Duterte waging war to hide his Achilles heels

I repost my article published last week in New Mandala linking Duterte to the drug trade. This is all the more relevant with his decision last week to cancel talks with the CPP/NDF/NPA and declare them a terrorist organization. All the more ironic when one considers how he has terrorised his own county with his supposed anti-drug campaign and the destruction of Marawi City.

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Steer clear of Duterte’s wars

JEREMY SIMONS - 22 NOV, 2017

At a regional defence forum in the Philippines on 24 October, Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne appealed to regional neighbours to assist in the war on terror in Southeast Asia, announcing the deployment of 80 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel to the Philippines.

During the same meeting, Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte thanked the United States and Australia for sending military advisors to assist in fighting ISIS and local affiliates, who had just been flushed out of the southern Philippines city of Marawi after 5 months. The fighting killed hundreds, displaced nearly 400,000 people, lead to human rights abuses, and destroyed the heart of the Philippines premier majority Muslim city. Duterte also commended Russia and China for supplying arms in this scorched earth campaign against terror.

Though the Australian ambassador in early October denied that their units will be deployed in Mindanao, where Marawi city is located, they will nevertheless “provide mobile training teams that will begin providing urban warfare, counter-terrorism training.” Minister Payne noted that “the move is part of a wide strategy that will see Australian troops deployed to land, sea and air for the first time in a co-ordinated leading role in the terrorist fight in South East Asia.”

In inaugurating an expansive and militarised posture towards regional security, one that will apparently include boots on the ground in the Philippines, Australia has chosen a corrupt and violent government as its initial partner. Before the battle in Marawi, the incursion of ISIS into Mindanao was ignited by the charisma of Ipsilon Hapilon, a leader of the Philippines resurgent Al Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf group, who opportunistically swore allegiance to ISIS. In doing so, he obtained new sources of international finance, and was able to rally together militants disgruntled with a failed peace process, the locally powerful Maute clan, and other drug lords seeking new allies. But, more fundamentally, the targeting of Marawi city as the first bastion of a Southeast Asian caliphate was an extreme response to the failures of local politics, unpaid inter-clan grudges, and corruption.

These issues are nothing new on the island of Mindanao. Since 1969, they have fed the armed insurgencies of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the New People’s Army (NPA), a Maoist armed movement. The MNLF, MILF and NPA had all been in various stages of peace talks and peace accords implementation with the government. Those efforts have ground to a halt over the past year due to strategic mismanagement by the Duterte administration, the explosion of violence in Marawi, and declaration of martial law on the island.

Many analysts believe that Duterte’s failed peace efforts, and the brutal Marawi siege that resulted, have simply created a wider pool recruits for local armed militant and extremist groups not only in the Philippines, but in Malaysia and Indonesia as well, as stated in a recent report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta. “The risks won’t end when the military declares victory,” says Sidney Jones, IPAC director. “Indonesia and Malaysia will face new threats in the form of returning fighters from Mindanao, and the Philippines will have a host of smaller dispersed cells with the capacity for both violence and indoctrination.”

In other words, ADF soldiers will be battling an extremism that has burgeoned precisely because of multiple failures by the current Filipino administration. In particular, Duterte and his main peace advisor Jesus Dureza neglected a relatively effective peace process begun during the former Aquino presidency. That peace process with the main MILF insurgent group had led to a dramatic decrease in insurgent violence and militarisation on the island, and the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro in March of 2014.

The problems armies can’t solve

I question whether the troops, as special units with the aforementioned strategic guidelines, will really be restricted from Mindanao, where their services are supposedly most needed. I believe that the deployment of Australian forces anywhere in the Philippines is a grave mistake. American soldiers have been rotating through Mindanao island since before September 11, 2001, and were expanded as part of then US president Bush’s global war on terror.

Since 2001, an unknown number of US soldiers have died in Mindanao, including two civil relations psychological operations rangers killed in Sulu by an IED in 2009. There have been persistent rumours that US special forces operators were also killed in the Mamasapano incident that targeted a Malaysian bomb maker in 2015, which left 44 Philippine Police commandos dead and torpedoed popular support for the 2014 peace accord signed with the MILF. However, the Americans’ deaths were denied in the Philippine National Police’s board of inquiry report, which noted, “The United States involvement was limited to intelligence sharing and medical evacuation. Only SAF Commandos were involved in the actual combat operation.”

Nonetheless, US troops were intimately involved in supporting the entire action, according to an anonymous whistleblower, and the American troops that were killed over the past 15 years in the Philippines were conducting the kinds of training, intelligence, and support operations that Australia is now deploying its service members for.

