19 soldiers slain in Basilan
MILF: Our forces had edge, went for the kill
By Julie AlipalaInquirer Mindanao
‘THEY KEPT COMING’ A soldier carries a wounded comrade airlifted by helicopter from Al-Barka, Basilan, for treatment in Zamboanga City on Tuesday. At least 19 soldiers of the Special Action Forces were killed in a clash with Moro rebels. A survivor of the ambush said they were outnumbered and overwhelmed. AP
The soldiers were running out of magazines preloaded with bullets and yet Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters kept on coming, said a member of the Army’s Special Forces who survived a nine-hour clash in Al-Barka, Basilan province.
The encounter on Tuesday left 19 soldiers dead.
Private First Class Arnel Balili said that while some 90 Moro rebels were advancing, he and 39 other members of the Special Forces had to spend time loading fresh bullets into empty magazines so they could return fire.
The soldiers were overwhelmed. “We were only 40. There were more of them,” Balili, who was among the 11 wounded soldiers, said from a hospital bed in Zamboanga City.
When the smoke cleared, ... read more at http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/78739/19-soldiers-slain-in-basilan#disqus_thread
This is
already a decades old cycle of brother filipino soldiers of the
government among us being clobbered by brother filipino soldiers of
whatever region or ideology among us, and vice versa.
Let
us remember the rape cases the north americans committed against our filipinas
as well as the deaths of our filipino brothers like Gregan Cardeño inside the
facility of a U.S. organization- Liason Coordination Elements in the
Philippines yet have not found closure until now due to blocks from the north
americans. Take note of the mysterious death of Captain Javier Ignacio of
the Philippine Army who was the recruiter of Cardeño for the U.S. organization,
who was gunned down while he was about to meet a filipino group investigating
the Cardeño death. This is also a decades old deficiency of
filipino soldiers among us of being impotent in defending our
brother filipinos against foreign aggression.(1)(2)
How
many decades have we been under what the U.S. term as, tutelage, protection,
training, technological support, and guidance of the mighty protective north
americans since the 1900s? In all those years, our defense system could
not proceed at any direction of development other than that under U.S. control,
tutelage, protection, training, technological support, policies, guidance and
dependence on. How many decades have we been at war against brother filipinos
in what the the U.S term as insurgency? How many years have been our defense
system been functioning as defense against brother filipinos the situation of
which is equivalent to the autoimmune disease of the immune system of an
individual human entity? In all those years, have we ever been able to develop
a defense system capable of defense against foreign invaders?
In
all those years that other nations like France, Germany, Israel, Japan, and
Vietnam, developed their nation, how have been their status of economy and
defense? Did they let their economy and defense be controlled by and dependent
on the U.S.?
If
we let the U.S. continue their tutelage, protection, training, technological
support, guidance, and control of our nation as what they have always been
doing, how many more years will it take before we will this time be able to end
being at war with brother filipinos? How many more years will it take before we
will finally be able to have the economic and defense status of nations
mentioned who have never been controlled by nor dependent on the U.S.?
These are just symptoms of a pathological national defense development.
The AFP is part of the defense system of our nation. No matter how strong the defense system is, if for its major function, it destroys the people of its own nation and defends more the foreigners before a situation that is in conflict with its own people, it will remain dysfunctional. Thus it is impotent or a mutant.
Our
defense system has a deficiency. It is supposed to follow like normal
biological entities that when a defense system is owned by a certain entity, it
defends that entity against foreign organic or non-organic entities. Once
it destroys part or the whole of the entity to which it belongs to, the defense
system has become auto defense. In a human being entity, this becomes an
autoimmune disease. Such deficiency or dysfunction is merely a symptom of
the underlying cause. There was an infection at some point of development
of the entity.
Birth of Our Nation
Conception
of the filipino nation developed in the 1700s to the 1800s as a result of a
developmental intercourse of events in the 1500s to the 1600s involving the
iberians under the Spanish Government and the natives and separate tribes
of the islands on the Southeast Asia and Southwest Pacific. This
developed into a revolution that drove us to a separation from the womb of
Madre España and be born as a Filipino Nation in 1898. From tribes
and petty kingdoms, to a colony, to a revolutionary social organism, we
became a nation.
We
inherited the organic national Determinant of National Actions from the
founding fathers of our nation. This unwritten code was the factor inherent in
us, in: producing a national character and identity that binds us, as a nation;
driving the direction of our development; and providing cohesion and
continiuity of development thru generations.
Carrying
that unwritten code within us, as a nation, we developed a system of politics,
defense, judiciary, economy, and education. Being an infant nation, we
struggled to be united, to adapt to the situation, and to control our resources
and direction of our development.
The
estimated GDP per capita for the Philippines in 1900, the year Spain left, was
of $1,033.oo. That made it the second richest nation in all of Asia, next
to Japan ($1,135.oo), and far ahead of China ($652.oo) or India ($625.oo).(3)
Development of Our Original National Defense System
At
the birth of our nation in 1898, we had a still infant but normal and even a
vibrant national defense system. It was clear who our defense system
belongs to, for it was clear who we were, not as individuals, not as tribes nor
petty kingdoms, but as a nation.
At
that stage, we through Gen Antonio Luna developed the Academia Militar.
