ESTRADA IS A THEATRICAL BRAGGART AND A BIG LOSER IN MINDANAO



ITAL The u.$.-backed regime of Philippine president Estrada is 
currently waging an all-out offensive against the Moro Islamic 
Liberation Front and the revolutionary New People's Army on the 
island of Mindanao. The MILF and NPA have formed a tactical 
alliance against their common enemy.

The Manila government's military campaign has forced more than 
half a million people out of their homes. Estrada's claims of 
success are not-so-clever lies, as detailed in this article.

The Abu Sayaaf group -- which got a lot of bourgeois media 
coverage in the West after it kidnapped some German tourists -- 
also operates in Mindanao. The Estrada regime is certainly using 
the hype around Abu Sayaaf to discredit the MILF and NPA and 
justify a declaration of martial law.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the united $tates is eyeing Mindanao 
as the site for military bases granted it under the Visiting 
Forces Agreement.

We reprint this article and the article on a recent victory of the 
NPA to bring our readers up to date on the situation in Mindanao 
and to illustrate that protracted people's war remains a vital 
strategy for the liberation of the oppressed nations. - ed. END



By Jose Maria Sison

National Democratic Front of the Philippines Chief Political 
Consultant

12 July 2000



Mr. Estrada is a theatrical braggart and is actually a big loser 
in Mindanao. He is playing very well the role of Rambotete, the 
buffoon.

What he seems to win are small portions of the large camps of the 
Moro Islamic Liberation Front, each of which consists of several 
towns. His military minions have not wiped out a single platoon of 
the MILF. On the other hand, it is the MILF that has already wiped 
out more than 2000 of his troops (both killed and wounded), with 
their weapons captured.

At Camp Abubakar, for instance, his military minions can occupy 
only 10 percent of the territory. They could take this small 
portion of Camp Abubakar only after bombarding it for so long and 
killing civilians and after expending the lives of so many 
soldiers and other resources. The MILF itself deliberately 
abandoned the place temporarily in correct guerrilla style.

The costs for the Manila government includes not only the lives 
and limbs of its soldiers and the bombs and artillery shells but 
also the rising anger of the Islamic countries and people that are 
outraged by the anti-Moro and anti-Muslim genocidal war and are 
supporting MILF's declaration of a jihad. Estrada's all-out war 
policy has already resulted in the massacre of so many Moro 
noncombatants and forced mass evacuation of 800,000.

The broad masses of the Filipino people and the Christian and 
Islamic organizations consider it stupid that the immediate and 
far-reaching costs are too high just for Mr. Rambotete to engage 
in a flag-raising ceremony and gorge on pork at a small piece of 
Camp Abubakar. Everyone can see that the army of the MILF is 
intact and is carrying out more tactical offensives along the line 
of a protracted guerrilla war.

Even in the battle of wits with the Abu Sayyaf, Mr. Estrada is 
losing heavily. He does not want to negotiate with the MILF, 
except on terms of surrender, but he negotiates with and begs Abu 
Sayyaf for the release of hostages. He also sets no deadline for 
the Abu Sayyaf. He thinks that by negotiating endlessly with the 
Abu Sayyaf he can cool it down and lower its guard until he 
decides to attack, with the aid of GPS gadgets priorly sneaked 
into the Abu Sayyaf camps.

But the Abu Sayyaf is more clever than Mr. Estrada. It has gotten 
more weighty hostages in the course of his delaying tactics. We 
are witnessing two criminal gangs trying to outwit each other, 
with the Abu Sayyaf gang so far outwitting the Estrada gang.

As time is passing, Mr. Estrada is running afoul of the reasonable 
wishes of his European creditors and superiors, especially the 
German and French governments, which have ordered him to 
negotiate.

These governments would rather pay off the Abu Sayyaf and save the 
lives of their citizens before letting Mr. Estrada play the role 
of Rambotete. They are seriously concerned that, in his mania for 
showmanship, he might try to save the hostages in Sulu by killing 
them together with the hostage-takers as in Basilan island.

In fact, Mr. Estrada's sidekick, Gen. Panfilo Lacson, is already 
publicly raring to do the dirty job. But he is only good at 
disposing of handcuffed captives in urban areas and has never 
proven himself in combat against armed opponents in the 
hinterlands.

If the hostage situation in Sulu goes awry and results in the 
death of European hostages, Mr. Estrada will be held responsible 
by the European governments as someone who cannot carry out 
completely the orders personally delivered some months ago by no 
less than the top officials of the European Union for foreign 
policy and security matters.#