Yet the militaristic approach has failed to address the underlying causes of terrorism, as a former US special forces commando discovered after he lost two of his comrades in 2009 in Sulu, Mindanao, while ostensibly fighting the Al-Qaeda linked Abu Sayyaf group. In a 2015 memoir the soldier stated,

“The three of us combed through six months of everything from text messages to our radio shows, plus interviews with local leaders and debriefs of the community. A clear pattern emerged. Governance: the warlord families were manipulating every election cycle with violence, bribes and vote stealing, creating a corrupt, impregnable oligopoly….[Then] we met with the chancellor at Mindanao State University to go over the data we had. After showing it to him, the chancellor looked up and said, “I don’t see anything surprising here….My people cannot break the stranglehold the warlord families hold on this island. You tell your commander this: keep your roads and schools. If you can give us a free and fair election, we can do the rest ourselves.”

In my independent investigative report on the failure of the peace processduring the Marawi crisis, I found the same dynamics at play in Duterte’s current effort to eradicate the same group that killed two American special forces soldiers in 2009. As I noted,

“we can see that the roots of…the Marawi siege, had much less to do with international terrorism, and more to do with traditional clan feuding, political alliances and patronage, exacerbated by the competition of local leaders attempting to protect their illegal economies, a volatile combination ignited and inflamed by the infusion of foreign “terror” ideology…. In other words, the real issues in Marawi had much less to do with a terroristic ideology (though that was a significant component, like pouring gas on a fire), and much more to do with solvable concerns of governance and corruption.”

How ADF troops will help solve the complex issues of governance and corruption that are the root causes of terrorism in the Philippines is beyond me.

What’s more, there is a self-defeating factor in the current context, because according to my report the Philippines president and his peace advisor were secretly working with one of the terror groups that Ipsilon Hapilon had recruited into his movement for an Islamic Caliphate. Thus, I concluded that “while Duterte sent off his soldiers to lay down their lives for the bansa (nation) on one hand, with the other, he and his peace advisor consulted with, hired, hid, and protected the leader of one of the terrorist groups directly involved in the Marawi siege.”

The opacity of information leading up to and during the Marawi crisis mirrors how reality has also been obscured by Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. Duterte’s drug war has involved such massive, documented human rights violations that a Brookings Institute researcher recently recommended to the US Congress that “President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines is morally and legally unjustifiable. Resulting in egregious and large-scale violations of human rights, it amounts to state-sanctioned murder….The United States and the international community must condemn and sanction the government of the Philippines for its conduct of the war on drugs.” Apart from halting sales of rifles to the Philippines National Police, there have been no other concrete steps taken by the international community to sanction the Philippines.

‘Protected at the highest level’

The drug war and the Marawi siege demand that the international community take a new stance regarding the Philippine government, when combined with a new development in the Philippines: Duterte’s possible personal enmeshment in illicit economies. This follows several revelations. First, during a senate hearing in March of this year, by a former Philippine National Police officer in Duterte’s security team when he was mayor; and second, that which emerged in the course of a methamphetamine smuggling scandal at the Bureau of Customs in Manila this past September. During these two separate Senate hearings, the son of the president was implicated as a facilitator in the trade of billions of pesos of illegal drugs from China into the Philippines. However, the result of the second hearing was that Duterte’s political allies in congress only recommended charges to be filed against the security watchman of the warehouse where the drugs were stored in Manila, essentially sweeping the investigation under the rug. Additionaly, Duterte has since re-appointed two high level customs officials back into government positions, after they were implicated by the senate in facilitating the smuggling of methamphetamine.

In my work over the past 8 years on peace and development in the Philippines, I was based in the home city of Duterte and conducted outreach in the Davao City jail. What I heard in my work there meant that recent suggestions of Duterte clan involvement in the drug trade—such as were aired during the Senate hearings—did not come as a shock. Indeed, they apparently followed a pattern of collusion in protecting the local drug trade.

According to information shared with a fellow outreach worker by former drug couriers who had turned their lives around, couriers brought their “products” into Davao City and were allowed to pass unhindered through the Task Force Davao security checkpoints that encircled the city. Rodrigo Duterte was then mayor of Davao City, as well as the director of the Regional Peace and Order Council, which oversaw the Task Force Davao security program. On Duterte’s watch, the drug trade flourished in Davao. Former drug operatives explained this by saying, “kung sino ang pangulo ng lungsod, sya ang ulo” —”whomever is the mayor of the city, is the head” referring to leadership in the local drug trade syndicate. In the words of a former high-ranking Philippine military officer I met privately earlier this year, “the drug trade in Davao City is protected at the highest level.”

