Maguindanao Massacre Offshoot of Medieval Warlordism

The atrocious execution style massacre in broad daylight of defenseless women, journalist and innocent civilians in Maguindanao lorded over by the powerful warlord of the Ampatuan clan is barbarity of the lowest of the low. An atrocity so incomprehensible that people are capable of such horrendous acts against their fellow human being boggles the mind. Reports of 100 heavily armed mass murderers led by the younger Ampatuan being groomed as the heir apparent to the throne of corruption, thus the need to terrorize and murder Ismael Mangudadatu’s wife, close relatives and followers even of former allies to ensure their stranglehold of their fiefdom.

57 lives cut short in the most horrific sadistic manner as of this writing and fears of more bodies will be discovered as recovery teams dig the hastily dug graves by the perpetrators using a backhoe heavy equipment owned by the provincial government with Amapatuan’s name boldly printed on it.

The victims are terrorized beyond belief. Women are feared to have been molested, raped, and robbed of their belongings. Some were hogtied like animals bound for slaughter while others are lined up execution style cut down with a volley of gunfire. The savagery of the perpetrators acting like cannibals gorging their vehicles looting whatever valuables they can find is truly beyond revolting.

Never have we seen such horrendous criminality in our young fragile democracy of this magnitude. To think that this is happening in a country of gentle people known for their friendly smile despite the adversity and harshness’ of the political and economic environment that we have wicked individuals in our midst without conscience or scant trace of humanity so capable of such monstrosity.

Impunity is too light a word to describe the sinister mindset of these criminal monsters in a mass murder spree in the style and manner of Hitler, all because the victims dared to challenge the edict of the “Pharaoh” to run unopposed in the 2010 gubernatorial race.

Inday Espina-Varona in her FB note wrote who will protect us from our protectors, our last resort maybe to call for the god in heaven to help us. But with the kind of spiritual leaders like San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto who choose to be deaf and blind but not mute to spew disgusting political partisanship as shown below we are truly in desperate times:

“She's really sad since she stands as the mother of the country," Aniceto said.

The archbishop appealed to authorities to do everything they could to give justice to the victims.

“Authorities should not let this incident deteriorate into [a wave of] violence in Mindanao," Aniceto said.

Is he out of his mind or what? Is this the kind of mother he rams in our throats, one that condones and responsible for the existence of political warlords in exchange for giving her the command votes? Is he blind not to see that he is right there in front of the highest authority in the land and yet Aniceto appeals to “authorities” as if the woman is a saintly innocent little angel? Hypocrisy galore so revolting as if wearing black to symbolize her questionable grief will erase her culpability with an Archbishop no less trying to peddle a cheap stunt to fool the people is disgusting to say the least.

Enough of the charade and hypocrisy, no matter how they portray themselves the enemies of our fragile democracy and our people will never cease until this nation rids itself of medieval warlords making us the basket case of Asia.

How will the administration and succeeding ones to come will handle this problem of warlordism is a challenge that is almost impossible to solve because they are an integral part of our political system. Here is what Inday Espina-Varona posted at FB “In the Philippines, political dynasties die hard” by Caloy Conde:

According to the Center for People Empowerment in Governance, a Manila think tank, there are an estimated 250 political dynasties in the Philippines. Of the 265 members of Congress in 2007, it said in a report that year, 160 of them belonged to these powerful families.

They are clearly the majority in Congress and Glenn Omanio’s response to my query on the actual number of powerful families maintaining private armies surely makes you wonder how we have allowed greedy morons to run our country:

I quoted in 2007 Cenpeg's director, Bobby Tuazon, saying, "Each of the country's 80 provinces is kept under the thumbs of at least one dynasty. These political dynasties run a patronage system of local political families and networks of supporters bound together by interlocking political and commercial interests.'' Each of the families account for at least two members in Congress, numbering almost 500 of the 2,400 elected officials in the national legislature from 1907 to 2004.

Of course they will act innocently and put up a façade of righteousness instead of taking responsibility for their incompetence like almost nuisance presidential candidate Gibo to which Manny SD Lopez has this to say:

Presidential wannabe Gilbert Teodoro should shut his mouth and stop giving prescriptions in light of the recent massacre in Maguindanao. He was secretary of defense for over two years and wielded considerable political influence, he could have initiated gun control initiatives and laid out policies to stop the proliferation of private armies, if he had the wisdom and courage to do so. As DND Secretary, he has done nothing, or taken a position to address such matters. He is only good in making speeches of no consequence and political value.

This dastardly act is an affront to our hard won democracy and civil rights, it’s an insult to the military and police establishments, even to Islamic ethics of warfare. Expulsion of the Ampatuans from the administration party alone is not sufficient; the full force of the law must be applied. With martial law declared in those provinces, the DILG must immediately effect preventive suspension of LGU officials who may be responsible as evidence suggest. The military and police leadership in Mindanao should act with courage and dispatch to arrest the culprits as the Filipino people so demand.

Indeed they have crossed the line where woman. children, and innocent civilians are not harmed during rido or clan wars and this was just about election, we can only hope that that the violence does not escalate into a clan war where the rules of engagement has been breached that may lead to more atrocities. The massacre of at least 12 journalist never seen even in war torn Iraq could very well be a violence imposed news blackout for the journalist to stay out of the way for the impending bloody war of attrition and annihilation between the 2 warring clans. Warlordism is a medieval aberration in a young fragile democracy, we need to identify and expose them and evil deeds so the people can boot them out of office………. or forever be at the mercy of sadistic monsters ruling and robbing us blind who are not even worthy of being called human beings.

Image courtesy of FB friend Kner Ramirez Fajardo

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