catching up

good to be home and blogging again after four days in medical city – as bantay lang naman, not as pasyente – without laptop dahil walang wi-fi except sa 15th floor suites. we had cable tv naman, so i was getting snippets of news, enough to know that a lot’s going on, mostly discordant, what else is new, but i’ve lost track so have a lot of reading and catching up to do.

of course i’ve read djb’s rant vs. my mindanao fairytale and also manolo’s the march of folly in mindanao which pointed me back to djb’s sultanic verses and comments by abet carino and danilo ignacio that save me the effort of responding. thanks, guys.

justice sabio reminds me of jun lozada

besieged court of appeals justice jose sabio reminds me of nbn-ztewhistleblower jun lozada, both good guys.

a pattern emerges. you blow the whistle on someone powerful and corrupt, and very quickly the information is spinned and twisted so that you turn out to be the villain of the story. it happened to jun lozada, it’s happening again to justice sabio.

this time the real meanie would seem to be quite savvy about setting things up, exactly what to say when and where, for spinning and twisting later, just in case. having a giant media network hanging on his every word helps no end, of course.

what’s interesting is, elevated agad ang kaso to the supreme court, with the investigation to proceed on tuesday. hmmm. who wants to bet that the court will go the way of gma, as usual, which means against the lopezes? for sabio? really? hmmm. that would be good, for a change. abangan.

solving mindanao

GOOD question from jego over at philippine commentary:

I have asked this question over at FilipinoVoices but it seems it’s a tough one to answer: Why is it all important that we keep Mindanao (ARMM in particular) part of the Philippines? What is so terrible about letting it go and be an independent sovereign entity? How many lives have been snuffed out because of this conflict and how many more are we willing to sacrifice just to keep the Philippines together? Is it because we need Mindanao’s resources to be able to survive? That’s not a valid reason, IMO. Mindanao’s resources should primarily be used for Mindanao’s development and not to prop up the central government and its armies. Is it because of ‘national pride’? That’s a hell of a price for the deaths of probably hundreds of thousands by now since the American occupation at least. Why isnt divorce an option a la the Czech Republic and Slovakia? Why do we have to risk doing a Yugoslavia (or Timor L’este even)?”

why is it important to keep muslim mindanao (ARMM) part of the philippines? tough question talaga. i gather (correct me if i’m wrong, anyone who knows better) that it has to do with revenues and with land. government would lose revenues, and government would have to compensate multinationals and other corporate and christian landowners who presently own land in the muslim territories. i have never been able to get any figures or who’s who on this, no thanks to media, but i gather that it’s the major, most thorny problem that government, of course, won’t discuss openly.

now check out this item from taipeitimes.com dated may 2008 that i stumbled on while googling:

Voters may block peace deal
Voters could block a proposed revenue-sharing deal aimed at ending a protracted Muslim separatist rebellion in the south, Manila’s chief peace negotiator warned yesterday. Rodolfo Garcia said Manila has agreed in principle to give Muslims a bigger share of revenues from the natural resources on Mindanao Island, but that voters could reject the change to the Constitution this would require. Peace talks with the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front have stalled after the rebels accused Manila of delaying. The rebels’ claims for “ancestral domain” in the region are also “potentially controversial,” because they would force a change in the law. Only Congress, dominated by the Christian majority including Mindanao landowners, can pass laws.

it would seem that finally government is willing to give up some revenue and, i suppose, some land, except that they’re spinning it so it would require changing the constitution, i.e., shifting to federalism, which jibes with ricky carandang‘s reading that the chacha train has left the station:

Recent efforts by the Regime to resurrect the long dormant peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have led to pronouncements by lead negotiators Rodolfo Garcia and Hermogenes Esperon that revisions to the constitution would be required in order to give more legal and fiscal autonomy to the expanded region of Muslim Mindanao. They point to a resolution to shift to a federal form of government proposed by, of all people, Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr.

