Jose Ma. Montelibano
What lies ahead for Mindanao? Being a land of promise where many have found not only wealth but built business empires, Mindanao has also been cursed with violence, exploitation and neglect. Today, after all the painful experiences of centuries, lessons remain unlearned. Today, we move towards another round of hostilities, another round of death and destruction, another generation introduced to their violent inheritance.
It is simple that it only shows how fear and anger can cloud even the usually more reasonable. When there are no threats of land being confiscated, or control of resources being transferred from government to Muslim hands, Christians are quite intelligent, and peaceful. But, at the same time, this intelligence and peace may be grounded on the worst of platforms – forgetfulness. That forgetfulness becomes a blinder and a powerful cause for another eruption of conflict.
It is not the law that Muslims hold in greatest importance, it is their hunger for Bangsamoro. When the majority of Muslims follow the laws of the land, it is not respect for them but fear of reprisal should they disobey. Their obvious numerical inferiority to Christians in the islands of the Philippines motivate Muslims to be submissive, but that submissiveness if only on the surface. The not so hidden truth is that Muslims keep dreaming of Bangsamoro and it takes little to move them to act.
A reader wrote me after reading my last article and asked me to prove that ancestral domain land belonged to the Muslims as these are now legally owned by Christians who occupy them. I was taken aback by the question because his suppositions reveal an ignorance of history. One century is almost the present, and it should not be difficult to track major events or developments that happened in the 1900’s.
Mindanao today is peopled mostly by Cebuanos, Ilongos, Ilocanos , and Tagalogs – among all others who came from all over except Mindanao. These non-Mindanaoans now own most of the land that is not considered public. That means they were sold land by government because no other group has titles to land which had all been confiscated in the name of the king of Spain. Only the king or his authorized representatives could have titled any or all the lands because no native of our motherland had any title before Spain.
The original owners of the lands which were confiscated never got back their lands. Down the line, some may have been fortunate enough to have bought land from new landowners, mostly beneficiaries of grants by the Spanish crown and those who inherited their lands. But the original owners, the people of the islands now known as the Philippines, remain mostly squatters who have no legal right to be anywhere in the country.
The exceptions are Muslims who resisted the invasion of Spain, America and Japan. Even if they, too, lost most their lands to the different governments in the last four centuries, Muslims would rise in defiance or rebellion. Because they resisted, Muslims can now claim as ancestral domain all lands torn away from their ownership and control. In truth, all Filipinos can claim ancestral domain against government because government is only a beneficiary of the fruits of invasion, occupation, and exploitation. But since they did not rebel or resist like the Muslims, the Muslims can have priority in reclaiming their lands.
When the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity was suddenly dropped to the general public, the United States was seen as the broker of a negotiated peace which many Christians refuse to honor. The United States is a distraction here. Its presence poured salt on open wounds, but its absence would not have made the BJE acceptable. The enmity between Christians and Muslims is the environment that dominates, and the forgetfulness of Christians is the cause why they cannot understand the context of Muslim sentiments.
The deadly attacks of two MILF commanders on innocent barangays triggered counter attacks by the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The MILF leadership refuses to surrender the concerned commanders, and that posture increases the odds for war and less for more negotiations. Without recognition of a historical context that makes the belligerence of the MILF understandable even if unacceptable, there will be no other option but another war, another
serious disturbance of an already disturbed and weakened people.
Around us, the world is sliding deeper into a greater fear syndrome. As economies tumble, and others slow down, war rages in several countries and terrorism in even more. Insecurity accompanies global warming and the world is darker despite being made smaller by technology. Some light is provided by knowledge but light does not shine brighter until knowledge turns to
wisdom. As the Georgian conflict stokes once more an American-Russian distrust which has had not enough time to dissolve, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan remain hot flash points for global insecurity.
Economies have lessened dependence on tangible commodities which serve man’s needs and comforts and increased addiction to speculative trading which make mincemeat of floating currencies. What Filipinos work so hard from can become almost worthless as global greed overtakes global concern for one another. There are so many sharks in the oceans around us, yet we choose to fight one another as though we can afford it.
With the attitudes Christians and Muslims alike have taken, violent confrontation is almost inevitable. As the MILF and the AFP will engage in another protracted war, terrorists will go shopping for easy and high-profile targets around the country. Philippine society will build another pre-martial law scenario and, perhaps, allow Gloria her intensely-sought extension by doing a Marcos Part II. We are inside a vicious cycle that we are about to strengthen all the more.
Our only hope for peace and for meaningful change is to seek freedom from our mindlessness, to reconnect to a past to learn its lessons, to build a new culture of honesty and integrity, to recover diligence and discipline, to pursue a vision of nobility and honor. Or wait until our exhaustion from bloodshed and panic forces us to call a time out..
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“In bayanihan, we will be our brother’s keeper and forever shut the door to
hunger among ourselves.”
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