From the Daily Tribune (Mar 19):
Bangsamoro leaders want Noy to highlight ‘Jabidah Massacre’
Ranking leaders of the Bangsamoro people yesterday urged the Aquino government to commemorate the Jabidah Massacre to show the world that it is sincere in achieving peace with Muslims in Mindanao.
According to Anak Mindanao partylist Rep. Sitti Djalia Turabin-Hataman, the Jabidah Massacre, which happened 46 years ago yesterday, triggered the Muslim’s bid for self-rule.
“We are united to establish the One Bangsamoro through the peace talks being pushed by the government and MILF. Let us not forget the Jabidah Massacre that ignited the Moro rebellion and recognition for self-rule,” Turabin-Hataman said yesterday.
Hataman went to Corregidor island where the incident, known as the Jabidah Massacre, where it is claimed to have happened.
The victims were said to be Muslims recruited by the government in a covert operation hatched by the Marcos government to reclaim the island of Sabah from Malaysia.
Those who were claimed to have been massacred were the recruits who tried to escape during training.
Called “Operation Mer-deka” it started during the time of President Diosdado
Macapagal until the time of President Ferdinand Marcos. It was meant to foment dissent in the island that fell into the hands of Malaysia in 1963.
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman said the Jabidah massacre should always be remembered as the beginning of Moro uprising in the country which the Aquino administration is putting an end through the peace talks.
He underscored the importance for Congress to fast track the enactment of the law for the creation of Bangsamoro so that lives of Muslims killed in the Jabidah massacre will not put to waste. Some say, including President Aquino’s father, Ninoy, the Jabidah massacre never happened.
“Let us remember the Jabidah massacre as precursor to the Moro rebellion leading to the recognition of Moro’s bid for self-rule. The incident fanned the flames of the uprising and this is now being addressed peacefully by the Aquino administration through peace talks,” the ARMM governor said, recalling that 2014 is the sixth year that AMIN led the commemoration of the Jabidah massacre.
The incident ushered in the births of the Mindanao Independence Movement in 1969 and subsequently, that of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), from where the MILF splintered from in the early 1980s.
Ironically however, while the father of the incumbent president, now the late Sen, Ninoy Aquino is being credited for exposing the so-called “Jabidah massacre” which the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) exploited to the hilt to rally Muslims to its secessionist cause, a report from columnist, former Ambassador Rigoberto Tiglao said hat this was stated by Ninoy to seek “a stop to the clandestine plan of his archenemy president Ferdinand Marcos to train and send Muslim commandos to Sabah to organize a revolt against Malaysia, the first step for the Philippines to take over the territory.”
A Wikipedia entry stated: “Sources differ regarding the details, with the number of victims ranging from 14 to 68, and some sources assert that the massacre is a myth.”
The “some sources” it referred to consist solely of University of the Philippines anthropologist Arnold Molina Azurin who investigated the episode intensively in his book, Beyond the Cult of Dissidence.
“For starters, the Jabidah issue broke out after Cavite governor Delfin Montano, one of Marcos’ most vociferous critic, had one Jibin Arula file charges at the Cavite Court of First Instance against major Eduardo Martelino and 10 other army officers and soldiers whom he alleged were involved in the purported atrocity. Arula would be the sole person ever to allege that he witnessed the massacre, Tiglao wrot quoting the speech of Ninoy.
Arula claimed that with about a dozen of his fellow Muslim trainees, he was ordered to line up at the airstrip in Corregidor in the wee hours of March 18, 1968, and then shot by their trainers. He claimed that he was hit in the leg, so he managed to run, hide in the bushes, and then escape to the sea to be rescued hours later by fishermen.
The allegations became the burning issue, with the two major newspapers at that time, both stridently anti-Marcos, The Manila Times and The Manila Chronicle, portraying Arula as a hero. A congressional investigation was undertaken, which months later would turn out to be inconclusive,” Tiglao stated in his column.
Then congressman Rashid Lucman of Lanao del Sur claimed that the massacre was motivated by Marcos’ greed to claim Sabah for his personal property. Lucman months later would organize the Bangsa Moro Liberation Organization, the MNLF’s precursor, and get Malaysia to secretly train its recruits. Aquino though didn’t jump in to demonize Marcos over the alleged massacre. He did not only go to Jolo and Tawi-tawi to seek out the alleged victims’ relatives but interviewed Arula himself. Aquino in his speech concluded: “After interviewing the self-asserted massacre survivor, Jibin Arula, doubt nagged me that there had indeed been a massacre,” were the words of Ninoy Aquino in his privilege speech.
“Arula must have made a dash for his life, thinking that they had been brought to the airstrip for the ‘slaughter.’ Told to halt by his escorts, he kept running. His escorts shot him in the leg to force him to stop. He kept going—and the rest is his story. But what happened to his eleven companions? Were they really “massacred?’”
Aquino went on with his speech, the column recounted Ninoy’s words. “Some say that when the firing started with Arula, his companions ducked. So that Arula was correct when he said that he saw his companions fall to the ground. But were they shot? Or did they duck because of the firing?”
The alleged “slaughter” Aquino referred to was Arula’s claim that he had suspected that 24 recruits who left two days earlier, whom their military superiors said were being brought to Sulu to be deployed to Sabah, were actually killed. But Aquino pointed out: “Meanwhile, in Jolo yesterday, I met the first batch of 24 recruits aboard RP- 68. This group was earlier reported missing— or, even worse, believed ‘ massacred’ . . . William Patarasa, 16 years old [ one of the recruits] denied knowledge of any massacre.”
Aquino in his speech elaborated his view: “This morning, The Manila Times, in its banner headline, quoted me as saying that I believed there was no massacre on Corregidor. And I submit it was not a hasty conclusion, but one borne out by careful deductions.”
What were these deductions? According to Aquino:
• “What would have been the motive for the ‘massacre’? Some quarters have advanced the theory that the trainees were liquidated in order to silence them. But then, 24 boys have already shown up in Jolo safe and healthy. To release 24 men who can spill the beans and liquidate the remaining 24 ‘to seal’ their lips would defy logic.”
• “Arula’s fears, which in his place may be considered valid, may not be supported by the recent turn of events. Twenty-four recruits have turned up.”
Aquino emphasized that only a rigorous investigation of Arula’s allegations would arrive at the truth. He asked the military to “produce the eleven recruits” the lone survivor allegedly killed.
But if the eleven merely resigned and like the first twenty four returned to Sulu, or even deployed to Sabah, could the military have traced them and asked them to testify? Indeed, one of the strangest aspects of the alleged “massacre” was that through 45 years, there hasn’t even one victim’s relative who has surfaced to condemn the purported killing.”
http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/bangsamoro-leaders-want-noy-to-highlight-jabidah-massacre
