Memo to Mangudadatu:

Plan A: Next time send a couple of motorcyclists ahead, or barring that dispatch some guys to handrail the road with cheap handheld radios that they can ditch (tell them it’s ok) at the first sign of trouble, before sending your convoy up the road. A hundred men, a roadblock and a backhoe are hard to hide. If your scouts find trouble ahead, then radio to turn the convoy back.

Plan B: Rent a helo to recon the road. Junior doesn’t have triple A yet. That might put the Ampatuan thugs off their game and, representing as it does mysterious and still esoteric technology, the Ampatuans might have hesitated to pillage and rape in front of the great mechanical bird. Alinsky’s rule says “go outside the experience of your enemies”. But maybe it’s outside your experience too.

Plan C: Load every vehicle in the convoy with a hundred pounds of C4 and give the detonator to one of the women. That way the ladies can take those upstanding men with them to wherever Allah intended them to go if the threats become too obvious to ignore. Save the backhoe the trouble of digging a hole too.

But above all do not, repeat, do not, rely on the “respect” of thugs and villains for women, children and journalists that is widespread under your culture. You might as well throw sesame seed buns at wolves. They’re not interested in the condemnation of the International Union of Pacifist Journalists or anything like that. Them types want red meat and will only be stopped by a conk on the head or something of similar nature. That’s why David had a sling. But, wrong book and wrong tradition.