Additionally, he has directly facilitated the expansion of terrorism in Mindanao through actively supporting members in the ISIS conglomeration that were hidden by his peace advisor—specifically, senior members of the powerful Salic clan in Marawi (per my independent investigation). He has also hamstrung the existing peace processes, foregrounding the highly complicated, drawn-out, and controversial shift to federalism at the national level as the key to peace in Mindanao rather than immediately pushing for the autonomous region as promised in the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro signed in 2014. All of this is masked by two aggressive and bloody wars, ostensibly fighting terror and drugs, but which I believe are being used to disguise how his family and political networks are enmeshed in Mindanao’s illicit political economy. This puts him in a very precarious position, requiring extreme violence and deception to maintain control.

While there is no indisputable proof that Duterte’s family is involved in the narcotics trade, there is growing evidence from multiple sources that this is the case. Though the president and his family predictably insist any such claims are politically-motivated, the complicity of the local state institutions, and the political clans who control them, in the drug trade is a pervasive reality in the Philippines. As a 2013 report described narco-politics in Mindanao, “Drug money can be converted into political power, but control over public office represents the real prize because it ensures the diversification and protection of illicit sources of wealth.” It is the most pernicious, but far from the only, facet of the total failure of governance in the Philippines that lies behind the rise of ISIS-linked insurgencies and Duterte’s push towards dictatorship. Viewed in this light, Duterte and the type of local politics he exemplifies are part of the problem, not the solution.

Standing up to the Duterte administration

Therefore, regional allies should take a new tack against the Philippines administration. The evidence in my view clearly indicates the need for a coordinated strategy that includes international legal and economic sanctions against a national government under the sway of a political clan that stands plausibly accused of involvement in the illegal narcotics trade—and is, as I and many other human rights observers believe, responsible for crimes against humanity. To ignore this reality is to cover a rogue administration with a blanket of impunity and further destabilise an already uncertain regional security environment. A new approach would lend moral support to several emerging groups from across the political spectrum that seek to turn the ship of Philippine state from crashing on the rocks of autocracy. More than that, it should not risk the lives of Australian soldiers sent to wage battle against terrorism in the Philippines. Who would not want to avoid the sentiments that headline the memoir I quoted earlier, written by a former U.S. commando regarding his losses in the Philippines: “Two Soldiers I Served With Died In The Philippines. They Didn’t Have To.” To develop a realistic, moral, and long-term strategy would honour those fighting men and learn from their sacrifices.

The reason they didn’t have to die was that their political superiors failed to recognise what was really at stake in their deployment. And now, the same dynamics that lead to the death of those Americans are what characterise the dysfunctionally lethal political reality Duterte embodies. For Minister Payne to continue on the present track is simply to support a redo of the mistakes of the past that got the Philippines into its current predicament.

It’s time for a course correction.

Dureza’s Betrayal and Duterte’s Hypocrisy in Marawi: An Independent Report and Analysis of Connections Between Elements of the ISIS group, the Office of the Presidential Advisor on the Peace Process, and the President of the Philippines

NOTE: This is an expanded version of “PAGDARO SA KALINAW: Dureza’s Betrayal and Duterte’s Hypocrisy in Marawi” that was first posted on Mindanews at http://www.mindanews.com/mindaviews/2017/09/pagdaro-sa-kalinaw-durezas-betrayal-and-dutertes-hypocrisy-in-marawi/

DUNEDIN, New Zealand (September 13, 2017) —  Last month, President Rodrigo Duterte criticized the Ombudsman for “selective justice,” threatened an Iloilo mayor whom he accuses of shielding drug lords, and lashed out at government agencies hiring overpriced contractors. But it would be good for the President to look in the mirror at his own version of selective justice and the hiring and shielding of Omar “Solitario” Ali, a Maranao leader who was on the President’s own drug lord watch list. He was hired by the Office of  the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) because, as a former Moro National Liberation Front commander and former mayor of Marawi city, he agreed to negotiate with the Maute group in the administration’s management, or perhaps mismanagement, of the Marawi crisis. 

As a disclaimer, this report is independent in that it was not driven, funded or requested by any partisan or political party agenda. It is independent in that it will not ascribe to any one person or institution sole blame, but will try to illuminate the many factors in this complex situation. However, that does not mean it will not take a critical stance and make sharp conclusions, some with clear political implications, due to the gravity of what is found. 

“Marawi City has the unsavory reputation of being the lynchpin in Muslim Mindanao’s drug economy,” (p. 104) and is, “in the grip of narco-politicans” (p. 105) so states International Alert’s “Out of the Shadows: Violent Conflict and the Real Economy of Mindanao,” an in depth book of research on the various “shadow economies,” including the illegal drug trade of Mindanao published in 2013.

