Infographic provided by the ARMM HEART office, as presented by Gov. Mujiv Hataman at the Senate hearing Feb. 12, shows the initial estimate of the human and economic toll just from the Mamasapano incident alone.
In the wake of the Mamasapano incident that claimed the lives of 44 police commandos, some quarters have called for an all-out war against Moro rebels, who are accused of bad faith in talking peace while, presumably, harboring international terrorist Marwan. They are also being held liable for the apparent "execution" of some of the Special Action Force (SAF) men believed to be still alive though wounded.
Such calls for a purely military solution are better considered against the past: what, exactly, have the Mindanao wars of the past four decades exacted from the nation?
It might be worth reviewing the toll in economic and human terms:
Between 1970 and 2001, the total economic toll was estimated at P640 billion in terms of damaged infrastructure, homes and other property and business losses - that's about P20 billion a year.
Then, there's the combat expense: a total of P73 billion between 1970 until 1996, when the Ramos government forged a peace agreement with Nur Misuari's Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The human toll of that period? 120,000 dead.
Between 2001 and 2012, a total of 481 soldiers and policemen were killed; 1,267 MILF members and 841 civilians.
The wars in various phases also displaced millions along the way: 982,000 evacuees were spawned by the Estrada government's all-out-war against the MILF in 2000; and some 600,000 were displaced in skirmishes between the MILF and the government after the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional, was aborted.
[Video report]
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/104963/video--all-out-war-sounds-easy-until-you-count-the-cost-of-40-years-of-combat
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