Category: mindanao

make peace, not war

in trying to grasp what’s been happening in zamboanga since monday, most overwhelming is the sense that we’re not getting enough information, we ‘re not getting hard facts, about this war raging anew between the AFP and the MNLF, and we are expected to simply trust that the president knows what he’s doing, and that what he’s doing will redound to the good of nation.

but how can war be good?  how can killings be good?  how can the suffering, the terror, of civilians caught in the crossfire, the evacuations, the burning of their homes, be good?  surely there were, are, ways of resolving the conflict other than by bloodshed.

the MNLF says it was government forces that fired the first shot.  if true, then what defense secretary gazmin means when he says that the MNLF started it must be in terms of the MNLF forces being armed, and suspected of sinister motives connected with leader nur misuari’s august declaration of bangsamoro independence, when they started gathering in those seaside barangays for a protest march the next day monday.

understandably, it must all have been perceived as an imminent MNLF attempt to take over those areas, which would establish it as still a force to be reckoned with, no matter how small, rather than as a spent force.  something that the aquino admin couldn’t allow, it is said, as it would be disruptive of the said-to-be nearly-concluded bangsamoro deal with the larger MILF.

and so it would seem that because the rebels were armed, government was justified in engaging them in a firefight, never mind that they were embedded among unarmed civilians, maybe some of them old friends and neighbors back in the old days in sulu, unfortunately all perceived as unwilling hostages by government?

i wonder how it started.  was there an attempt at communications first?  like, maybe, what’s this all about, let’s talk, walang armas armas,  but the rebels refused to talk or lay down their arms?  or did the AFP just start shooting because that was the order from on high?

five days later when the president flew to zamboanga himself, i thought we’d finally see a ceasefire.  alas, tila lalong nagkabanatan.  this, the day after benhur luy testified in the senate, made it easier to believe speculation that the zamboanga war was meant to distract from the pork barrel scam rocking imperial manila.  but another 3 days later, it seemed like the reverse was true: that the cases filed vs enrile revilla estrada et al in manila were meant to distract from the zamboanga war na naglevel-up na, air strikes na, grabe.

puwede namang nagkataon lang ang pagkakasabaysabay.  synchronicity.  meaning, magkasimbigat ang muslim mindanao problem at ang pork barrel problem.  the roots of the mindanao problem are poverty-related, the fruits of the pork barrel problem are poverty-related.  ang lahat ay kabitkabit.  as i’ve said in a previous blog:

the bangsamoro people deserve autonomy, but only as much autonomy as every other local government unit deserves and isn’t getting either in luzon, the visayas, and other parts of mindanao. poverty, along with landlessness and joblessness, is a nationwide affliction, and it is the fault not of the moros and other rural and urban poor who make up, what, maybe 70 %, maybe 80? of the population, rather it is the fault of imperial manila, of a central government that is loathe to share its considerable powers and resources with local governments, despite theLocal Government Code of 1991 that mandates decentralization, devolution, and autonomy, complete with implementing rules and regulations. 

re the current military operation vs the MNLF, this from tony la vina makes a lot of sense.

I was always uncomfortable with the dichotomy between the peace processes we have pursued in Mindanao. I have come to the conclusion that the bilateral approach to negotiations must be replaced by a quad or quintet approach so that everyone is brought to the same table, including the MNLF and other groups with legitimate interests (Lumads or indigenous peoples of Mindanao for example as well as local governments of affected areas).

for now, we beg that a ceasefire be declared and implemented, now na. please, mr. president, make peace, not war.

*

p.s. to those in social media who are so quick to condemn nur misuari and the MNLF without any sense of the history of the bangsamoro struggle and government response over the decades, i beg you, magbasa muna, find the time, please, or forever keep your silence.

p.p.s. to nur misuari.  time to write a no-holds-barred memoir, but nothing hagiographic please.

*

 

The Boat from Sabah

By Daryll Delgado

I wrote this four years ago, while in the middle of a research project focused on trafficked labor. All these articles and opinions and strong feelings about Sabah surfacing again reminded me of that project, the people we met, the things we observed, the experiences we had, and so many more that have to be left unsaid.

