. The abductors were quite specific about whom they wished to cart off from that ambush operation. They, however, could not tell a PO3 apart from a Senior Police Inspector. Thus they ended up with a most inconvenient mistake. It's no skin off their nose to give him back in exchange for the myopic media mileage that went with consorting with politician negotiators and the fanfare of turnover ceremonies.
His release is a small price to pay to get them what trotting out the Lumads, the rallies, and the lobby groups could not accomplish: the most sought after silent guns in Comval in the last week of 2008. The name of the game is gamitan.
(Gail Ilagan is a clinical psychologist on the faculty of the Ateneo de Davao University where she is the editor of both the Tambara University Journal and the Research Journal for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.)