THE bomb attack on the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, Sulu, last Sunday, in which 20 people were killed and 81 wounded, presents so many angles in the matter of peace and order in Mindanao.
The attack happened a week after Sulu voted against the Bangsamoro Organic Law establishing a Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to replace the 32-year-old Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Initial reports raised the possibility of an attack by forces identified with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which had been behind the attack on Marawi City last year. After ISIS-inspired forces were wiped out in Marawi, there were fears that the international jihadist group would soon strike elsewhere in Mindanao in pursuit of its goal to set up an ISIS center in Southeast Asia.
At the same time, however, fears persist that the Jolo attack is somehow related to the ongoing effort to set up the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, for which the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) had fought for years.
All throughout the history of this country, the Moros of Mindanao have fiercely resisted all efforts to subjugate them. They fought the Spanish, then the American, colonial forces, as well as the forces of the Philippine government after the independence of 1946. It was finally decided in 1987 that the Moro people of Mindanao have their own the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
ARMM was administered by Nur Misuari of Sulu and other leaders of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). The Moro Islamic Liberation Force (MILF) identified with central and southern Mindanao broke off from the MNLF and continued fighting the government until it succeeded in its goal of a Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
There have always been those who believe that that there should be two autonomous regions in Mindanao for the Moro people – one represented by the MNLF, the other by the MILF. The coming BARMM of MILF will soon replace the ARMM of MNLF. This may explain why Sulu rejected the Bangsamoro Basic Law in the plebiscite. We hope this opposition expressed in the plebiscite does not go to the extent of violence.
There are other possible groups that could have been behind the Jolo bombing. There is the Abu Sayyaf, long operating independently of the bigger MILF and MNLF, but it has not been identified with such a major operation as the cathedral bombing that killed 20 at one time. There is also the New People’s Army (NPA) but it is not likely to attack a Catholic church.
The whole bloody incident is one big question mark as of today. We hope the military can quickly get to the bottom of this attack, as the first step in going after the perpetrators with all possible resources at the government’s command.
