Sanctioned Madness?

Madness. If there is anything that comes to mind after reading official pronouncements regarding government’s handling of the brewing crisis in Mindanao, it is that---madness.
Instead of bringing calm and sobriety to the people of Mindanao in these times of grave peril, government officials are seeing it fit to add more fuel to the conflagration. Instead of inspiring confidence in the capability of authorities to protect civilians, officials in Manila are encouraging people to turn Dirty Harry.
In a press conference yesterday at Camp Crame, Quezon City, Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno said government is thinking of tapping civilian volunteer organizations (CVOs) to create police auxiliary groups. Puno told reporters that the idea of creating police auxiliary groups will be presented to local government leaders in the two provinces (North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte) in meetings to be held next week.
Philippine National Police Director General Avelino Razon, in the same press conference, said the auxiliaries will be given the basic task of securing communities and villages in Lanao del Norte and North Cotabato, the same areas raided by the MILF in the past weeks. Razon said local police “will control” the auxiliaries which will be “screened and trained” by the same and which will be given shotguns for “village defense.”
What on earth could be in the minds of these people? Yes local officials will be asked next week if they agree to turning CVOs into police auxiliaries. Do you think they’ll turn the offer down? Of course not. Manny Pinol in fact welcomes the idea.
But is there even an iota of wisdom in raising militias, even if their avowed purpose is to guard their communities against the marauding MILF? Considering that the Army is already going after the groups of Umbra Kato and Commander Bravo thereby freeing the police to guard the communities, why is the government resorting to arming CVOs which are under the control of local politicians?
What makes this emerging policy incomprehensible is the fact that Malacanang, just last Thursday or a day before Friday’s press conference, warned a Mindanao-based armed group calling itself the new Ilaga (Rats) against fighting the MILF.
The Ilaga came to national prominence in the 1970s and 1980s when the government unleashed the military-backed vigilantes to help combat the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) of Nur Misuari. Among the many atrocities attributed to the group was a March 1970 incident in which Feliciano Luces, a.k.a Commander Toothpick, led Tiruray tribesmen in attacking an isolated Moro village in Upi, Cotabato leaving 6 people dead. The group was said to have cut the ears, and nipples and plucked the eyeballs of their victims. Muslims responded in the vigilante tit for tat by forming their own groups, the Barracudas of Lanao and the Blackshirts of North Cotabato, plunging Mindanao then into a virtual civil war.
The Ilaga later turned into a rabid anti-communist vigilante group whose long list of atrocities culminated in the killing of Italian priest Fr. Tullio Favali in North Cotabato.
The folly of this latest government caper even drew concern from the London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International.
“MILF units that targeted villages have engaged in serious violations of international law and should be held to account,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Director.
“But experience from around the world shows that the deployment of civilian militias can set off a chain of reprisals and only increases the danger facing civilians,” Zarifi said. Amnesty International further warned that arming and deputizing civilians could inflame an already tense situation in Mindanao.
Consider this further. Most of the so called CVOs in the areas so far affected by the ongoing conflict are either Christians or controlled by local political warlords, Christians and Muslims. These CVOs are already armed with high caliber weapons.
It is also no secret that these groups are used by local warlords to advance their political interests. What the Puno “idea” proposes to do is to turn these groups into active combatants against the MILF, albeit only within their communities, as well as allow them to recruit new members. And with local realities already characterized by decades-old animosity, cultural biases, and/or conflicting political interests, who can say if these groups can even keep from fighting among themselves in the future?
Is this therefore the beginning of another era of terror in Mindanao? Is Secretary Puno and, by extension, President Arroyo so ignorant of the violent history of Mindanao to even propose arming civilians at this time?
Or are we, the people of Mindanao, just pawns in a sinister, obscene game?