Hadji Abdullah Camlian, a member of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace panel, believes that the Mamasapano incident was not a massacre.
“In my view, the term ‘massacre’ is if you kill people, murder people (who are unarmed) and have no way to fight back, you kill them in group, or whatsoever, that is massacre,” Camlian said.
He also cited the definition of massacre by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the killing of a large number of people, especially people who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves.”
The MILF negotiator further said: “Masasayang ‘yong mga medals, the honor bestowed upon these people. They were not massacred, they fought a gallant fight. And I salute them for their bravery; we salute them for their sense of duty to honor the country. But as I said, to call that incident a massacre, that is a misnomer.”
The peace panel member reacted to the Senate findings presented by Senator Grace Poe Llamanzares on Tuesday (March 17) describing the Mamasapano incident as a massacre. He said that the word “massacre” applies only to unarmed victims.