Drug trading reportedly worsened during the political dynasty of Solitario who was mayor of Marawi from 2001-2007, and reached a full blown crisis under his half-brother Fahad “Pre” Salic’s term as mayor of Marawi mayor from 2007-2016. Additionally, according to the aforementioned study, “an official with direct access to military intelligence stated that narco-politicians from Lanao del Sur are conniving with the Kuratong Baleleng” (p. 105), the supposed drug syndicate of the Parojinog clan in Ozamiz, who were recently killed in an anti-drug raid by the Philippine National Police.

A Manila Bulletin report said Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza admitted that Ali [aka “Solitario”] had contacted him by phone “even before the Marawi (strife) erupted,” warning ‘about possible (violent) incidents involving the Mautes’ as conveyed by Salic [Solitario’s half brother, Fahad “Pre”], uncle by affinity to radical brothers Omar and Abdullah Maute”[i].

In this report, “Dureza…confirmed that he had taken in (Solitario) as an OPAPP consultant way before the Marawi siege erupted.”[ii] This happened sometime after the Davao bombing in September 2016, and not long after Solitario, Pre, and Arafats’ names had been included in President Duterte’s drug watch list released in early August of 2016.[iii]

In Lanao, the underlying family relations surrounding these events should be understood as much as possible. Pre and Solitario, half-brothers, have the same father, of the Salic clan, while Solitario’s mother is of the Ali clan of Marawi and Baloi, by which Solitario took the last name of “Ali” as a revolutionary nom de guerre and MNLF commander.

Butig 

Solitario’s son and Pre’s nephew is Arafat Salic, Marawi’s Vice Mayor, who retains the last name of his grandfather, Solitario’s and Pre’s father. Though Pre’s maternal line is of a different sub-clan that connects with the clan of the Maute clan, Solitario and Pre, according to some, trace both their maternal and paternal lineages back to one of the orginal 11 Datuships of Marawi, that being the Guimba and Buadi Sacayo, thus giving them the strategic social status of sultans in Lanao. These lineage complexities are vitally important as they serve as avenues of political alliance, even social reconciliation, as well as unseen fault lines of conflict, and the means by which risks are minimized and the rewards from involvement in both legal and illicit economies are distributed.

Pre and his nephew Arafat were widely believed to be directly involved not only in the drug trade, but also in kidnap-for-ransom (KFR) /extortion in Lanao, with alleged Philippine military collusion. Additionally, at various times they allied with, and competed against, the Maute family whom the government accused of organizing the siege of Marawi, and was allegedly behind the September 2016 Davao City bombing.

In October-November 2016, the military responded to the Davao bombing by attacking Butig, Lanao del Sur, supposedly driving the Maute group out and securing the area. However, the government must have known that they had not succeeded in eradicating the threat, according to the Inquirer, because they hired Solitario as a consultant, working with his half-brother Pre, to negotiate with the Maute group in late November 2016, “soon after…government troops…had overrun the Maute group’s lairs in several villages in Butig town.” [iv]

However, the government failed to woo the ISIS-affiliated Maute clan through negotiations even after this military success. Perhaps this was an indicator of political, not military incompetence, as one analyst noted, “political feud yan –a small war of political clans in Butig which escalated into full blown war.” Thus, in the lead up to the Marawi crisis, the government undercut its all-out war against the Abu Sayaff in Sulu and military incursion into Butig, as the same analyst observed, “while Jolo was bombarded and militarized, Abus moved in the mainland Mindanao and in Bohol. Hindi isang surprisa ang lahat. Nacomplicate lang lalo ang conflict nang pinasok ang gulo ng druga. (None of this was a surprise, it just became more complicated, especially with all the chaos caused by drugs).”

Complicated history 

The complicated history of clan politics illuminates the background to the violence in Lanao in the present. A local historian notes, “the leadership of Marawi City is hotly contested by two clan groups – the five Marawi Clans and the six Dansalan Clans. These clans belongs to the old Confederacy of the 11 clans of Marawi. The dividing line of the two groups is the Agus River.” These clan groups have been jockeying for influence in the areas around that dividing line since the American invasion in the late 1800s. The municipality was thus originally named “Dansalan” by the Americans, and only changed to “Marawi” in the 1950s when a politician from the Marawi group won the mayoralty.

Masked by the guise of the political developments of the Philippine state and the revolutionary movements of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)  and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), clan dynamics and affiliations remain fluid. At stake for the Maranao community in their hundred and twenty years of resisting, accommodation, and manipulating outsiders, is the political leverage needed to control access to the many resources of Lanao, initially timber, then the fertile agricultural land and aquatic resources of Lake Lanao, and more recently the production of shabu (methamphetamine) and other profits derived from shadow economies. Of equal, or perhaps greater importance, is the power to claim and assert Maranao cultural integrity, defend family and clan, and retain honor (maratabat) before the people.

