‘Gen. Gomez’s distorted views on tribal conflicts’

BEHIND THE SCENES
Alfred P. Dizon

(Simon “Ka Filiw” Naogsan, spokesperson Cordillera People’s Democratic Front writes this week’s column.)

The Cordillera People’s Democratic Front finds absurd and without basis the declaration of Maj. Gen. Rommel A. Gomez, Commanding General of the 5th ID in his address during the Regional Peace and Order Council meeting in La Trinidad, Benguet last Feb. 6 that the revolutionary movement exploits tribal conflicts for recruitment —maliciously implying that the revolutionary forces are ecstatic when tribal war erupts among the indigenous communities in the Cordillera Region.

This just shows the convoluted military mindset on how it evaluates the phenomenon of tribal war and maliciously find a lame excuse to pass the AFP’s inutility in addressing this problem.

On the contrary, it has been the New People’s Army that has painstakingly forged peace agreements especially in its areas of operations and closely assisted in mediating peaceful settlements among the national minorities since the time that the NPA took foothold in the Cordillera communities.
Modesty aside, the Red fighters had been in the forefront in forging multilateral bodong/peacepacts among the peace pact holders and esteemed lalakay (elders) against the anti-people Chico River Dam Projects and the twin Cellophil Resources Corporation and the Cellulose Corporation during the dark days of the Marcos Dictatorship until these were ultimately shelved.

Up to the present, the revolutionary movement has consistently adopted the policy and practice of amicably settling tribal conflicts among the warring tribes by way of peaceful and democratic means. It continuously waged a “no to tribal war” campaigns in areas where tribal war is still a practice as a way of exacting tribal justice, in line with its principle of peaceful resolution of contradictions among the people.

It has been the AFP and PNP and its paramilitary units including the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU) and its predecessor, the CHDF and the traitorous Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA which has created division and conflict among the indigenous communities.

It will be recalled that in a desperate attempt to break the determined opposition of the Bontoc and Kalinga people against the dreaded proposed Chico River dams, the US-Marcos Dictatorship recruited and armed tribal villages to pit against rival tribes.

It failed miserably though in this sinister schemes. During the height of the Betwagan and Butbut tribal war, the AFP’s integration program inspired the CPLA integrees on both sides as an occasion to display their prowess in combat and was in the least interested in settling their conflict by forging a peace pact.

The escalation and eventual full blown tribal war between the Saclit and Sadanga tribes was triggered by the ostentatious brandishing of arms by CAFGU recruits supplied by the AFP on both sides. Most significantly, the tribal war between the Dalican and the Pidlisan tribes was spiced up by the covert and overt participation of the 69th IB and PNP.

Gomez has to do a lot of explaining regarding the actual participation of the 69th Infantry Battalion in the shooting war then under his ward. It exposes the serious insensitivity to the complicated dynamics of Cordillera indigenous societies and mercenary mindset of the AFP in handling ticklish issues such as tribal war.

Village folks can easily testify that during the outbreak of tribal wars, AFP and PNP elements make a flourishing business of selling arms and bullets to the concerned warring tribes. There were even instances where active AFP and PNP personnel who hails from the warring tribes take partisan side and participate in the tribal war.

The notorious CPLA in certain cases foment tribal wars. The coddling of the AFP and the reactionary state of the CPLA embolden their nefarious activities and thereby imbued upon them the culture of notoriety inciting their communities to take punitive actions then plunging them to full-blown tribal wars.
The recruitment of CAFGUs in tribal areas and forcing them to guide combat operations to another tribe would put in jeopardy existing pagta of their peace pacts. And any abuses that may result out of these combat operations in the presence of these CAFGUs will take its toll on the soured relations of the affected tribes.

So who is talking now of taking advantage of tribal war? Those that make good business out of it? The system that continue to employ the age-old tactics of “divide and rule” to perpetuate itself in power and prides in the utilization of paramilitary units – CAFGUs and CPLA – as ‘force multipliers’ in its counter-insurgency operation that put in jeopardy the harmonious coexistence relations among tribal villages?

And more often than not, amount to soured relationship up to the outbreak of tribal war? And a regime that continues to coddle and integrate the CPLA as a special force and gives it a virtual license as a killing machine?

Its latest ploy is to attempt to destroy indigenous practices and institutions as the bodong and peace pacts by castigating these as vulnerable to inducing crime. By further ridiculing tribal conflict-resolving measures as well as indigenous structures as the dap-ay and council of elders, the military aims to break the backbone of resistance.

The insensitivity and off-tangent approaches of the AFP, and the reactionary state it protects, to the practices of the indigenous people will continue to alienate itself from the people of the Cordillera, and not the tribal feuds that the army says are fomenting rebellion.