Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES

Hearing it from the US state department, one would think American security personnel played no more than a peripheral role in the Mamasapano encounter. Here’s how its spokesperson, Jen Psaki, put it at the department’s daily press briefing last March 18: “At the request of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, personnel serving in the … Read more

The report on the Senate Report on the Mamasapano Incident has predictably zeroed in on the finding that President Aquino “bears responsibility” for what happened on Jan. 25. Given our general obsession with presidential lapses, this focus is understandable. But, for those who are concerned with the future of the peace process in Mindanao, the … Read more

Eight separate investigations have been launched to determine the truth behind the Mamasapano incident. They are likely to produce eight shades of truth, rather than one. This should not pose any problem—except to those who think of the truth as if it were something “out there,” waiting to be “ferreted out.” As I said in … Read more

The Philippine National Police’s board of inquiry (BOI) released the other day the result of its six-week investigation of the Mamasapano incident. Masterfully blending the somber tone of an academic paper with the narrative arc of a war movie script, the 125-page document, tersely titled “The Mamasapano Report,” is a fascinating read. The report offers … Read more

Nearly every Filipino must know the name “Marwan” by now. If this nom de guerre did not exactly ring a bell when its owner, Zulkifli bin Hir, was alive, it has definitely acquired unprecedented notoriety after his death. “Oplan Exodus,” the secret operation launched against him and Basit Usman, took the lives of 44 highly … Read more

Every time the country faces a crisis, we tend to go back to the question that has obsessed us since independence—what kind of president can best lead us? A presidential election looms before us once again, this time framed by two critical events that have increasingly defined our expectations of an ideal leader: Supertyphoon “Yolanda” … Read more

What does it mean to talk peace with someone you’ve been fighting? In the beginning, you review the reasons that brought about the conflict. In the course of doing this, you start to allocate blame for what has happened. That is natural. Soon, you realize that, rather than be stuck in cycles of unproductive recrimination, … Read more

Two state functions were at play in the Jan. 25 Mamasapano incident: the pursuit of terrorists and the pursuit of peace. The first is a strictly police function, governed by its own operational code. The other is political, involving the pursuit of a delicate government policy. These two functions collided with one another at Mamasapano, … Read more

I cringed when, at one point in the final Senate hearing on the Mamasapano incident, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano glowered at government peace negotiator Miriam Coronel Ferrer and presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Quintos Deles, and threw them the sarcastic question: “Whose interests are you representing in the negotiations with the MILF (Moro … Read more

“Joal” is Jose T. Almonte, the soft-spoken, high-minded military man who likes grand ideas and once navigated the corridors of power as an adviser/guru to the powerful and the ambitious. He is sometimes referred to as the “thinking soldier,” a description that fits General Almonte precisely because it implies that such a phenomenon may be … Read more