Mamasapano Massacre - A Sad Consequence of Our Colonial Mentality and Perpetual Mendicancy

"But the Pacific Ocean," we are mysteriously told, "will be the great commercial battlefield of the future, and we must quickly use the present opportunity to secure our position on it. The visible presence of great power is necessary for us to get our share of the trade of China. Therefore we must have the Philippines."

"The Anglo-Saxon advances into the new regions with a Bible in one hand and a shotgun in the other. The inhabitants of those regions that he cannot convert with the aid of the Bible, and bring into his markets, he gets rid of with the shotgun. It is but another demonstration of the survival of the fittest." In other words, unless you worship as we command you, and give us a profitable trade, we shall have to shoot you down. -  Hon. Cyrus A. Sulloway, Congressman from New Hampshire, 1899

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Hi All,

The USA has its way in our homeland and us native Filipinos by the balls in perpetuity.

The USA has done an excellent job of Americanizing the native Filipino mind, long after its brutal military intervention /occupation/"pacification" of the island peoples, but its establishment of public education with imposition of English as the official medium of instruction was the coup de grace to the nascent Filipino nationalism.

An imposed foreign language that can only result in a native mind conditioned to read, write, think and act like/for his foreign master. And add other incentives to do so.

Ergo from then on, we have generations of our governing elites, JUSMAG-trained military and citizenry consistently looking for approval and having developed a mendicant attitude become "running dogs" for duplicitous "special friends," and unconscionably spending native Filipino lives to please supposedly foreign friends rather than looking after their real jobs, i.e. the common good of its citizenry, long-term peace and well-being among all its people.

We do not see an end to this sad state of our Americanized Filipino mind and its dire consequences to our homeland and us natives, for the long-term as today. As demonstrated in two recent incidents: the inability of the Philippines to detain the US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton who was charged last year in the murder of native Filipina Jennifer Laude (reminds us of the Subic Rape Case (2005)  and most recently U.S. military involvement the PNP-operation that resulted in the Masasapano Massacre described below.
And our homeland/we native Filipinos as a whole continue to NOT earn recognition and respect from among our fellow Asian countries, other countries and peoples.

We deserve to be seen and treated as such. Bert

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Primary Blog Posts/Readings for my fellow, Native (Malay/Indio) Filipinos-in-the-Philippines

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The US Military Just Plunged Philippine Politics into Crisis - Walden Bello, CommonDreams.Org/Foreign Policy In Focus, March 18, 2015

Early in the morning of January 25, commandos belonging to the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police crept into the southern town of Mamasapano — a stronghold of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The elite Seaborne Unit had come for Zulkifli Abdhir, a Malaysian bomb maker better known as “Marwan.”  By the end of the morning, dozens lay dead.

The episode 

• has severely discredited the administration of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, 
• jeopardized decades of progress on peace talks with Moro separatists, 
• and underlined the perils for developing world governments that put themselves at the beck and call of Washington.

The commandos were able to kill Marwan, who’d sat high on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists.” But then all hell broke loose. The insurgents woke up and opened fire on the intruders, forcing the commandos to leave Marwan’s body behind. They had to content themselves with cutting off the corpse’s index finger to turn over to the FBI.

As they retreated, nine of the Seaborne commandoes were killed. They radioed for help, but they were told that the “Quick Reaction Force” charged with covering their withdrawal was already pinned down in a flat cornfield with little cover. Over the next few hours, that separate unit of 36 men was picked off one-by-one by Moro snipers. Only one of the 36 survived, by running for his life and jumping into a nearby river. All in all, 44 policemen died in the bloody battle. Moro fighters estimated that 18 of their combatants and about four civilians were killed.

A timely rescue effort was not even mounted, since an infantry battalion in the area wasn’t informed till late in the morning that the commandos were under fire. When ceasefire monitors finally reached the cornfield late in the afternoon, long after the battle ended, they found corpses that had been stripped of their weapons and other gear, some exhibiting wounds that indicated they had been shot at point-blank range.

Biggest Casualty: Moro Autonomy

The “Mamasapano Massacre,” as it has come to be called, upended Philippine politics.

The biggest casualty was the Bangsa Moro Basic Law that was in the last stages of being shepherded through the Philippine Congress. Known as the “BBL,” the bill was the product of nearly five years of intensive negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to put an end to almost 50 years of fighting in the southern Philippines. It would have created an autonomous region for the Muslim Moros, a fiercely independent people that have long resisted integration into the broader Filipino polity.

