MANILA STANDARD ARTICLE

Point of no return

By Manila Standard Today | Posted on Mar. 05, 2013 at 12:01am | 1,544 views

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The Aquino administration has outdone itself this time.
After displaying utter unpreparedness and ineptitude in handling a crisis in sovereignty and foreign relations, the chief executive now says certain “persons of interest” funded and directed the acts of the Sulu sultan whose men sailed to Sabah and occupied a village there three weeks ago.
Things turned for the worse over the weekend when more than a dozen were killed in gunfight in Lahad Datu and nearby places.  Most of the casualties belonged to the camp of the Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III.
In Monday’s press conference held in Malacañang, President Benigno Aquino III referred to intelligence reports that the Sultan of Sulu and his followers were acting in concert with other forces – specifically those on the side of his predecessor — that wanted to sabotage the government’s peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
He also made no secret of his desire to remain in the good graces of our neighbor Malaysia.  Imagine we were in the opposite situation and a group of armed men arrived and occupied a place we administered, Mr. Aquino said. How are we supposed to act when these men point guns to our faces?
Small wonder he offered no sober words to the sultan, who banks on history and a lease agreement besides to boost his – actually, our — claim on Sabah.   Instead, after taking too long to act on or even speak about the Sabah standoff, Mr. Aquino warned the sultan that he and his men could face charges for their acts and blamed them for endangering the peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Malaysia acts as facilitator  for these talks.
To be sure, the President is not oblivious to the criticism he has been receiving on his inept handling of the Sabah issue, even way before the shooting that began Friday. Now he has found a good excuse to ties these together: “The concerted criticism points to a conspiracy,” he said.
And just like that, the President has succeeded in oversimplifying the issue and reducing the complex matter into an us-or-them situation.
Mr. Aquino’s outrageous claims have caused a stir and will likely elicit a firestorm of protest and demand for proof. Tragically, this will come at the expense of the 800,000 Filipinos in Sabah, the sultan’s supporters, the families of those who were killed in the standoff, the people of Mindanao and all Filipinos who need our leader to simply know how to handle tense episodes instead of bungling like an idiot and blaming everybody except himself.