By Soliman M. Santos, Jr.
Independent Peace Advocate
Quezon City, 30 November 2009

            As a peace advocate who has considered Muslim Mindanao as my second region (after Bicol), I join so many others in their shock at and condemnation of what is now called the Maguindanao Massacre of 23 November 2009, likewise in expressing sympathies for the close relatives and friends of those who were killed, especially two fellow human rights lawyers, and calling for speedy justice and other necessary measures of redress and reform.  There will never be enough words to describe this almost unbelievably depraved and inhuman incident.

 A Philippine Problem

            The Maguindanao Massacre has been rightly explained as the tragic, though rather extreme, consequence of the Philippine central government’s or the Arroyo administration’s well-known deliberate cultivation and patronage of the Ampatuan political warlord clan and dynasty as its main instrument  for political control in Maguindanao province, if not also the rest of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).  Political control vis-à-vis political rivals or opponents of the Arroyo administration, and also vis-à-vis the main Moro rebel groups, notably the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) whose main provincial and ethnic base is Maguindanao.  Thus, the characterization by some analysts of the Ampatuan clan as “political entrepreneurs” who have become “Malacanang’s monster (or Frankenstein).”  This has been a symbiotic central-local axis of power, with mutual benefits also extending to wealth.  The analysts have situated such local warlordism, apparently becoming more voracious and brazen in its arrogance of power, in the context of a conversely ever-weakening Philippine state.

            The Maguindanao Massacre has again brought to fore, but more shockingly, the weaknesses of Philippine governance in the ungovernable “Wild, Wild West” of Muslim Mindanao.  Among these weaknesses are “structural inequities in our political system, including control by an elite minority, traditional politicians and political dynasties, and enforcement of such control through private armies” – this itself already identified by the National Unification Commission (NUC) Consultations in 1992-93 as one of the root causes of the internal armed conflicts in the country.  The NUC then had specific recommendations to address these root causes, including for establishing a regime of good governance, upholding respect for people’s rights and improving the administration of justice, and establishment of a pluralistic political society.  But the ruling system has proven to be intractable and incorrigible to various on-and-off reform efforts.

            And so, the heinous crime of political violence which is the Maguindanao Massacre is just the latest, though the most shocking, indictment of the Philippine political, electoral, security and justice system.  The most immediate call or challenge is for justice and against impunity.  Crime, esp. heinous crime, must be punished, but not necessarily with the restoration of the equally heinous death penalty.  A criminal justice system deals properly not only with the offended and the offending parties but also with the witnesses – without whom there is no case, no due process, no establishment of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The willingness and safety of witnesses in the Maguindanao area in turn depend on a degree of protection, presumably mainly by the police, against threats to their lives from the private armies of the implicated political warlord clan there.  Not only these private armies but also the Maguindanao police and their official auxiliaries (Civilian Volunteer Organizations or CVOs) as well as those of the military (Special CAFGU Active Auxiliaries or SCAAs) are part of the problem.  Their dismantling and disarming (and not only those of the currently predominant Ampatuan clan) have become necessary to serve the ends not only of criminal justice and human security but also of the integrity of the coming 2010 electoral process – i.e. “ensuring free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible elections,” as constitutionally mandated.  

            But deputization of law enforcement agencies and instrumentalities for election duties will not be enough for the reform of the political and electoral system.  It again bears noting that the second of three principles of the comprehensive peace process, as formulated out of the NUC Consultations, is that “It seeks to establish a genuinely pluralistic society, where all individuals and groups are free to engage in peaceful competition for predominance of their political programs without fear, through the exercise of rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, and where they may compete for political power through an electoral system that is free, fair and honest.”  In addition, as far as the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to be deputized are concerned, there is also a great need for security sector reform.  In short, the jolt that has come with the Maguindanao Massacre might as well be taken as an impetus not only for more effective immediate and short-term measures but also for a more thorough-going strategic process of reform, if not overhaul, of nothing less than the whole state of Philippine politics and governance.

A Bangsamoro Problem