The Philippine Online Chronicles

In the nine years of her administration, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo vowed to end the decades-old problem of private armies and warlordism in the country only at the last minute. Yet critics believe that scoring a buzzer-beater is impossibile with the government’s complicity in the proliferation on guns and goons and with the election fever heating up.

As of Jan. 8, the military and police have validated 68 “partisan armed groups,” 25 of them in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Around 558 towns and cities have also been identified as election hotspots.

Four months before the May 10 elections, Arroyo finalized on New Year’s eve the composition of the six-man commission mainly tasked to probe the existence of private armies “with a view of dismantling them permanently,” Inquirer.net reported. Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales said there are around 130 private armies all over the country, armed with close to a million loose firearms.

Members of the commission include Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Mahmod Mala Adilao of the Bishops-Ulama Conference, retired Brig. Gen. Jaime Echeverria, retired Police Deputy Director General Virtus Gil, broadcaster Herman Basbano of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP), and Dante Jimenez of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption.

Named as chair was Retired Court of Appeals Associate Justice Monina Arevalo-Zenarosa, whose appointment to the commission was announced a few days after the commission members were named because of her request.

The commission, which was created through Administrative Order No. 275 issued last Dec. 8, stemmed from the massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao by suspected armed men of the Ampatuan clan, GMANews.tv reported. The appointments came at a time when the spate of attacks against local leaders and candidates heat up, in which four candidates under the Nacionalista Party were assassinated.

The same report added that under the administrative order, the commission may “tap the Department of Justice, Philippine National Police, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the National Bureau of Investigations, and other government agencies including owned and controlled corporations if necessary to enable them to finish their work, which includes investigating, summoning witnesses, and taking testimonies and evidence that may be relevant to their probe.”

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Jesus Versoza reiterated the Palace’s vow, saying it is the PNP’s aim to get rid of all private armed groups before the May 10 elections, Manila Bulletin reported. In the same report, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Ronaldo Puno expressed confidence in the success of their operations, saying “they [private armies] are all listed, we know who they are, we know what we are going to do.”

At the onset, the commission has asked President Arroyo’s resolve versus private armies. Dante Jimenez said that the commission would need Ms. Arroyo’s unwavering commitment to implement strategies that would be crafted in the course of its four-month inquiry.

Skeletons in the closet

The developments in the probe of the Maguindanao massacre, however, have cast uncertainties as to how sincere the President is in carrying out its vow to wipe out private armies in the country. Last December, tons of high-powered firearms and ammunitions marked with “Department of Defense (DND) Arsenal” were unearthed just 300 meters away from the Ampatuan clan’s residence. The seized firearms are enough to supply a battalion, according to PNP.

The discovery prompted a raid into the house of Ampatuans, wherein more firearms and ammunitions were uncovered, GMANews.tv reported. Some of the firearms bore the same mark: “Department of Defense (DND) Arsenal.”

Retired major general Jovito Palparan, whom human rights groups call “The Butcher” has even confirmed that the firearms were supplied by the Arroyo government to the Ampatuans.

Former defense chief and now presidentiable, Gilbert Teodoro said tracing the source of firearms and ammunition found in the Ampatuans is easy. But up to this day, no military, police or defense official has been made accountable for the transfer of government firearms to the Ampatuans’ hands.

‘Toothless creature’

Even before the commission issues its first status report on its task, skepticism and criticisms have been raised against it and the Arroyo administration, especially with the nature of the body.

Former Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair Christian Monsod said in a report that the commission is merely a “recommendatory body.” He further said that it might suffer the same fate as the Melo Commission, which investigated extra-judicial killings but whose recommendations did not solve the problem. He said “part of the problem is that the military and the police were involved in legitimizing private armies and groups like the Ampatuans,” ABS-CBNNews.com Multi-sectoral alliance Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) in a statement expressed doubt on the commission’s resolve to recommend the prosecution of liable military and government officials. Rhetorically, the group asked how the commission will deal with the “responsibility of Commander-in-Chief Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her support for the Ampatuans.”

In consecutive columns in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Amando Doronilla criticized Malacanang’s vow to eliminate private armies within four months, describing the presidential commission on private armies as a “toothless creature” and President Arroyo as increasingly becoming a “lame duck” during the last six months of her presidency, with DILG Secretary Puno “left to assemble a rag-tag national police to do the dirty job of dismantling the warlord armies.”

Foreign publication The Economist also expressed reservation on the success of the commission, saying the political will to crush private armies “might be hard to find in a system where political power often comes out of the barrel of a gun.”

A major roadblock

As a first step to dismantle private armed groups, Malacanang should repeal its Executive Order 546 (EO 546) that legitimizes the existence of private armies, Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo said in a statement. He said private armies actually refer to “security forces of local government officials and the armed groups these officials support under the disguise of civilian volunteer organizations (CVOs).

In an earlier statement, Ocampo said that “it is most likely that the CVOS who took part in the [Maguindanao massacre] were recruited under EO 546.”

The executive order, which was signed by President Arroyo in July 2006, licensed the proliferation of CVOs and Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) under local government units in an effort to suppress the communist insurgency.

Jose Dalisay III wrote in a Newsbreak article that the 1987 Constitution itself states that private armies should be dismantled, without directly tasking the AFP. “But there is nothing to prohibit the President, as commander-in-chief, from telling the AFP to do so,” he said.

Dalisay added that the “President appears to have not done so.”

Decades of warlordism

Decades of warlordism have rendered elections as inherently violent, with local politicians using private armed groups in sealing electoral victory over rivals.

Manila Standard Today's Jojo Robles noted in his column an act of warlordism four decades ago, when Vincent “Bingbong” Crisologo, the son of a local governor and congressman, supervised the torching of the villages of Ora Este and Ora Centro in Bantay, Ilocos Sur in 1970. He said Crisologo was convicted for that heinous crime, “but he found God in jail and won a seat in Congress upon his release.”

Dalisay, meanwhile, recounted the 1951 murder of Moises Padilla, who was a candidate for mayor in Negros Occidental. Padilla was arrested, tortured and later shot to death by armed men of then-Governor Rafael Lacson.

Indeed, the festering problem of warlordism in the country, which for so long has went side-by-side with the exercise of elections, adds weight on Arroyo’s proclamation of dismantling private armies on the eve of the campaign period.

As the government races against time, it races towards its predictable shame – just like in previous deadlines that it has set.

Photo: Plastic Guns by Barjack. From Flickr. Some rights reserved.