Exactly three in the afternoon, the hour of great mercy, someone announced wryly, when I asked for the time. We arrived at the Zamboanga City port area in a gleaming, cream-colored, Toyota Altis, looking ridiculously conspicuous and unsure of ourselves. We told the driver to take shade, hide a little. He parked the car closest to the wall, but within full view of the area of water where the boat was supposed to dock. To our left, we could see the façade of the gothic Bureau of Customs and Immigrations building – its grand pointed arches, rib vaults, flying buttresses, large windows and elaborate tracery providing a stark contrast to the tableau of poverty in front of it. We stayed in the car, hesitant to be out in the scorching hot afternoon, hesitant to confront what we had come all the way to this dramatically stunning but perpetually troubled region for.

The boat from Sabah had not yet arrived, we were told. An opening, however, had already been cleared between a passenger vessel and a domestic cargo ship. Military jeeps, police mobiles, two ambulance units, and an International Committee of the Red Cross wagon were also already in front of the docks. Immigrations authorities in their green fatigues, and Red Cross volunteers in bright red shirts, took advantage of the shade offered by the swaying shadow of the big Basilan-bound passenger boat that was rocking softly in the waters, loading its passengers: women with their children bound to the sides of their waists, and men carrying on their shoulders colorful nylon and plastic bags fashioned into shapes of suitcases.

There was a palpable buzz. The atmosphere at the pier was almost festive. Comfortable, at the very least. There was a relaxed camaraderie and unspoken accord among the people waiting: government workers, local and international volunteers, advocacy groups, the police, the curious, and the cargadores.

Meanwhile, our guide, a young, vivacious nurse working with the Department of Health and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, gave us instructions. We were to follow her and say “From the DOH”. That was all. Nothing more.

But we had many other questions: about the boat carrying the undocumented Filipinos who had been expelled from Sabah; about that place which has rejected and ejected them but which most of these people consider as home; about these people whose notion of country and nation are unlike our own, whose allegiances are created by wherever there is for them a family and a means to live.

The boat from Sabah, our guide said, is a big one with three main sections. It regularly plies the Sabah-Zamboanga route. It is not at all like a prison boat, she said. The first two levels are occupied by paying passengers. A metal latch-door separates them from the passengers of the boat’s topmost section. This section is reserved for the Halaw – the expelled, the rejected, the ones who have been discarded – as the deportees are referred to in the local Tausug language.

Our guide told us that the number of Halaw varies, depending on the Malaysian government’s schedule of deportation. There is what is called a massive deportation, with hundreds to thousands of undocumented Filipinos shipped back to Zamboanga every week. On a regular basis, for the so-called regular deportation, the boat from Sabah comes twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the deportees number from fifty to two hundred per trip. The Malaysian government arranges and pays for the cost of deportation. She said that the people are given some food for the boat trip, too. But most of them have been in detention centers for months, if not years, that apart from their travel documents, they do not have much else – not the money they worked for, or the families they lived with and for – when they land in our shores. Some of them, because of prolonged detention, lose their minds, their memories, and their names as well. The most unfortunate ones lose their lives.

According to the government social welfare department records, there has been a rising number of deaths from among the deportees. Infants almost always do not survive the trip. Even the adults, the very sick ones, the severely malnourished, also eventually succumb to death despite efforts to treat and rehabilitate them. Ironic, our guide said, that they should survive harsh conditions in detention, in sea transport, only to die when they are freed on land.

It had been almost half an hour already, and the afternoon was getting hotter. I started seeing mirages everywhere. The glare of the sun was so fierce that the skies, the sea, everything looked white. The blaze outshone the sparkling white sand of the islands in the horizon and we could only see a wide strip of wobbly, wavering, shimmering light from across the sea. The mountains and islands of Basilan had disappeared. No approaching boats could be seen.