With emotions among the Christian majority running high, congressional approval of the BBL was thrown into doubt, threatening an eventual return to hostilities. Some politicians rode on the incident to stoke the latent anti-Muslim prejudices of the dominant culture — not just to derail prospects for Moro autonomy, but also to advance their own political ambitions.

Under congressional questioning, the facts of the raid were extracted piece by piece — on national television — from high administration officials. Their feelings seemed to run the gamut of guilt, grief, disbelief, and resentment at not being “in the know” about the planned incursion.

The decisive element in the unraveling of the operation, it appears, was the deliberate withholding of information from key people at the top of the police and armed forces hierarchy. 

Only the president, the Special Action Force commander, and the national police chief, General Alan Purisima, knew about the mission. Though suspended from office on corruption charges, Purisima — a trusted aide of the president — was effectively in charge of the operation, bypassing the acting police chief and the secretary of the interior, who knew nothing of the mission until disaster overtook it.

Emerging in the hearings was the following portrait of the tragedy: The officials who conceived and implemented the operation to nab Marwan chose not to inform the top people in the police and military leadership. They also ignored and subverted the carefully negotiated procedures for territorial access worked out among the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the government, and third-party monitors.

The Liberation Front fighters — along with fighters from a die-hard separatist group, the Bangsa Moro Islamic Freedom Fighters — responded that morning to what they perceived as a large invasion force. Once the battle began, it became very difficult for their leaders to realize the intent of the commando contingent and get their forces to disengage.

It seemed evident, too, that some wounded policemen were finished off execution-style, though it was not clear which group was responsible for these atrocities.

Washington’s Hand

The big puzzle for many was why a government that was in the last stages of negotiating an autonomy agreement to end 50 years of warfare would endanger this goal — said to be a major legacy priority for President Aquino — with a large-scale commando intrusion into Moro territory without informing its negotiating partner.

To an increasing number of people, the answer must have something to do with Washington.

Indeed, Washington’s fingerprints were all over the operation: There was a $5-million bounty placed by the Americans on Marwan’s head. A U.S. military helicopter appeared in the area after the long firefight, allegedly to help evacuate the wounded. Marwan’s finger disappeared after the battle and showed up at an FBI lab in the United States a few days later.

Filipino officials have remained tight-lipped on the question of U.S. participation in the raid, invoking “national security” or choosing to make revelations only in secret executive sessions with the Senate. Thus it has fallen on the media to probe the U.S. role.

Perhaps the most reliable of these probes was conducted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which found that U.S. drones had pinpointed Marwan’s hiding place, guided the commandos to it, and provided the capability for real-time management by the Philippine commanders away from the battlefield. 

American advisers, the paper claimed, were the ones who had vetoed informing top officials of the police, the armed forces, and the Liberation Front of the planned raid on the grounds that news of the action would be leaked to Marwan.

Finally, the original plan was to have a fused team of Seaborne Unit commandos and the Quick Reaction Force. But that was reportedly rejected by the American advisers, who favored having the Seaborne Unit carry out the raid itself and the Quick Reaction Force provide cover — a plan that proved disastrous. 

The Seaborne Unit, it emerged, had been trained by “retired” Navy Seals and functioned as the Americans’ special unit within the special forces of the Philippine National Police.

The full extent of U.S. involvement remains to be unearthed, but it’s now clear to many that taking out Marwan was a major priority for Washington — not Manila. As one congressman put it, the Mamasapano tragedy was a case of “the Americans fighting to the last Filipino.”

Into the Bunker

As the details of the American role emerge, the pressure is on President Aquino to admit complicity in a Washington-directed operation, which he has so far refused to do.

• Aquino has come under intense fire from nationalist quarters that earlier criticized him for negotiating a military pact that allows the United States to use Philippine bases to implement President Obama’s so-called “Pivot to Asia” strategy to contain China.
• for putting a suspended police general in charge of the fatal mission and refusing to admit command responsibility for it, 
• for the charge of laying down Filipino lives for an American scheme
  appears to have forced the president further into his bunker, creating the widespread impression of a drift in leadership that, it was feared, coup plotters and other adventurers — of which there is no shortage in the Philippines — could take advantage of.

There is a personal postscript to this. As a sitting member of the Philippine House of Representatives, I withdrew my political support for President Aquino when he refused to accept command responsibility for the operation. Since my party Akbayan remains allied to the administration, I resigned as the congressional representative of the party.

© 2014 Foreign Policy In Focus

Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Walden Bello is senior analyst of the Bangkok-based institute Focus on the Global South and representative of Akbayan (Citizens’ Action Party) in the House of Representatives of the Philippines. He can be reached at waldenbello@yahoo.com.

