President Benigno Aquino’s dream of lasting peace in secession-disrupted Mindanao died in the shallow waters of Tukanalipao in Mamasapano.
The trophy, anchored on the passage by Congress of the Bangsamoro Basic Law, and its implementation assuming the challenge before the Supreme Court can be surmounted, has already eluded the President.
This is all because one year and two days ago, the President sent PNP-SAF troopers in an ill-planned, secretive mission that disregarded the chain of command to catch or eliminate an international terrorist who was clearly being harbored or at the very least, tolerated by his confreres in the peace negotiating table.
Not that the peace offering of the BBL was to begin with, the correct formula. Other regions and other tribes found its peace offerings unjust and inequitable. The whole nation recoiled from grudging approval to massive disapproval after the ill-fated Mamasapano mission resulted in the death of 44 of the nation’s best fighting men and a host of civilians.
As far as the widows, the orphans, the mothers and fathers of the Fallen 44 are concerned, the wounds have yet to heal.
To be sure, government through the PNP has gone overboard in trying to appease them with material gifts, as if money would heal the wounds. They have not. Justice still eludes those left behind to grieve and mourn.
Meanwhile, the BBL has been dribbled in Congress. The House cannot muster quorum enough to pass it, despite carrots dangled by Malacañang. In the Senate, an alternate measure unacceptable to the MILF has been prepared. As PNoy’s term ends, and the election campaign writes finis to the sessions of Congress, it is curtains down for the Deles-Ferrer peace formula.
Now, Senator Enrile, claiming he has fresh evidence on the “truth” behind the Mamasapano caper, has caused the reopening of the investigation by a Senate committee that had not presented its final report to the chamber floor.
The wounds have not healed. And heal they will not in the remaining five months of this government. Perhaps under the next presidency, truth will out. And perhaps then, justice can be meted out. Healing requires that justice be done first. As the lawyers say, “though the heavens fall.”
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In the excitement over the homecoming of Miss Universe Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach, little attention has been given by most readers to the arrival tomorrow of the Emperor and Empress of Japan, Akihito and Michiko.
They are here to symbolically fortify friendship and cooperation between our peoples. Already, Malacañang issued a press bulletin the other day in profound praise of the “special and enduring” friendship of the two peoples.
How easily we forgive. How cheaply we forget.
Weeks after the imperial visit, Filipinos will commemorate the 61st anniversary of the Liberation of Manila. During those perilous days, tens of thousands of Filipinos were massacred by retreating Japanese forces in manner so cruel, where babies were bayoneted to death, and virtually every moving creature in Ermita and Malate were shot or impaled.
In a quiet corner somewhere in Intramuros, between the Comelec’s Palacio del Gobernador and San Agustin Church is a small memorial to that bloody and painful chapter in our history. “Memorare,” its tablet says. Let us remember. In liberal and more poetic translation, “Do not forget.”
Some of President Aquino’s relatives on the Cojuangco side were among those killed in the wake of such brutality.
Maybe he should bring the Emperor and Empress to visit the site in Intramuros. Or maybe their imperial highnesses would well visit a mass grave in the San Pablo City Cemetery, where lie the bones of some 600 men massacred by the retreating Japanese forces in the wake of their impending defeat at the hand of the advancing American “liberators.”
This article is not about bitterness. It is simply about never forgetting.
For only when we remember history can we build lasting friendships in the spirit of moving on, forgiving what ought to be forgiven, without forgetting the lessons so painfully brought about by war and conflict.
Only when we fully internalize the horrors of war can we as a people, in harmony with history’s adversaries, preserve and forge a lasting peace.
Forgive, but do not forget.