War in Zamboanga and Our Own War

War has never been pretty. The unfolding scenes in Zamboanga City show the costs of our folly. More than the costs of deaths and injured, there is that untold costs of human suffering. And it is just beginning.

More than those houses burnt and business interests lost, there are the widows and the orphans, the mothers and the fathers who lost their sons and daughters, and the wives who lost their husbands, and the children, their parents. War has never been forgiving.

Government says, we must never blame them. I blame them. I blame them for the human costs that the Zamboangenos suffered at the hands of the Moro National Liberation Front. I blame them for not doing their jobs properly. What happened is plain and simple---this government ignored the MNLF especially the 1996 Peace agreement and instead of peace, gave these rebels an occasion to go to war. War is never for fools.

As we grieve for our fellow Filipinos who suffer from the brutalities of war in Mindanao, we equally grieve for the daily suffering of more than 20 million Filipinos who continually encounter the economic brutalities of our age. Our continuing battle against poverty will probably eclipse our generation, simply because we never recognized the very core problem---our system.

Our approach to these problems has never been forthwith. We have an illusion as a system. There is simply no system in place. The system depends on the caprices and whims of whoever is in power. There is no continuity in our actions, no regularity, only actions that reflect the conoistic behavior of people whom we elect as our leaders.

Our God has shown us the light---and the path to take. It may be painful. It may be radical. But if we so choose to change the present system not for ourselves but for our sons and daughters and future Filipinos, then, we must accept the inevitable consequences of our actions.

War is change.