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WHAT IS HISTORY - The Purpose of our Past - Why Study Our History? (UPDATED)

 "To remain ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain always a child." - Cicero


"For we wish to understand the spirit of an age to see into its heart and mind, and to acquire a feel for how those who lived in it responded to their world and coped with its dilemmas." - A. C. Grayling

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NOTES: 1.Colored and/or underlined words are HTML links. Click on them to see the linked posts/articles. Forwarding this and other posts to relatives and friends, especially those in the homeland, is greatly appreciated). To share, use all social media tools: email, blog, Google+, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, etc. THANKS!! 2.Read on Scribd mobile apps: iPhone, iPad and Android. 3.Free download as PDF, TXT or read online for free from Scribd, point-click to open-->SCRIBD/TheFilipinoMind Click the following underlined title/link to checkout these Essential/Primary Readings About Us Filipino Natives:

Primary Blog Posts/Readings for my fellow, Native (Malay/Indio) Filipinos-in-the-Philippines

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Why study our history [specifically American colonization; its impact on our native culture, education, economy, national and global perceptions, etc. ]?


Hi All,

Then and now, an American seems to reside in the heart and mind of each Filipino of every generation since the United States conquest and its 48-years occupation of the Philippines. 


The American colonization, though much shorter than the 400+ years Spanish domination of our homeland, has more efficiently, more effectively and more thoroughly impacted and reconstructed the (our) native Filipino mindset which made us: 

1. lose memory of the nationalistic spirit that drove the likes of Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Artemio Ricarte et al. to fight first the Spanish colonizer and then the American interventionist/occupier; 
2. forget American duplicity in our native forefathers' revolution against Spain, to forget the subsequently violent and brutal America’s Hidden War against our forefathers, and thus,
3. project the American arrival and occupation as pure benevolence of a  special friend and savior. 

All these so long-lastingly, thanks to the Americanized educational system imposed --after executing/hanging or putting to exile our nationalist heroes and banning any display or talk of Filipino nationalism/independence during the occupation-- throughout our homeland via the US Army, a compulsory and biased educational system facilitated through a "second invasion" by Thomasites, American civil administrators, Protestant missionaries and the later Peace Corps volunteers. 

We native Filipinos grew up and are still growing up knowing only about: the American innocence. Just like many Americans themselves in their own homeland --thanks to excessive TV-viewing for one, etc.--- are ignorant of the totality of American history.

More relevant to us specifically, its distorted narration of the Philippine-American War, usually glossed over under the Spanish-American War aka Splendid Little War , its mock Battle of Manila Bay, Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, complete Roosevelt Corollary, and the current, if not perpetual drive, for American hegemony in the 21st century.

It was only during the American Intervention/War in Vietnam did concerned Americans began searching for the roots of their current foreign policy. Those concerned people eager for information to explain how the United States became an interventionist global power have found important continuities between the past and the present. They found these connections only through critical pursuit and study of the annals of American history.

Seldom have American historians given much attention to anti-imperialism in the Philippines or to the scholarship of Filipinos. The Spanish-American War receives dramatic attention; but the bloody so-called Filipino Insurrection (labeled as such to subtly belittle the Filipino revolutionary struggle against Spain, for political independence at the time.

Also, many American historians gloss-over American duplicity and  intervention which began against Spain in 1896 and lasted until mid-1902 against the United States (1902 -if the guerrilla war Filipinos waged against the American occupational forces to 1913 is ignored). 

To be sure, the American War against our native revolutionaries was/is an ugly episode in the history of American foreign relations, and until recently American scholars have tended to play down the sordid side of United States history.

Consequently, the native Filipino mind has been effectively and efficiently reconstructed to be Americanized: 

1. conditioned to knowingly or unknowingly think and analyze economic and political issues in his own homeland (and abroad) from the American point of view.
2. In the long-run, his alienated heart and mind brought to the Filipino and the homeland only ever-deepening poverty, and its consequent illiteracy, hunger and damaged culture. 

To change this way of thinking, the American drilled into and residing in the Filipino mind need to be removed; for the Filipino to be critically educated, so as to arouse the Filipinism in his heart and mind in matters of national interests (cultural, economic and political); for each native Filipino to ultimately demonstrate and most important, demand from his national leadership honest concern and action for the impoverished native majority (Christian, Muslim, and the forgotten ethnic minorities), to pursue the native common good.

