NO MATTER WHAT PRESIDENT Gloria does on Maguindanao, like declaring martial law in the province supposedly to go after the Ampatuan clan, the fact remains that she was the one who made monsters out of them.
She’s like the fictional Dr. Frankenstein who destroyed the monster that he created.
The President armed the Ampatuans with sophisticated weapons, complete with ammunition from the Department of National Defense.
She allowed them to form a 1,000-strong private army.
Either upon her direct orders or with her tolerance, policemen and Army soldiers were assigned to act as squad leaders or platoon sergeants of the 1,000 militiamen or as bodyguards to the Ampatuans.
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Now, she had to declare martial law to disband a private army that she allowed to be formed.
Her national police chief, Jesus Verzosa, had to relieve the entire police force of Maguindanao and replace it with a contingent from Metro Manila because the cops in the province were on the payroll of the Ampatuans.
The President is having difficulty undoing her years of playing footsies with the Ampatuans.
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It has been a long-standing practice by Malacañang and Camp Crame to assign only Muslim officers to Muslim provinces, to the exclusion of non-Muslim officers.
That should be stopped.
The reason the Ampatuans held sway over the entire Maguindanao police force that was recently relieved is that the officers were mostly Muslims.
What’s wrong with assigning non-Muslim police officers to Muslim provinces?
Are Malacañang and Camp Crame afraid of displeasing the local officials in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)?
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Time and again, this column has urged the government to assign Muslim soldiers and policemen in other places outside the ARMM.
The so-called integrees (former Moro rebels absorbed by the Armed Forces), especially, should be kept away from Muslim areas.
Muslim soldiers are torn between their loyalty to their comrades, on one hand, and their relatives or fellow Muslims, on the other, whenever fighting erupts in the South.
In many instances, Muslim soldiers shot their own non-Muslim comrades or superior officers in the thick of the fight with Moro rebels.
Muslim enlisted personnel and officers should be assigned to non-Muslim areas because they fight better outside their home grounds.
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Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. is protesting his transfer to a military hospital inside a camp from the Davao Doctors Hospital.
The elder Ampatuan was confined at the private hospital after he complained of chest pains following his arrest.
Nag-aarte lang yan (He’s just acting). He’s just pretending to be sick.
Did he get sick when he learned about the murder of 57 unarmed and innocent civilians, some of whom were raped before they were butchered?
If the old Ampatuan dies pretending to be sick, that’s just too bad.
Only President Gloria will probably mourn his death.
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