In a few more minutes, though, about a dozen Badjao bancas started to float into our vision. Our guide told us that the Badjao – an ethnic indigenous group of sea-dwelling, nomadic people – usually meet the big boats on their bancas. They beg for coins to be thrown into the water, and then they exhibit their magnificent diving skills to the spectator-passengers. The entourage of bancas was a sign that a big passenger boat was approaching. We then alighted from the car and told the driver to head back to the hotel and to wait for our call.

The intense heat accosted us promptly. I swayed a little and had to take deep breaths to steady myself, before I could join my friend and our guide who had started to walk ahead of us toward the docks. As we were walking, the boat from Sabah came into view, spewing out two cones of thick black smoke into the air. The entourage of Badjao bancas u-turned in what looked like a choreographed move, and then they arranged themselves with a theatrical sense of blocking along the boat’s portside. The passengers packed themselves to this side of the boat, leaning against the rails, shouting, applauding, and waving at the kids on the bancas. A few coins glimmered momentarily as these were tossed up in the air and sliced into the sea. The Badjao kids dove swiftly after the coins underwater.

The boat continued to move slowly toward the docks, heavily tilted to one side. I feared it would spill the people over to the water altogether. My heart palpitated in excitement, in anticipation, in anxiety, as the boat neared the pier and its anchor was thrown to the wharf.

At the wharf, the inter-agency team that had come to meet the deportees started to move as well. They pulled themselves from what were earlier relaxed, comfortable poses – leaning against cars, crouched under the shadows – and composed themselves into bodies poised for action. They accorded us with slight disinterest, polite disregard as they took their positions. “From the DOH,” we said, even when nobody bothered to ask.

The smell, the heat, the noise that met us as soon as we stepped into the cargo section of the boat were more than sufficient warning of what we were to witness.

Immigration officers filed past us, followed by the quarantine team, and the Social Welfare Coordinator, who made their way to a room next to the captain’s cabin. All passengers had to pass and get their travel documents stamped in this room before they could be allowed to leave the boat.

I tried to catch up with everyone, slightly fearful of the estivadores who communicated mainly by shouting and routinely spewing colorful curses in Chavacano and some Bisaya, as they unloaded cargo from the ship. I tried even harder not to stare up to the passengers of the topmost section; tried to ignore the panicked, anxious look in their eyes. Their cheeks were sunken, their jaws stood out, their skin had boils and spots. They leaned over the rails, peeked through the metal latch-door, and watched us, not making any move, not making any sound. The rubber soles of my shoes kept sticking to the greasy surface of the metal floor and made embarrassing sucking noises the faster I walked.

In the holding room, a young female nurse who had escorted the deportees was already briefing the team. There were 261 deportees in all. At least eight of them were in emergency medical conditions, and should be rushed to the hospital as soon as possible. But there were also some newborns, infants, and a couple of other children who had to be loaded off the boat first. There was an outbreak of some kind of pox, too. Most of the passengers had already caught it.

After the briefing, we made our way to the topmost section of the boat. The latch-door was pulled and we climbed briskly up the metal stairs. When we were safely inside, the door was closed again behind us with a loud clang that reverberated throughout the floor of the Halaw section.

There were too many bunk beds, there was hardly any space to navigate between them. The light was blocked, the air was stale, and then some of the deportees started to smoke. The smell of tobacco blended with that of unwashed bodies, sweat trapped in blankets and sheets, food grease stuck on the steel bed frames, leftovers in the trash bins. But above all that, you could also smell the excitement, the fervor, but also the fear, the exhaustion, and the pain.

There was a slight confusion before we were able to locate the eight deportees in need of emergency medical assistance. Everybody had the same exhausted, but anxious look about them. Everybody looked in need of emergency medical attention.

And then we spotted them, the patients. Their limbs had shrunk, but their heels and feet had swollen to unimaginable shapes. This was the main, the most common complaint: They couldn’t move their legs. They couldn’t feel anything anymore. They had been sitting for too long – three-five-six weeks, months long. They were very rarely allowed to stand or to walk when they were in detention. They could only sit on their heels or lie on their backs. Two of them had tried to stand, and to stand up to the guard on duty, and they both got struck by a cane behind the knee and were forced to sit. So they did. They sat. They sat for too long.

