PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 4, 2013) – The Mindanao Bishop Conference is planning a fact-finding mission in Zamboanga City following three weeks of fierce fighting that killed and wounded over 400 people.
Bishop Delfin Callao Jr, convener of the Sowing the Seeds of Peace in Mindanao and chairman of the Mindanao Bishops Conference of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, said the mission aims to “thresh out the truth from the war propaganda which was usually tilted towards the Aquino government.”
“It is time to ferret out the truth and rehabilitate the victims of the all-out offensives,” Callao said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said they are also coordinating with humanitarian aid groups in conducting solidarity and mercy missions to Zamboanga City. “Justice and restitution is owed to the people of Zamboanga City and Mindanao,” Callao stressed.
He said Sowing the Seeds of Peace will seriously assess the statement of peace advocate Grace Rebollos that the government scored a “pyrrhic victory” in the Zamboanga conflict.
“There should be an independent assessment of the costs of the all-out offensives and the AFP should be accountable for the use of taxpayers’ money. They cannot simply waste money like they have a cache of military pork barrel,” Callao said.
Instead of political negotiation which is closer to the ‘straight path’, the Aquino government intentionally took the ‘warpath’ in the Zamboanga crisis.
“Aquino’s war has clearly led to a bigger problem than its intended outcome,” Callao said. “What is clear for now is the AFP’s military victory. But we doubt if the government scored a political victory after the smoke has cleared. In fact, it has merely succeeded in further deepening the wound in the Mindanao peace process and in the Moro people’s quest for the right to self-determination.”
He said they will document violations to human rights and international humanitarian law and submit their report to churches, the human rights and peace committees of the House of Representatives, and international human rights and peace bodies.
He said the Moro National Liberation Front “will also have to be accountable if found violating international humanitarian law and if its actions are deemed as military adventurism.”
Callao said he observed that ‘hawks in government’ have always swayed state responses to armed revolutionary movements towards militarist solutions. “As history points out, all-out war approaches have failed to bring about peace. There is silence in the front in Zamboanga now. But that does not mean peace has been achieved,” he said.
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