He recruited quite a number of officers from the Spanish Army to form the
core group of the academia. He transformed the different and assorted
standards of fighting volunteers for the revolutionary stage of our nation into
a professional standard of regular soldiers for the newly born nation.
Our newly developed but infant defense system underwent the ultimate test of its class and potency when a foreign entity, the north americans, violated our newly born nation in 1898 by their invasion. Without any aid from any nation, our defense forces engaged the aggressor forces of the most powerful nation in the world in 1899. It was our first encounter with a foreign aggressor force as a filipno nation. We lost in many battles but we also defeated them in a number of documented battles like Balangiga, Mabitac, Pulang Lupa, etc.
Down south, the north americans tampered with the development of that area of our nation, with their Bates Agreement of 1899. It established a kind of national development that mutated into one of disintegrating development of one part of the nation from the development of the other parts of the nation. It was a masterful divide and rule stroke of the enemy forces to disintegrate the whole of our national defense system. It has a profound consequence to our national development including national security, today.
Yet, so potent were our defenses that by 1903, the aggressor forces were not yet able to break our resistance.
Ellis
G. Davis, Company A, 20th Kansas of the U.S. occupational forces in the
Philippines, wrote about us in the 1900s: "They will never surrender
until their whole race is exterminated. They are fighting for a good cause, and
the Americans should be the last of all nations to transgress upon such rights.
Their independence is dearer to them than life,…".
The aggressor forces of the most powerful nation in the world had to resort to what terrorists today do- hostage-taking of civilians among us. But at that time, it was on a massive scale which included extermination of the civilians among us. According to just the documented reports, among the places where these form of terrorism took place were in Marinduque, Rizal, Bulacan, Batangas, Laguna, Albay, and Samar. Their demand: surrender of those of the defense forces among us. It was because of such terroristic acts that the defense forces among us were compelled to give in to their demand. It was because of such terroristic acts that 800,000 to 1,000,000 of us filipinos died.(4)
Developmental Heredity Injuring Virus
As
a result of our having a weakened physical defense system, the north americans
took over without resistance from us, control of our resources and development
of our systems including our political, defense, economic and education.
These resulted to our organic Determinant of National Actions code within
our systems, being cut off from us. They replaced it with a developmental
code they synthesized which directed our development towards functioning to
sustain the growth of the north american of the United States.
At
their initial penetration of our defense system, they took brother filipinos
into the Philippine Constabulary, their auxilliary corps to engage brother
filipinos of the filipino defense force. Gradually, their auxilliary
corps, Philippine Constabulary later transformed into the Armed Forces of the
Philippines. Later, more soldiers among us either died or surrendered
that we were cut off from our organic filipino defense forces- our original
defense system.
Developmental Defense System
Having
lost our physical defenses, we still mounted a defense at the developmental
level against another foreign invader at another front. We engaged the
chinese invasion and taking over of our economic bases in the 1900s, at the
sociological level. However, the north american government and the
chinese government in their homeland, intervened and blocked all our moves
to check the chinese overruning our economic bases. Under U.S. protection,
the chinese in our country have secured legal status over our economy and over
our land. After several years of maneuver, they have developed a strong
sociological and economic clutch over us, impoverished filipinos including the
new generation of materialistically molded political and military
leaders. The chinese have secured covert but strong influence over the
direction of our economic, political, and defense system.
This
further weakened our economy enough to render us filipinos perpetually economically
dependent. This resulted to our having become perpetually impotent in defending
our nation against foreign occupation.
Foreign Invasion Spreads at the Developmental Level
Except
for Carlos Garcia, we never had any president who could not be controlled by
the United States of North America and stay long as president. All these
presidents are products of U.S. tampered development of our educational system.(5)
Today,
we the mass of filipinos are loosing our legal status over our economy and our
land. The only legal status remaining for us, mass of filipinos are that
of OFWs, squatters, employees, and laborers. Today, our defense system
only functions against law breakers who happen to be filipinos, but not anymore
against foreign invaders.
Alienation
Impotency Dependency Syndrome
This
has become the characteristics of the soldiers among us: fierce and potent
against brother filipinos who happen to be criminals, and even against brother
filipinos resisting the puppets of the north americans; but impotent against
foreign invasion and control.
This
was how our defense force, an external defense force was replaced by an
auxilliary armed corps of the north americans in the Philippines. It has
been castrated to perpetually remain and not grow beyond counterinsurgency
capability. As a result, our nation has perpetually remained impotent in
defending ourselves against foreign control. For decades, we have never
been able to be independent.
The
Abu Sayyaf situation is just the result of the CIA creation of religious
fighters from muslim regions including Mindanao to fight a proxy war against
the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. This is the cause of why many
lives of filipino soldiers among us have been lost to fighting the Abu Sayyaf
terrorists.
Recovery
We can break this decades old chronic disease of our defense system. We have identified the underlying cause and the process. We are aware that a status of a vibrant, world class defense system, did exist for our nation during the time of our forefathers. It is ours by inheritance from our forefathers. Therefore, it is ours to recover.
_________________________________________
References:
1. http://natoreyes.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/us-troops-in-mindanao-and-the-mysterious-deaths-of-gregan-cardeno-and-capt-javier-ignacio/
4. Francisco, L. 1973. The First Vietnam: The U.
S. – Philippine War of 1899