Disuse atrophy of the most severe type, the nurses said. This occurs when there is an injury to, or disease of a nerve, or even from total lack of physical exercise, from simply not using the muscles enough. Considering that most of these people were manual laborers, the injury and utter lack of mobility they had been subjected to must have been pretty harsh, our guide said. She wasn’t sure if this would be reversed with vigorous exercise or better nutrition. She wasn’t even sure if it was just muscle atrophy that was the problem. Based on the pallor of their skin, the color of their eyes, she also suspected kidney failure, due to dehydration and a variety of insults to the body. This, she said, is fast becoming a common cause of mortality among deportees.

Six women went mad all at the same time in one cell, a young male deportee narrated. No, they didn’t go mad, their bodies were inhabited by demon spirits, gisaniban, explained another, a much older Moslem man. These women had grown so thin, had a wild look in their eyes. They howled at night, tore off their clothes, tried to attack the other women in the cell, they said. Good thing an Imam was around. He exorcised the demon spirits from the women’s bodies and insisted that the women be transferred to another room. The women’s chamber was a pretty bad section of the detention center, they all agreed. It was only when the women were transferred to another room that they went back to their normal selves, that they recovered their human bodies, the men said. They shook their heads of the memory, of the sight of those women. Pinaka-luoy gyud ang mga baye. The women really have it worst, said one of the male deportees. And then another one spoke: Luoy pud kaayo ang uban nga mga bata, kadtong gi-detain kauban sa mga tigulang. The others agreed, reminded of other cruelties: the kids, separated from their parents, detained in the same cells as the adults. The men narrated how they would take turns taking care of the young boys who wouldn’t stop crying at night, who refused to eat, who would get sick. They shook their heads again and again, trying to dispel the memory of those kids they weren’t able to save, the kids who eventually died. They related all this with such sadness, such anger, such pain. It was difficult to conceive of them as terrorists, insurgents, criminals, as they have often been referred to in the newspapers here and in Sabah.

The medical team returned. There weren’t enough stretchers, it turned out. One of the patients had to be carried on the back of his brother who was only just strong enough to lift the patient, off the bunk and on to his brother’s back. The patient was too tall, his limbs fell limply along the sides of his brother’s body. His bare, swollen, heavy feet scraped the metal floor as his brother crouched low and lugged the patient’s body heavily along.

Then the boat started to move, and the men panicked. Where are we being taken? What’s going to happen to us? My heart leaped, too. I tried not to panic. Probably just positioning the boat more closely to where the ambulances are, I said. But, why is the boat moving away from the pier? Why is it leaving the dock?! Was there something wrong with our papers? And then, finally, the question was asked with much fear and trepidation: Are we being taken back to Sabah?

When the boat stopped, the deportees started moving frantically toward the door, eager to leave this section, eager to get off the boat. This created a commotion that proved difficult to control. Some of the patients had to be settled back on the bunk beds, to let the other passengers out first. Two men decided to wait it out calmly and proceeded to light cigarettes instead. They had been through this before, they said. One of them had been deported thrice already, the other twice. And then they just go back. They will always keep going back. They exit through Taw-tawi, they said. No sweat. It is very easy. In Sabah, they know someone who can produce fake IDs. You want one? They offered. So easy. Sayon ra kaayo mam. It really is very easy, ma’am. They insisted.

I decided to sit with one of the patients who had been asked to stay behind. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly alarming about his condition, although there was a gangrenous wound on his elbow, and a red band was tied tightly right above it. What caught attention was that he spoke English, and only English. His eyes darted from one corner of the boat to another. He couldn’t look straight at any one point longer than a few seconds. When his eyes rested on me, piercingly, although for only a very brief moment, my heart tightened instantly with fear. I hated myself for it. Then he looked away and offered his right hand for a handshake. It took me a while to realize that he had introduced himself. His hand was furrowed, bony, dark, and small. The back of his palm was also spotted with what looked like boils. I took his hand and shook it very lightly in mine.

