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By Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ

 

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DAVAO City––In presenting the report of the Peace Council on the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) to both the Congressional Committee on the BBL led by Congressman Rufus Rodriguez and the Senatorial Committee on Local Government headed by Senator Bongbong Marcos, there was a palpable resentment among the legislators for the message that both committees had perceived from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp) and the representatives of the Peace Panel that the draft BBL as submitted should not undergo any changes in its legislation.

I am not sure how the committees got that impression. Certainly, the desire of those who had worked out this draft BBL through arduous negotiations that it not be mutilated is understandable. The draft is a negotiated attempt by both parties to translate the provisions of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) into law. The path towards the CAB was arduous and literally bloody, and even the process through which agreement was achieved on the draft BBL was troubled. So once that agreement was achieved, no one should be surprised that both the representatives of the MILF and the GPH (Government of the Philippines) are one in defending the provisions of the draft BBL before the public, and particularly the legislators. The draft BBL represents not the will of the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) alone, nor the will of the GPH alone, but the worked-out shared will of both to overcome the armed conflict in Mindanao, including eventually the injustices which gave rise to the conflict, through an ongoing commitment to social justice and the common good in an autonomous Bangsamoro homeland. The draft BBL states how the parties in conflict have agreed they can move forward on the path to peace and prosperity.

At the same time, both the government and the MILF negotiators have submitted the draft BBL to the wisdom of the Congress, including the Senate and the House of Representatives. In fact, contrary to the perception of the legislators, they are not absolutely closed to change, since they have stated that they welcomed a thorough discussion on the draft and an improved BBL. What they do not want is that the BBL be watered down. Better no BBL than a bad BBL. By the latter, I presuppose they mean a BBL where the self-determination or the homeland for which they have struggled within the parameters of our Constitution is substantially compromised. Or, any change that would diminish, and not enhance, the autonomy that has already been achieved in the Armm, which was a result of that struggle, even as it has been declared “a failed experiment.” The justness of this struggle is at the heart of the BBL and the negotiations which led to it.

When the Mamasapano debacle occurred, and some people only saw the caskets of the 44 PNP SAF personnel who had fallen in pursuit of two international terrorists they presumed the MILF had been coddling, the question of the trustworthiness of the MILF as a partner-in-peace was raised. It was an understandable question under the sad circumstances of Mamasapano. On the other hand, it is not as if countries such as ours have the luxury of choosing a partner-in-peace among many based on trustworthiness. One gains this status, partner-in-peace, because of an earlier state of belligerency, and a shared desire now to move away from the belligerency to peace. The shared movement away from war is necessarily based on trust. Absent the trust, the peace process makes no sense. Personally, understanding something of the injustice that Muslim Filipinos have suffered in Mindanao, I admire those who have been willing to risk comfort, property, and their own lives in an armed struggle to defend their religion, their way of life, their homeland, their rights, and to pursue the social justice they deserve. That this has pitted them against Armed Forces of the Philippines belongs to the pain of the state of belligerency and the imperative today to work out among Filipinos a just and lasting peace. As a Filipino in Mindanao, I am grateful that a peace process is ongoing. The peace negotiators on the side of the GPH negotiated for peace presumably also in my name, and with them I choose to trust them. I affirm the trust they repose in our partner-in-peace.

While thinking of the trustworthiness of the MILF partner-in-peace, it might be a salutary exercise to consider our own trustworthiness as manifested by the representatives of the foreign colonizers or of the Philippine nation over the years, since I presume we might as Filipinos consider ourselves the heir of our colonial past.

In this exercise, one could recall the colonial government of Spain, which sought to conquer the Muslims and convert them to Christianity. They succeeded in neither. But the memory of the Moro-Spanish wars brought on the Muslims while the rest of the Filipinos were hispanized and Christianized is part of Moro consciousness today.

One could then recall the colonial government of the Unites States of America, which sought to conquer and “civilize” the Muslims. They succeeded in conquest through superior military hardware and ignominious military massacres (Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak), but their manner of “civilizing” the Muslims was based on the model of the Filipino Catholic from Luzon and Visayas, the worthy “little brown brother” of the American Protestant rulers. They “integrated” the Muslims into the Philippine society by installing Filipino Catholics to govern them, failing to work with their Muslim leaders, undermining their Muslim traditions and leadership structures and by bringing Filipino Catholic settlers from the north to take over their lands.

