IN MEMORIAM

It's now too late to repent or regret but such a tragic incident could have had been prevented and many lives could have been spared from the unfortunate killing of young and brave men. My most profound sympathy and condolence to the families and loved ones of the victims. May they rest in peace.

If Spain and the U.S., in spite of their superiority in men and arms, never succeeded to integrate the Muslim population of Mindanao during their occupation, how could it be possible for the Philippines to win against them? Eventually, there will always be tension and conflict between the separatists and the authorities until they obtain their independence.

Just look at the case of Sabah, which should have been part of the Philippines as a heritage of the Sultan of Sulu but through the wish of the Sabahans chose to join the Malaysian Federation in 1963 instead of the Philippines. In the course of its history, it has never known any internal conflicts ever since except in 2013 when Sultan Kiram III staged a standoff to make a claim on Sabah that only ended tragically to the death of a number of his followers and the locals.

Taking into account that there had never been any massacre in Sabah, why not grant the Muslims of Bangsamoro the right to self-government so that unnecessary killings in the future would cease completely?

"The 2013 Lahad Datu standoff was a military conflict standoff that started on 11 February 2013 and ended on 24 March 2013, it arose after 235 militants, some of whom were armed, arrived by boats in Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysia from Simunul island, Tawi-Tawi in the southern Philippines on 11 February 2013. The group, calling themselves the "Royal Security Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo", was sent by Jamalul Kiram III, one of the claimants to the throne of the Sultanate of Sulu. Kiram stated that their objective was to assert the unresolved territorial claim of the Philippines to eastern Sabah (the former North Borneo). Malaysian security forces surrounded the village of Tanduo in Lahad Datu where the group had gathered and after several weeks of negotiations and broken deadlines for the intruders to withdraw, security forces moved in and routed the Sulu militants." Wikipedia