I only realized that I had been holding my hand out very awkwardly in the air, like I was drying it out, when someone asked me if there was something wrong with it. I shook my head furiously, mumbled something indistinct, and hid my hand behind my back.

It took more than four hours since the boat from Sabah docked, before we finally arrived at the Center for Displaced Persons.

By eight in the evening, the deportees had been loaded off the fleet of six-wheeler trucks that had brought them to their temporary home in Zamboanga, from the pier. They had been oriented of their new status and situation, and were formally welcomed to the Philippines. They were now lining up in front of a makeshift eating area for their first hot meal, since they left Sabah. All around them, the neighborhood kids were clapping their hands, welcoming them, and cheering: Halaw! Halaw! Halaw! Shouting out that derogatory term, which everyone seemed to have embraced and turned into something endearing instead.

You are now in the Philippines, you are now free, the Center Head had told them in Chavacano, Tausug, and then in Bisaya, the default Philippine languages used during orientation. When the Head translated the same message to Bahasa Melayu, some shed tears involuntarily, but very, very quietly. When they were told that they may now stand and start making their way out of the hall and into the eating area, the silence was broken by the sighs of relief, and the shuffle of feet, of some two hundred fifty three hungry people, who had sat for far too long in a place they used to call home.

We didn’t speak to each other, my friend and I, while we were in the car, on our way back to the hotel. Zamboanga looked even more intriguing in the deep blue of a March summer evening. All around us, the city had turned on its lights, the streets were filled with cars. Everywhere, parking lots were full, side streets were blocked. It was a Saturday night, after all. And the place is known for some real good nightlife. The visiting American forces sometimes leave their camps and risk their safety for this nightlife.

We turned all our attention to the driver, as we crawled down Zamboanga’s streets, in search of some mangosteen, lanzones, and other fruits in season, to bring back to Manila the next day. We asked about his family, we joked with him, we made him laugh, and we laughed much too loudly for his comfort. But, my friend and I, we were comfortable only in this kind of gaiety, so we kept at it.

Then, we passed the boulevard, which was lined with lovers and groups of friends out for some simple, inexpensive fun. From the boulevard, we could almost see the boat, decked in lights, lolling softly in the water, waiting for passengers for the return trip to Sabah. We fell silent all the way back to the hotel.

At the hotel, we let each other take as much time as we felt we needed in the shower. When it was my turn, I turned the shower knob to full heat, and let the hot water scald my skin. I opened my palms, scrubbed soap several times on them, and held them up, to cup as much hot water as they could take until they hurt, until they seriously started to hurt.

Out in the hotel balcony, while we smoked, we could almost hear the boat’s droning call, the single continuous note, vibrating through the air. We listened in silence, both of us perhaps wondering, how many of those passengers bound for Sabah would be expelled right back to this very same place with their dreams, their spirits, and their limbs broken.

mindanao, marcos, aquino

sharing a rare angle on mindanao through the lens of a soldier’s wife.

At the Libingan ng mga Bayani 
By Amelia H.C. Ylagan

ANCIENT ACACIAS stretch their limbs to the skies in the exuberant yawns of their leafy canopies. Filigrees of light and shadow from leaves trembling in the slight breeze speckle the grass — while on the horizon, visible waves of steely white heat vibrate silent reverence. Someone up there quietly peers through the acacias in perpetual care of those buried under the mute white crosses at the Libingan ng mga Bayani — the national cemetery for heroes.

Alas, that the sacred silence would be intermittently violated by the crass zoom of low-flying jumbo aircraft landing at the international airport nearby. Maybe the juxtaposition of sound and silence at the Libingan has some meaning: for the majority of those lying under the white stone crosses were soldiers killed in action — in World War II, in Korea, Vietnam and in troubled Mindanao since the Libingan ng mga Bayani was first established in 1947. Somehow the boom from those descending commercial aircraft sounds terrifyingly like whistling war bombs or the thunder of monstrous artillery.