The key to this leverage rests at the pinnacle of political influence, which Solitario had achieved in a personal meeting with the President, assisted by long time friend Dureza, as mentioned in Mindanews, when Solitario, “met with President Duterte early on and volunteered to help, I [Dureza] engaged him (in) OPAPP with a consultancy.” Later Dureza added, “At one time, when the President was in Cagayan de Oro monitoring Marawi, I arranged his phone call with the President. The President told him over the phone that he instead should talk to me. So I continued handling him.”[v]

In an Inquirer article, Solitario said the Maute negotiations were known at the presidential level, “(Solitario) told the Inquirer…that he took orders from Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza. ‘I am sure the President knew about my going to Butig.’”[vi]

Go ahead, do it

During Duterte’s speech to the Wallace Business forum in December 2016, the President also alluded to the demands and counter demands of the Maute-OPAPP negotiations that happened during and after Butig was overrun. He said: “we took consideration of the Maute rebellion going on in Lanao. And they said that they are willing to pull out…And they demanded that we stop the offensive…and I said they would stop fighting, provided we stop the offensive or not, they said that they will go down upon Marawi to burn the place. And I said, ‘Go ahead, do it.’” 

One of the economic drivers of this relationship is revealed in Duterte’s next comment at the Wallace forum, in response to the threat by Maute to, “burn the place.” Duterte said: “We need to do a lot of constructions in this country. There are a lot of materials there and we will be glad to rebuild and rehabilitate every structure that you destroy. As long it’s confined in the areas of Lanao, I don’t really care.”[vii]

Thus, in contemplating the reconstruction of Marawi, the rash overconfidence of a President is exposed, willing to sacrifice the people and place of Lanao for the economic benefit of construction contractors and the political safety of his Lanao political affiliates.

Duterte needed to keep Solitario, his son, and his half-brother safe because they were among the premier recognized leaders in the Marawi clans, as well as Solitario being a key player in the Lanao del Sur provincial PDP-Laban party that he ran under in the 2016 election (though Pre ran with the UNA party in order to attract more votes). This was revealed in a text message sent in the last quarter of 2016 where Solitario told his PDP-laban party-mates to withdraw their support for Duterte as he and his brother Pre were included in the drug watch list released by Duterte on August 7, 2016. According to a local observer, “Part of the emerging issue…was the reaction of former mayor Pre Salic's family about their inclusion in the list regarding narco politics. They are supporters of Duterte and felt betrayed for being listed. Threats about political withdrawal of support were publicly known.”

Another reason for Solitario’s text was that Majul Gandamra, the newly elected mayor of Marawi who had run on the Liberal Party banner, had switched affiliation and been accepted into the PDP-Laban party of Duterte. Solitario and kin apparently wanted a guarantee of loyalty after the PDP-Laban started working with his political opponent. Solitario’s contract to work for OPAPP was seemingly part of an arrangement that would give him an ongoing role in his home town of Marawi even without elected office.   

Thus, though Dureza was unable to remove Solitario or Pre’s name from the drug watch list, there was no attempt to bring in law enforcement, and the drug-accused former politician of Marawi worked for OPAPP for at least five more months (the Inquirer mentions his first direct OPAPP work happening in November), until the two lists of people with rebellion arrest warrants were released in late May and early June [viii] respectively, and Dureza was forced to revoke Solitario’s contract with OPAPP.

Dureza stated, according to the Manila Bulletin, that when Solitario’s name was included in the arrest orders pursuant to the declaration of martial law, “I revoked his consultancy arrangement with OPAPP….(He) stayed in a safe sanctuary outside the city but kept in touch making suggestions on how to deal with the developing incidents.”[ix]

How did Dureza stay in touch with a wanted man and where was this safe sanctuary?

Delisted, relisted 

Another key player mentioned in newspaper reports of the Maute and Solitario negotiations is the Quijano clan of Iligan, who benefit from their role as negotiators in resolving the many kidnappings that have occurred over the years in Northern Mindanao. Some believe that Solitario’s “safe sanctuary” was at one point the Phividec Industrial Authority in Misamis Oriental where former Iligan mayor Franklin Quijano was appointed administrator and CEO by President Duterte on July 14, 2017, at the recommendation of Dureza. Quijano had also been hired by Dureza as an OPAPP consultant in August 2016 and was the Regional Party Chairman of (PDP)-LABAN for Region X, by which, according to the Iligan pulse, “during the 2016 Presidential Elections, he was able to deliver the winning votes in landslide for…the President of the Republic of the Philippines.” [x]

While Solitario had been welcomed into the “safe sanctuary” provided by his OPAPP “batch-mate” and political ally Franklin Quijano, Dureza made intensive efforts to clear Solitario’s name and remove him from the second list of people with warrants of arrest for rebellion, successfully getting his name removed from that list on August 16, 2017. According to Mindanews, Dureza then, “e-mailed the copies [of the clearances removing Solitario, Pre, and Arafat being subject to arrest warrant for rebellion] to former Iligan Mayor Franklin Quijano to pass them on to Omar Solitario”[xii].