The nationalistic outlook is most important and necessary when dealing with all foreigners, such as the American, Australian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese businessmen, their governments and their transnational corporations (TNCs) as they work and exploit our people and homeland indirectly via the IMF and WB and the WTO in the Philippines , ADB, bilateral agreements, etc. among many others [all without the knowledge and understanding of the native majority and rationalized for us so-called educated (schooled) by our subtly quiet but traitorous native technocrats].

The primary task for us Filipinos, despite numerous impediments, is to study our history from a nationalist point-of-view, to raise our nationalist consciousness, through self- education or by formal/informal education, beginning with a recognition and appreciation of our colonial mentality and exerting a conscious effort to discard it. 

Our task in terms of the national economy in our homeland should be to think FILIPINO FIRST, as other nations rightly do think of and for themselves in their own homelands. 

But of course, our "Filipinism" has to be different from the selfish individualism (lacking in sincere, social concern) of our native politicians, native businessmen and entrepreneurs of the past, who used nationalism to advance solely their own private interests. This latter danger can be prevented by nationalistic mass education; since knowledge and understanding should not be an exclusive domain of the middle class and socioeconomic elite.

It is only with a nationalistic consciousness in his mind and heart will the native Filipino be able to fight, deal and work with utmost determination for his own betterment, those of his children and grandchildren; and consequently of his homeland. 


I say all the above to clarify why we, who seriously consider ourselves native Filipinos [including Filipinos of American or other citizenship] should critically study or restudy our homeland's history, inclusive of American history. to better know, understand our national past which had only lead to the present national predicaments; and work to change ourselves as Filipino individuals and as a people and consequently contribute, in whatever way big or small, for the enlightenment and betterment of our homeland and our future generations  


All these reconstructed Filipino mindset has and is now being perpetuated, knowingly or unknowingly -in the absence of US civilian administrators, Thomasites et al-  by our fellow native Filipinos with Americanized minds in our current educational system, media, business, military and other public/private institutions (in addition to the perennial U.S. cultural/media propaganda and official pronouncements). The Americanized Filipino mind requires its "deconstruction" by us native Filipinos who want to be truly Filipino, that is, Filipino nationalists. 


I can not be repetitive enough. This deconstruction of our Filipino mind is a sine qua non condition to attaining our communal and nationalist identity as the Filipino people, as an equal member of the human race rather than being stereotyped as lazy natives, little brown brothers, running dogs for the Americans or other moneyed foreigners, etc...

And be able to overcome/dispose of our still being tribal in thought and action (smacks of regionalism, provincialism, and limits to within the extended family, etc.), of our  past and present tendencies to have "double consciousness:" i.e. the sense of looking at ourselves through the eyes of others, of measuring ourselves by a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity - to borrow a line from one of  W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) books, entitled "The Soul of Black Folks."


Below "WHAT IS HISTORY?" by A.C. Grayling essay is not directly about our own particular Philippine history but dwells in general about the why and what of history, as a subject matter, is all about. Note especially its last sentence.


 - Bert, 11/07/2012


Please click to read also:

1. Studying and Rethinking Our Philippine History and 
2. History from the Point of View of the Filipino People (by Mrs. Leticia R. Constantino)

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WHAT IS HISTORY? - by A.C. Grayling


There is ambiguity in the very name. "History" can mean either past events, or writing about past events. But what if the former is a creation of the latter? The past, after all, has ceased to exist. Here in the present we find documents and other objects which, we suppose, survive from the past, and we weave interpretations round them. These objects, and our interpretations belong to the present. If history is different narratives constructed in the present, is it any wonder that historians disagree among themselves?


The idea that the past is another country, spread out 'behind' us, which we could visit if we had a time-machine, is naive. Yet our realism is offended by the claim that the past is created in the present, and we oppose the latitude thus accorded to those who, for example, deny that the Holocaust happened.


What, then, is history? Is it an art that creates, or a science that discovers? Either way, is there -can there be- such a thing as historical truth? And if so, to what extent can it be known?


"History" derives from the ancient Greek work isotria, meaning inquiry. But even in antiquity the fatal ambiguity arose; by the fourth century BC the historikos -the reciter of stories- had supplanted the historeon -the inquirer. Into which category should we place the great early historians, Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, Sallust, Tacitus?


They too understood the problem. Thucydides attacked Herodotus for his expansive and anecdotal history - made up of an artfully arranged collection of anecdotes, facts, legends and speculations - of the great East-West struggle between Persia and Greece. Thucydides began his history of the Peloponnesian War with the claim that history should be "contemporary history," restricting itself to what can be verified by personal observation. he served in the Athenian army, and wrote as he fought.