“Killed in action” (KIA) seems incongruous a classification for a dead soldier in a post-war democracy, specially for those who were killed in Mindanao. Initial tally of KIA was said to be at 13,000 in the first four to five years of the 14-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos that started in 1972. In a University of the Philippines study of the Mindanao conflict it was said that “from 1972-1982(?) the 30,000-strong MNLF funded by Malaysia and Libya tied down 70-80% of the Philippine military, inflicting an average of 100 casualties per month.

The United Nations (UN)-inspired Norwegian International Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) places the post-World War start of conventional warfare in Mindanao as 1970, when then President Ferdinand Marcos declared an all-out military anti-insurgency campaign, perhaps then conjuring a preamble to martial law. This was after the horrible 1968 Jabidah massacre off the northeastern seacoast, when Muslim Filipino fighters were killed by Marcos operatives, after the Muslim mercenaries discovered that they had been deceitfully hired to infiltrate and kill fellow — Muslim insurgents.

There was no democracy then, in those years of the antithetical dictatorship. Soldiers were marionettes to keep alive a puppeteer’s story of a need to protect the country from threatening powers here and abroad. Sadly, dying was very real, and not play-acting for the soldier. Nor was he aware and in control of any options, aside from the baffling dilemma of renegading towards equally mind-bending communism. Those were the days of cadaver bags quietly ferried from Mindanao to Manila in rattling World War II-vintage C-47 aircraft. On the widows and orphaned families was imposed the vow of silence about their painful, unexplainable loss — to “unduly stir unrest” among the unknowing other citizens would be “subversive.”

And of course there were no obituaries to announce those KIA, for none of the government-controlled newspapers would print them. But the news spread quickly and efficiently by word of mouth, and wakes overflowed with sympathizers silently shaking their heads as they hugged condolences without alluding to the war in Mindanao, exacerbated by the strongman’s political bungling with “peace mediator” Libya. Yet no government stoolie would tell on sincere friends and grieving relatives walking behind the horse-drawn caisson at the funeral of a fallen soldier. No eye would be dry at the plaintive call of the bugle to the soldier’s “Taps” breaking the painful silence at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

The peace problem in Mindanao has always been how to distinguish between the mercenary brigands, warring clans and foreign-fed terrorists of Southern Philippines on one end, and on the other, those thinking, principled Muslim Filipinos who are fighting for recognition and deep-rooted culturally identified property rights of since five decades ago. Unfortunately, the soldiers who died in Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan had no time, in the face of ambushes, snipers and massacres, but to fight aggressive, often suicidal terrorists. These foreign-backed rebels brag of superior weaponry contrasted to government soldiers’ failing ammunition and obsolete weaponry.

Perhaps the biggest treachery in history of Muslim Filipino rebels against brother-Filipino Christian soldiers was the massacre of Brig. Gen. Teodulfo Bautista with 34 of his men (including five colonels) in Patikul on Jolo island, in October 1977. Bautista came trustingly for peace talks with Osman Salleh, a rebel leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), who promised that 150 of his men would switch to the government side.

KEY QUESTIONS

Today, Bautista’s son, Brig. Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, is commanding general of the Philippine Army. Though he had reportedly repeatedly asked to be assigned to Jolo and other hotbeds in Mindanao in his more junior years, it was probably thought by prudent superiors that a murdered general’s son would be perverted target for perverted rebels in those areas. But does not Bautista, the son, being in his father’s vulnerable shoes today, 35 years gone, beg the key questions that must be answered for peace in Mindanao?

Who is fighting whom, and with whom should the government talk peace? In the five or so “peace agreements” in the post-war government efforts to settle the conflict in Southern Philippines, the internal rivalries, lack of unity and leadership on the Muslim Filipino side held back the implementation of such attempts at peace. “Bangsamoro” (unity of “Moros,” a Spanish name for Muslims) was the goal of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF, led by Nur Misuari) when the MNLF and the government were discussing peace for Mindanao. Misuari shed separatist ambitions and participated and won in national local elections for the ARMM (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao).