Under the commonwealth government of the Philippines, the American colonization policy was continued, bringing in more settlers from the north who took over the lands belonging to the Lumad and the Muslims through use of a land registration scheme that was foreign and confiscatory in Mindanao.

Prior to the Government of the Philippines, Muslims were already not “Filipinos” because they were not Christian, or they were not “civilized” because they were not Christian. They were not recognized as leaders in their own homeland because they were not “Christian Filipino.” They were deprived of their lands because of a land registration system which was foreign to them and alienated their lands to Christian Filipinos.

One must not be shocked when the Muslims of Mindanao are blocked in trusting the “Filipinos” from the north when they were treated in this manner.

From the viewpoint of the MILF leaders, however, and all the Muslims in the Philippines whom they presumably represent, what is the basis in history for putting trust in the Filipino People, including myself, who are presumably represented by such as the GPH or the President of the Philippines or the legislators of the Philippines? What is the record of the Philippine Government in dealing with the Muslims? Have their activities argued to the trustworthiness of the Philippine Government? Has the record of implementation of Philippine commitments to the Muslim community tended to build up or demolish trust?

Unfortunately it is not very good. The record does not argue for trust.

Beyond its long history of being discriminated against from the north, the contemporary conflict with the Filipino Muslims begins with the Jabidah Massacre in 1968. Unfortunately, many of our Filipinos are yet unaware of this. President Ferdinand Marcos was involved in extra-legal activities to advance the claim of the Sultanate of Sulu, and therefore of the Philippines, to Sabah. This included the clandestine Operation Merdeka (Freedom) to infiltrate and destabilize Sabah. When 48 Muslim operatives mutinied because they had not been paid their 50 pesos a month, or because they could not participate in attacking Muslim Sabah, all except one were executed in Corregidor. Jibin Arola survived by swimming back to Manila. Malacañang denied involvement in the affair. Instead, the Ilokano head of the operation, Capt. Martelino, gamely took the blame. But to date, there has been no formal investigation into this matter and no determination of blame. This already does not augur well for the trustworthiness of Manila in investigating actions which affect Muslims adversely and effecting justice for Muslims.

The Jabidah massacre eventually conditioned the development of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) under Nur Misuari, then eventually the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). It continues to be a lingering source of mistrust among Muslims for the Philippine Government. For decent Filipinos it is a source of shame.

The Jabidah Massacre immediately preceded the call by Cotabato Governor for a Muslim Independence Movement (MIM), who had also been frustrated by the events in his family and his party which compromised his political standing. While the call did not result in an immediate secessionist uprising of the Muslim community against the Philippines, it sowed fear in the hearts of Christian settlers, who believed the Muslims would attack them and take over their lands. In fear, the Christian settlers organized strike groups called the Ilagas, the “rats,” some Teduray, mostly Ilonggos, headed by the unassuming Feliciano Lupes from Upi, Cotabato, who as “commander Toothpick” turned into a monster. The Christian Ilagas launched a series of vicious and brutal attacks on Muslim communities whose battle signatures were cut off ears, hacked off nipples, gouged out eyes, and cross markings on the slain bodies of Muslims. The Muslims eventually retaliated with the Iranun Blackshirts and the Maranao and Maguindanaon Barracudas; they showed the Ilagas held no monopoly on ferocity. In recalling these sad events which bloomed into the Muslim-Filipino war in Mindanao in the first half of the 70s, it is for our consideration to note that the national government under Marcos did not use the government’s police or armed forces to quell the aggressor violence of the Ilagas and maintain the peace in Muslim communities, who were then not supporting a rebellion. Instead, it allowed the local government units to use and deploy the Ilagas as an integral part of their anti-Muslim campaign. In fact, it even used the Ilagas as special shock troops. Udtog Matalam’s declaration of the MIM, but more so the violence fomented by the Ilagas tolerated, supported and exploited by Malacanang, became part of the pretext for Marcos’ imposition of martial law in 1972. Martial law was imposed to quell the violence it itself encouraged, but then could no longer control; the war became the solution to the war it had itself fomented. It was warrant for the Moro National Liberation Front under the youthful UP intellectual-turned rebel, Nur Misuari; he organized the Bangsa Moro Army to provide military support for the call for Muslim independence from the Philippines in assertion of Muslim self-determination. (to be concluded)

 

(Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ is president of the Ateneo de Davao University. He is also vice president of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines, and chair of its Advocacy Committee, and President of the Ceap in Region 11. –Mindanews)

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