However, that decision was reversed just six days later on August 22 by Defense Secretary and Martial Law administrator Gen. Delfin Lorenzana, who stated, “It was Dureza who wants to utilize him kaya humingi siya ng (that’s why he asked for) clearance, only to find out that the military, police and Muslim leaders don’t want them released for complicity in the Marawi siege and illegal drugs.” Furthermore,  Lorenzano stated, “I told him (Dureza)….we are not stopping the gathering of info about (Solitario’s) alleged connection to the Mautes and illegal drugs”.[xii] After this reversal, Solitario apparently fled to Manila, where he would be “beyond the reach” of the martial law administrator.

The extent of the cozy relationship with Dureza and Solitario in kidnapping negotiations goes back even before the kidnapping of Comelec commissioner Elias Yusoph’s son. in 2010, where Dureza met with Solitario for lunch to help with negotiations, and in a Mindanews article declared, “I have been here for so long that I can weave in and out and go to various political leaders and parties in Mindanao.”[xiii]

A long-time observer to the peace process notes that Solitario was one of Dureza’s (who was a congressman at the time) key partners in dealing with local kidnapping groups active during the Cory Aquino days. When Dureza worked for president Ramos as Mindanao advisor in the 1990s, and later as peace negotiator for Arroyo, whose administration spanned nearly a decade (2001 to 2010), Solitario was a key player in the peace process, having risen to the mayorship of Marawi city (2001 to 2007).

Meanwhile, Franklin became mayor of nearby Iligan City (1998 to 2004) and his brother Robert “Bob” Quijano started a non-governmental organization in Iligan. They are described by one respondent as, “inseparable…Franklin is the open politician, [Bob] is the underground player who has the contacts with the various underground groups…But both of them are very committed to conflict resolution and are known to be involved in facilitating the release of kidnap victims.” Franklin even earned the 2002 Most Outstanding City Mayor of the Philippines, Local Government Leadership Award. 

Yet more than one NGO worker agreed that they, “earn from…high risk ventures and they capitalize their connections with Maranao families.” As key governmental and non-governmental players in Northern Mindanao, they are well known to numerous peacebuilding advocates and civil society members across the island (including this author, who had Bob Quijano as a participant in a restorative justice workshop in 2014). None-the-less, they seem to define, “a classic case of how politicians are involved in KFR and other illegal rackets while maintaining their stature as politicians,” according to an observer.

Culture, clan honor

Along the way, the family members of Solitario Ali and Pre Salic allegedly became very involved in the illegal economy of Lanao, so that in a raid this past June 2017 the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency found five kilograms of shabu along with pro-ISIS paraphernalia in the home of Pre, and Solitario’s son, Arafat Salic. In the CNN article reporting the raid, PNP-Mindanao Drug Enforcement Chief Santos stated, “Druglord din siya kasama rin siya sa high value targets natin dito sa Marawi. Kasama siya sa may arrest order… Alam naman natin na sila former Mayor Salic at mga kapatid niya are known drug lords sa Marawi. (He is a druglord and is included as one of our high value targets here in Marawi. He is included in the arrest order…We really know that Mayor Salic and his brother are known drug lords in Marawi).”[xiv]

Still, some local leaders believe that Solitario was not the one directly involved in drug trading, rather, that his brother Pre and son Arafat were the primary drug lords. This theory states that Solitario was unable to control them and was forced to protect them in order to save himself. In fact, there were times over the years, when the two maternal clans of Solitario and Pre feuded and almost escalated into rido (revenge killings), but it was only the intervention of other clan leaders that prevented further violence. In spite of manipulating and being caught between powerful external forces and shifting alliances, the dictates of culture and clan honor (maratabat) demand the protection of relatives, even those involved in illicit activities and radicalisation, however disturbing and disastrous.

In this way, we can see that the roots of the Davao bombing, and eventually, the Marawi siege, had much less to do with international terrorism, and more to do with traditional clan feuding, political alliances and patronage, exacerbated by the competition of local leaders attempting to protect their illegal economies, a volatile combination ignited and inflamed by the infusion of foreign “terror” ideology.

The demonstration in mid-June 2017 by a “third-party” group of traditional Maranao leaders who protested their exclusion from the negotiations was an indicator that these were in fact the underlying dynamic of conflict in the siege. “Marawi Sultan Hamidullah Atar told reporters…that during the early part of the conflict, the traditional leaders would have talked to the family members of those involved during the attack of the Isis-linked radical groups in Marawi…‘All of us are relatives. And we are not given the chance to link these relatives and convey the message to negotiate for a peaceful approach.’”[xv]

Openness to dialogue 

In other words, the real issues in Marawi had much less to do with a terroristic ideology (though that was a significant component, like pouring gas on a fire), and much more to do with solvable concerns of governance and corruption.