While the MNLF suffered Misuari’s vainglory and alleged corruption, the splinter group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), gained respect and wrested political dominance. So, negotiations for peace were then with the reformed, re-engineered MILF, representing the “thinking” side that soon embraced the October 2012 peace agreement with the government of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III — the “Bangsamoro Peace Accord,” to be implemented over four years, coterminus with Aquino’s term.

But now Nur Misuari, resurrected hero of the MNLF, is belly-aching why he was not involved in the Bangsamoro Peace Accord, when Bangsamoro was his battle cry for the earlier, likewise properly agreed talks. Some analysts suggest that the convolution of political changes abroad, like the political fall of Egypt, the liquidation of Libya’s Moammar Khadaffy (said to be supporting MNLF/MILF at some point or other), the suspected ties to terrorist al Qaeda, even to the terrorist of the US 9/11 attack, have had bearings on the shifting power structures in Muslim Mindanao, and on several attempts at peace accords.

So, will this latest peace accord succeed, a Mindanao State University (MSU) anthropology professor, (a Muslim Filipino) was asked at a recent history conference? His cryptic reply: Come to visit me… at your own risk, he added with misplaced mischief. Have you ever been to Jolo, he challenged.

Yes, I have been to Jolo. I brought my husband home to the Libingan ng mga Bayani, many unchanging decades ago.

ahcylagan@yahoo.com

bangsamoro con chacha

it does seem like the anticipated bangsamoro deal with the MILF would have the same problematic provisions as the arroyo admin’s MOA-AD that was struck down by the supreme court back in 2008.

the only significant difference is that the mo-ad was presented as a finished product — requiring only a constitutional amendment to allow a kind of federalist substate and then congress saying yes to the whole deal — samantalang this bangsamoro framework is presented as a work in progress — nothing’s final, but here are the points that the government panel and the MILF panel have come to agree on — and from now on govt is engaging the public, esp the concerned mindanaoans, in a process of transition toward the desired bangsamoro substate-sort-of, how nice.  except that, apart for some tweaking here and there, the roadmap is clearly headed in the same direction as the failed moa-ad.

senator miriam has warned us, it would take two constitutional amendments to legalize the abolition of ARMM and the founding of bangsamoro, and i believe her more than i believe dean leonen who is saying that it would not need charter change, but who himself, In one of the early presscons, brought up the possibility of “people’s initiative” (RA 6735) as a way of amending the charter.  surely he knows that the people’s initiative, enshrined in the 1987 constitution, still lacks implementing rules and regulations.  but who knows, they might be sneaking that in right now while they distract us with cyberlibel atbp.?

there is no doubt that the charter change dance is in progress.  last tuesday, just two days after president aquino’s sunday announcement of a peace accord achieved, malou tiquia attended an afternoon forum on federalism in the house of representatives and tweeted about it.  i jumped in upon the mention of pimentel and abueva,  both ardent federalists.

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
On deck at HOR is Forum on Citizen’s Participation on Consti Reform. forum covers federalism. M one of reactors. #Federalism

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
Bangsamoro, Bangsabicol, Bangsavisaya, BangsaIlocos…n the forum starts on federalism…

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
Nene Pimentel presented a complete n very comprehensive plan on federalism. Pepe Abueva on deck.

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
“What is good for Moro ppl is good for all ppl”- Dr. Jose Abueva

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq parang we’ve heard that all before. sana someone presents too the negative side.

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago which is?

angela‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq ay, mahabang usapin, let me find links from last time’s debates

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago ur own views? What do u fear frm federalism

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq not going to change status quo. the powerful ones now will still be the powerful ones in a federal system.

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq and the costs of setting up federal govt for every region will be huge. and okay for rich regions with money. what abt poor regions

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago that can be dealt with by revising present regional set up where rich n poor can form one fed state

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq sounds good on paper, but when did rich ever really share equitably with poor

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago valid point!