Art outweighed science in most historical writing as far as the Renaissance. But from the 17th century the possibility of scientific history emerged from work on sources. Benedictine monks established principles for authenticating medieval manuscripts, thus inaugurating the systematic treatment of materials. By the time Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) summoned historians to record the past 'as it actually happened'.  the project seemed possible.


Other 'Positivists' like von Ranke claimed that there are inductively discover-able historical laws. The great Victorian John Stuart Mill, agreed, adding that psychological laws count among them. On this view history is truly a science: good data and general laws pave the way to objective truth.


But the Positivists were opposed by the Idealists, such as Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911). Under the influence of Kant and Hegel, the Idealists argued whereas natural science studies phenomena from the outside, social science does so from the inner perspective of human experience. History accordingly is a reconstruction of the past by "intellectual empathy" with our forebears.

Dilthey said that history is nevertheless objective, because the products of human experience -books and art- belong to the public domain. But his fellow Idealists disagreed; Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) wrote that history is subjective because the historian himself is always present in its construction. As James Baldwin put it, 'People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.'

These ideas constitute the "philosophy of history." They are not works of history, nor of historiography [discussion of historical techniques]. But neither are they works of "philosophical history", exemplified by those grand theories of history's metaphysical significance offered by Hegel, Marx, Spengler, and Toynbee. These latter claim that history manifests patterns, and moves towards an ultimate goal. Positivist history is an attempt to escape the seductions of such a view, by seeking facts. Idealists arguments show that this aim is easier to state than achieve.

Work at the coal-face of history is a sweated toil among "primary sources." For ancient times these include such things, among others, as archaeological remains, inscriptions on clay tablets, and later copies of early documents. For more recent centuries the raw materials include royal charters, diaries, property deeds, letters and statistics. Either way a large part of the historian's task is interpretation, which is to say: the act of endowing these silent witnesses with a voice. Without interpretations even documents are mute; until the historian gives them one, they have no meaning.

This is why there can be dispute among historians. To repeat the point a different way,: history is not a list of facts; it is a story that we draw from them. And many different stories, all equally good, can be drawn from the same facts. hence disagreement.

For this reason historians are not always at the coal-face. An important part of their work involves standing back from primary sources and reflecting on the larger picture they suggest. This is a task of discerning patterns and rhythms, of separating the causes of later developments from the snowstorm of merely adventitious happenings. This kind of historical work requires fine judgment. And it is not only a question of which story best interprets the data, but of what the story itself means. 


For we wish to understand the spirit of an age to see into its heart and mind, and to acquire a feel for how those who lived in it responded to their world and coped with its dilemmas.


Source: The Mystery of Things by A.C. Grayling (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004)

“The HISTORY of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors.” - Meridel Le Sueur, American writer, 1900-1996

 “Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent” – Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)

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I consider these earlier posts and the RECTO READER as essential in knowing and understanding our homeland and ourselves, native, Malay Filipinos; and are therefore always presented in each new post. Click each to open/read.

1. WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW:
2. WHAT IS NATIONALISM [Filipino Nationalism]?
3. Our Colonial Mentality and Its Roots 
4. The Miseducation of the Filipino (Formation of our Americanized Mind)
5. Jose Rizal - Reformist or Revolutionary?
6. The Purpose of Our Past, Why Study (Our) History?
7. Studying and Rethinking Our Philippine History
8. Globalization (Neoliberalism) – The Road to Perdition in Our Homeland
9. Resisting Globalization (WTO Agreements)
10. Virtues of De-Globalization
11. Our Filipino Kind of Religion
12. Our Filipino Christianity and Our God-concept
13. When Our Religion Becomes Evil

THE RECTO READER is presented in several postings. Click each to open/read:

• THE RECTO READER: Nationalism,Internationalism,Ultra-Nationalism, Part 1A of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Mission of Nationalism, Part 1B of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Economic Independence,Economic Nationalism,Part 2A of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Economic Nationalism Means Industrialization,Part 2B of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Industrialization: The Alternative to Poverty, Part 2C of 6
• THE RECTO READER: The Fallacy of "Philippines First," Part 2D of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Parity Rights, Currency Dependence, Foreign Loans versus Foreign Investments, Part 2E of 6

NOTE: Recto's cited cases, examples or issues were of his time, of course; but realities in our homeland in the present and the foreseeable future are/expectedly much, much worse. Though I am tempted to update them with current issues, it's best to leave them as they are since Recto's paradigms about our much deepened national predicament still ring relevant, valid and true. In short, Recto saw the forest and never got lost in the trees.- Bert

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