There was still openness to dialogue by the Maute leaders even after the siege started, which was known by the government side. One informant who was close to the efforts taken to address the situation shared the following:

“Reliable sources say that [MILF commander] Bravo’s lieutenants talked with the Maute group leaders….[and] that they informed the military of the concerns of the [Maute] militants, including the most serious ones: alleged military involvement in kidnap for ransom that victimizes Maranaos. The Maute knew it…because some of them were in the “business” for some time mainly for fund raising….The second thorny issue…never mentioned in the media is the brewing feud between the clan of the present ruling politician (former Governor, now Vice Governor Mamintal Adiong, Jr.) of Lanao del Sur who, according to the Maute, controlled everything and got all the government funds.

The Maute reportedly wanted the government to investigate the 32 corruption cases against the governor filed by some of their relatives that seem to be in oblivion after Adiong’s family allegedly spent nearly half a billion pesos bribing national officials in the Commission on Audit and other offices. Some of the cases by the Maute family were against Adiong and Jimmy Pansar, the Mayor of Butig who is the rival of the Romatos in Butig.”

One theory, then, about the continued military response by the government in spite of these potential negotiations was their interest to silence the Maute, who had knowledge of high level corruption in the military, MILF, and government.

In the light of the culture of corruption in Mindanao, the efforts Dureza made, and continues to make, to keep drug-involved members of the Ali and Salic clans free from accountability, while disturbing, are not surprising if government officials could be exposed in the process of a genuine negotiation. Still one questions the head of the OPAPP, who is supposed to lead in the implementation of peacebuilding when he engages in activities exactly opposite to such objectives.

The Maute-Solitario-Malacanang connection

So, the connection between Solitario and the Maute clan in the Marawi crisis seems not to have been only to assist Dureza and Duterte in ceaesfire negotiations via indirect extended family relationships. A Maranao non-governmental worker with an intimate knowledge of local relationships and who was assigned to the front lines of the Marawi siege for the duration of the crisis to assist in civilian protection and evacuation provided important details of the on-the-ground reality. The worker shared how,

“most of his (Solitario’s) relatives and cousins are loyal supporters and were seen with the Maute manning check points during the siege…In fact, (current Marawi city vice mayor) Arafat was one of the wounded…when he was fighting with the Maute…the Solitario relatives were the ones who lead the Basak Malutlut siege because that was their bastion. On May 23 he (Arafat) was hit and withdrew to Marinaut where the Maute was strong but rushed to Tamparan hospital [after a few days] pursued by military and escaped.”

What this tells us is that the Solitario clan itself was also one of the several radical groups, including the Abu Sayyaf, that banded together under the auspices of ISIS to lay siege to Marawi. This apparently corroborates the material evidence (shabu and pro-ISIS paraphernalia) that was gathered at the home of Pre and Arafat Salic by the PDEA in their June 2017 raid, as mentioned previously. It also supports the allegation of General Lorenzana during the conflict with Dureza over issuing clearances for Solitario, Pre, and Arafat when he said, “we are not stopping the gathering of info about (Solitario’s) alleged connection to the Mautes.”

Referring to Dureza and Digong’s connection to the Maute, this worker noted, “We became a sacrificial lamb,” and, “they made our area as if they are playing chess,” and wondered, “will our maratabat be restored when this crisis of (Duterte’s) leadership is over?”

Not only was Marawi the sacrificial lamb, but while Duterte sent off his soldiers to lay down their lives for the bansa on one hand, with the other, he and his peace advisor consulted with, hired, hid, and protected the leader of one of the terrorist groups directly involved in the Marawi siege as described above. The peace advisor even went so far as to get Solitario’s name, his brother, and son who was wounded while fighting against the AFP, if only temporarily, off the list of people wanted for rebellion. Perhaps this is part of the explanation as to why it has taken so long for the armed forces of the Philippines to dislodge the ISIS conglomeration from Marawi, for simultaneously, it appears Malacanang and its allies are trying to protect their own people within that ISIS conglomeration.

This also makes one wonder about the “fair treatment” reported in Mindanews, promised by Duterte to any of the Maute who surrender, saying “They will be treated as criminals. If they surrender, they will be prosecuted.” [xvi]  For those Maute who are in fact Solitario relatives that fought alongside the ISIS rebels, will there be a different standard of fairness, like the special handling that Solitario, Pre, and Arafat receive?