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq Federalism: Issues, Risks and Disadvantages

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago thanks! Will raise agam agam

if that’s happening in the house of reps, can the senate be far behind?  what was that wednesday dinner hosted by the president and attended by all but 3 senators really all about kaya.  so it wasn’t about an enrile ouster, obviously, or he wouldn’t have been invited, too.  still it’s hard to believe senator drilon when he says it was just a thank you dinner for their votes to oust corona all of 4 months ago.  we weren’t born yesterday.

senator enrile of course is already a part of the dance, stepping up to contradict senator miriam (who else would dare?) re constitutional amendments.  charter change won’t be needed, he says, while evincing great interest in this experiment in parliamentary govt.

this should remind us that not too long ago, post-corona, pre-brady, pre-memoir, when he was smelling so good and wise, enrile and speaker belmonte joined forces and tried to convince the president about amending the constitution and making national defense a higher priority than education and — the ruling elite’s holy grail – setting the economy free from protectionist provisions.

it’s too bad that the bangsamoro dream keeps getting hijacked to serve the chacha dream of the powers-that-be.  the bangsamoro people deserve autonomy, but only as much autonomy as every other local government unit deserves and isn’t getting either in luzon, the visayas, and other parts of mindanao.  poverty, along with landlessness and joblessness,  is a nationwide affliction, and it is the fault not of the moros and other rural and urban poor who make up, what, maybe 70 %, maybe 80? of the population, rather it is the fault of imperial manila, of a central government that is loathe to share its considerable powers and resources with local governments, despite the Local Government Code of 1991 that mandates decentralization, devolution, and autonomy, complete with implementing rules and regulations.

ARMM is a failure not simply because muslim leaders are corrupt and crooked (hindi lang naman sila), but because aside from “having negligible powers, it was also hostage to the power-brokers in Malacanang.”

Since it was created, the ARMM has been led by local politicians who had been “anointed” by whoever sits in the presidential palace. The first regional governor was the local stalwart of Pres. Aquino’s Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP). The second one was a Maranaw protégé of Pres. Fidel V. Ramos. During the third ARMM elections, the FPA with the MNLF has just been signed. MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari was persuaded by Pres. Ramos to run for ARMM governor. Misuari ran virtually unopposed in the 1998 ARMM elections. By that time, a new president had replaced Ramos – Joseph Estrada. Estrada’s term was cut short by another “People Power” mass action at EDSA in 2001 because of a popular perception of his alleged plunder and other crimes against the Filipino nation. The Vice President then, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took oath as the new president. Like her predecessors, Arroyo lost no time in directing who will become the new ARMM governor. Along with her power-brokers, she made possible the (in)famous break-up of the MNLF Central Committee, easing out Misuari as its chairman. A so-called “Council of 15” was organized, with Dr. Parouk Hussin as its leader. Eventually, Malacanang also anointed Hussin to be the new ARMM governor. In last year’s elections, a new face in regional politics surfaced as the winner in the contest for the ARMM governor’s post – Gov. Datu Zaldy “Puti” Ampatuan. Despite the declaration of the ARMM as a “free zone” in terms of the most likely to be elected regional governor, there are persistent views that the new ARMM governor is also Malacanang’s bet – he is the son of Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan, widely known as Pres. GMA’s favorite local political ally. http://iag.org.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43&Itemid=44

would it be any different for a bangsamoro substate-sort-of?  there is no reason to believe so.  nothing has changed.  let us see this bangsamoro framework for what it is: just another attempt to justify, make it all right for congress to shift to constituent-assembly mode for the sake of the muslims kuno, and while they’re at it, have a go at the economic provisions, and who knows what else.

after what we’ve learned from the cybercime case about how laws are made, how objectionable amendments can be sneaked in, and how some, if not most, senators and reps can themselves be clueless as to what’s really going on, and after how we’ve seen them sit on, literally, the RH and FOI bills, never mind the interests of the majority, t’s obvious that it would be a big mistake to go on trusting our lawmakers to look out for our interests.  what they look out for, administration after administration, congress after congress, are the interests of the few, the ruling elite, of which they are a fundamental part.

NO to chacha.   call me paranoid.