Premature and unnecessary

Churchill Aguilar

I AM in no way underestimating the threats and the capability of the Maute group to disturb our peace but the declaration of martial law in Mindanao is just premature and unnecessary.

First, while the Maute group is creating so much terror in Marawi City as of this writing, Mindanao is not in any way in a state of anarchy or mobocracy. The president still has an unparalleled trust rating and majority of the people still submit to the laws of our land. In fact, no one is against his iron fist in mopping up the troubled city and employ the military services to do such but he absolutely does not need to put the whole island in an emergency military takeover. Such action can very much be likened to using a bazooka to kill the mosquitoes.

Second, we are already in the age of civilization where we try to embrace ethics and the rule of law work first before we resort to extreme measures. Let us not employ the most extreme measure at the first sight of rebellion of a group. Martial law has its wisdom that is why we allow it in our Constitution but it’s not yet this and it’s not now.

Third, it shows our weakness as a nation that we had to resort to our last card because our existing systems and mechanisms failed to handle it well. It shows how weak we are in preventing a crisis to occur, otherwise, the problem would have been solved already before it reached this far.

Yes, we are on a peace crisis now here in our region. That I fully recognize. I stand with the people of Marawi City and I pray that this crisis will get solved the soonest with the least possible damage to lives and property.

If there is one clear lesson that this crisis brings, it’s the fact that we need to improve our security system both in the local and national levels. It is high time to develop an effective homeland security. What we have now is already crisis management, what we need and we should have done years ago is to prevent things to develop into a crisis–as the saying goes, prevention is always better than cure.

Let our mayors use their intelligence funds for purposes of securing our safety and not to enrich themselves and their political allies simply because these funds are discretionary in nature. Let also our PNP further improve community-based monitoring of peace and order and explore on programs that will multiply their forces in the grassroots level. We need programs that are actually operational and not just good in paper.

The Marawi crisis magnifies the fact that peace is not only a police concern, it is a local government concern and most importantly, it is our individual concern as well.

Mag tinabangay ta para di maka sulod ang mga bandido sa atong mga komunidad. Naa sa atong mga kamot makab ot ang kalinaw sa Mindanao, wala sa martial law.