“Selective justice”

The Maranao humanitarian worker in Marawi that described these events, and who was also a former supporter of Duterte, called this the “selective justice” of the Duterte administration. Perhaps, a better word is hypocrisy, or worse.

This entire situation also raises serious questions about the data used to justify the declaration of martial law before Congress and the Supreme Court. It is perhaps the reason why Marvic Leonen, the Supreme Court justice with the most in depth knowledge of Mindanao, voted against the imposition of martial law anywhere in Mindanao.

This shows us that not only has the congress abandoned its responsibility as a check and balance of the president, but, as a colleague points out, the Supreme Court abdicated its duty to properly appreciate, examine, and delineate these realities and the “accurate” vs “sufficient” facts presented by parties in the martial law Supreme Court review hearings. [xvii] Had they taken the time to do so, they would have discovered that in fact, the President himself failed in preventing the escalation of the Marawi crisis. There was apparently no lack of intelligence at the highest levels of the administration, nor a breakdown in the ‘appreciation’ of that intelligence, regarding the presence of the Maute and ISIS. Duterte was in close communication via his peace advisor, various clans connections, and political allies, with many who had already been exposed on the lists of drug-connected politicians and those with arrest warrants for rebellion.

At the onset, many local residents in Marawi had welcomed the declaration of martial law in the hopes that it would be used to hold accountable corrupt and ineffective leaders. Unfortunately, they were sorely and tragically disappointed. Rather, the Duterte administration worked through OPAPP to protect its chosen people in Lanao and their ISIS-affiliated political base that was financed by drug sales. It was this collusion that led to the influx of other ISIS affiliated groups and eventually the full blown crisis in Marawi.

Thus, not only do the people of Marawi suffer, but the government’s actions have undercut and destroyed much of the peace process itself. Hundreds have died as a direct and indirect result, hundreds of thousands were displaced, human rights abuses suffered by survivors at the hands of the military and the attackers, and there is incalculable damage to infrastructure and economy. And so not only Mindanao, but all Filipinos bear the cost of Duterte’s Marawi fiasco.

Meanwhile, back in Manila, Duterte complains about high priced consultants, selective justice, and drug-protecting public officials.

(Jeremy Simons was born and raised in the Philippines and worked in Davao as a peace and restorative justice advocate from 2008 to 2017. He is currently a doctoral research candidate at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Zealand researching indigenous and restorative justice in the Philippines. He is also a prison chaplain at the Otago Correctional Facility. He blogs at https://plowingpeacesowingjustice.blogspot.co.nz and can be reached at kalinawsamindanao@gmail.com)

[i] http://news.mb.com.ph/2017/08/21/dnd-allows-marawi-ex-mayor-to-clear-name/#disqus_thread

[ii] http://news.mb.com.ph/2017/08/21/dnd-allows-marawi-ex-mayor-to-clear-name/#disqus_thread

[iii]http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2016/08/duterte-announces-163-names-on-drugs-watchlist/

[iv] http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/901810/maute-rebuffs-govt-2-times#ixzz4r0C5wffA

[v]http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2017/08/ex-mayor-of-marawi-removed-from-list-of-persons-to-be-arrested-for-rebellion/

[vi] http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/901810/maute-rebuffs-govt-2-times#ixzz4r0C5wffA

[vii]http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/901810/maute-rebuffs-govt-2-times#ixzz4r0C5wffA

[viii]http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2017/08/ex-mayor-of-marawi-removed-from-list-of-persons-to-be-arrested-for-rebellion/

[ix] http://news.mb.com.ph/2017/08/21/dnd-allows-marawi-ex-mayor-to-clear-name/#disqus_thread

[x] http://www.iliganpulse.com/people-strongly-endorse-atty-franklin-m-quijano-serve-dilg-secretary/

[xi]http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2017/08/ex-mayor-of-marawi-removed-from-list-of-persons-to-be-arrested-for-rebellion/

[xii] http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2017/08/ex-marawi-mayor-subject-to-arrest-again-due-to-vehement-objections-from-afp-pnp-local-officials/

[xiii]http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2010/06/dureza-flies-to-marawi-to-negotiate-for-yusoph’s-release/

[xiv]http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2017/06/24/Shabu-found-in-abandoned-houses-of-ex-Marawi-Mayor-Salic-and-brother.html

[xv]http://davaotoday.com/main/politics/maranao-traditional-leaders-plead-to-duterte-declare-ceasefire-stop-airstrikes-in-marawi/

[xvi]http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2017/09/duterte-vows-fair-treatment-for-maute-members-who-surrender/

[xvii]https://ncpacs.wordpress.com/2017/07/08/accurate-vs-sufficient-facts-locating-the-space-to-review-the-basis-of-the-2017-martial-law-proclamation/