Mamasapano fall-out DUTERTE WARNS POWER GRAB, WAR DISASTROUS TO COUNTRY

By Manny Piñol

Bacolod City – Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte, who admitted that the government’s mishandling of the Mamasapano issue spawned talks of a coup d’etat, has warned that a power grab would be disastrous to the Philippines.

“I have never seen a situation where people talk openly about staging a coup (d’etat),” Duterte told members of the Rotary International from the Visayas and Western Mindanao who gathered at the L’Fisher Hotel in Bacolod City Friday.

Duterte said he heard suggestions of a coup d’etat from retired and active military and police officials in the days following the Special Action Force (SAF) operation to arrest Malaysian international terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, which ended in a disaster resulting in the death of 44 police commandos.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) claimed that 18 of its combatants and five civilians also died in the bloody day-long battle in the cornfields of Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

“I warned them against a coup. I said the international community will never look kindly at a nation ruled by a military junta. We will become an international pariah,” Duterte said.

The Davao City Mayor who is known to have open communication lines with the leaders of the MILF, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and the communist New People’s Army (NPA), said forcing President Aquino to step down with a few months left in his six-year term will do more harm than good for the country.

“Some people may not be happy with the way the President (Benigno S. Aquino III) explained his side on the Mamasapano disaster but staging a coup will create more problems for the country,” he said.

Duterte also blasted groups, including national political leaders, calling for an all-out war following the killing of 44 SAF members in Mamasapano.

“Do you know what war is? Do you really understand the meaning of war?,” Duterte asked.

“I have seen the horrors of war with my own eyes. I carried in my arms the body of a nun whose brains were dripping out of her head in the Sasa (wharf) bombing,” he said referring to the terrorist attacks in Davao City several years ago.

Davao City suffered four terrorist attacks over the recent years. The San Pedro cathedral in downtown Davao City was bombed twice, once during the time of Mayor Luis Santos and then during Duterte’s first term as Mayor. Explosions also killed civilians in the Sasa Wharf and in the Davao City International Airport.

Duterte said that in war, the worst victims are civilians who are caught in a crossfire.

“We have to talk even if it will take us 100 years. For after all of the killings and the bloodshed, conflicts are always settled in the peace table,” he said.

“Let me repeat what I said earlier: Let us rise above our national outrage and anger to find a way to resolve the conflict in our country through peaceful means,” Duterte said.

Earlier, Duterte called on the country’s leaders to summon Mindanao officials to a summit to prepare a back up plan to sustain the peace efforts in the Southern Philippines in the face of the expected rejection of the Bangsamoro Basic Law in Congress.

“We have to prepare a Plan B and I believe Federalism is the best option to a failed BBL,” he said.

Duterte was in Bacolod City to continue his advocacy for a shift from a Presidential Unitary form of government to a Federal Parliamentary.

Under the Federal system, the establishment of Federal States, including a Bangsamoro State, is expected to address the neglect of the countryside in development.

“I believe that a Bangsamoro Federal State will realize the dreams and aspirations of our Muslim brothers in the South for a certain degree of self-governance,” Duterte said.