This means that aside from Arroyo and her politicans, there will be a significant number of people in Mindanao who will find it in their interest to support charter change this time around. The regime can also pre-empt potential opposition from the international community by arguing that that the revisions would enhance stability in Mindanao and make it less susceptible to terrorism. In which case extending Arroyo’s term would be a small price to pay. I’m told that this the line taken during Arroyo’s recent working visit to the US. Its almost like blackmail. If youwant stability in Mindanao, you must allow us to stay in power beyond 2010.

the question is, will the milf play along? magpagamit kaya ang milf kay gloria? say ni mon casiple:

If the peace negotiations proceeded to the charter change phase, MILF will have lost much of the goodwill it has earned among the majority Filipinos and possibly even among the Moro people who know the real political implication of a cha-cha under the GMA administration. Unfortunately by then, the Moro struggle will have been compromised and subverted by an agenda for prolonging GMA’s stay in power.

I do not think the GMA administration will allow the peace process to successfully end after the charter change. Either it will dribble the ball or it may enter into an agreement it will not implement, as what happened in the Tripoli and Jakarta agreements. It cannot simply forsake its Christian-based constituency or its Moro political allies. If the MILF is not coopted into the current political arrangement, it will not be in position to demand a favorable implementation.

The whole peace process regarding the Moro struggle for self-determination is in danger of being coopted to be sacrificed before the altar of GMA’s political survival. The MILF will then serve only as a decoy for the real charter change agenda.

hopefully the milf will listen to fellow muslims who have long been debating autonomy vs. federalism and who are justifiably wary of federalism. because dr. rene azurin of one voice is right: “devolution of power to local governments can be accomplished without resorting to federalization.”

so, too, can the devolution of power to an autonomous bangsamoro homeland be accomplished without resorting to chacha.

dismaying discourse on mindanao

nakakadismaya ang pinoy blogosphere discourse on mindanao and the muslim struggle for self-determination. no sympathy for the muslims at all. mostly the attitude is, who are they to dictate on the government, they are only a minority, and mostly bloody insurgents and brutal bandits at that.

it’s a triumph of mainstream media, of course, which has succeeded, wittingly or un-, in painting muslim filipinos as “enemies of the state.”

check out cris m. gaerlan jr.’s paper on the role of media in the mindanao war and turning the moro peoples into internal refugees, read in a bangkok conference at the height of the estrada administration’s all-out-war in mindanao:

Reporters and cameramen are now always at the front lines of almost every military offensive in Mindanao. Even a news blackout that had been arbitrarily declared during the height of the hostage crisis in Jolo did not deter the them from bringing the news out to the rest of the country and the world. But what news does the media bring?

Unwittingly or otherwise, the media has contributed to the creation of a myth – the myth that presents Muslims as enemies of the state. Media is now playing a great role in widening the divide between Muslims and their own country, projecting the conflict as a religious war, good versus evil, Christian against Muslim, the government versus forces wanted to establish an Independent Mndanao Islamic state. AS MASS MEDIA REPORTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION, IT IGNORES THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE MINDANAO CONFLICT, TO THE POINT OF INFLUENCING PUBLIC OPINION AND CONDONING, IF NOT ACTUALLY ENCOURAGING, ACTS OF CULTURAL VIOLENCE AGAINST THE MUSLIM PEOPLE. [caps mine]

The extensive media coverage of the “victory” of the Philippine Armed Forces in Camp Abubakhar further instills in people’s minds that “war is the only solution” to the problem in Mindanao. And hunting down suspected terrorist and not surprisingly only Muslims are arrested with out warrants. And should the people wonder?

…mass mediahas caused the public to equate the word “Muslim” with “bandit”, “kidnapper” “terrorist”, and “murderer,” portraying Muslims as a barbaric people. Mass media has reduced the followers of Islam to a people bent on overthrowing the government, and that these enemies of the state deserve this mutated form of ethnic cleansing.”

it’s all terribly unfair to the muslims. had i been born muslim, given the history and the grinding poverty, i would surely be part of a nonviolent struggle for bangsamoro self-determination and a better life. and i might also hate manila, and america, with a vengeance.