RE-THINKING THE BANGSAMORO CRUISIBLE BY CENPEG

Last March 17, 2011 upon checking the calendar of activities on upcoming dates it was announced that Friday that week is holiday called Bangsamoro day. So I begun to ask anybody what is that holiday all about. Then a media friend gave me a copy of this Re-Thinking the Bangsamoro Cruisible so I read it.

Now I want to share this reading material for you to have a deeper and wider perspective and understanding with Bangsamoro for they are as I believe as quote out of context and misunderstood by us.  Hoping  that this material would enlighten us. Thank you.

 Here is the preface and introduction:

BY: Oscar Evangelista

Philippine History has not been very kind in telling the story of the Filipino Muslims. For too long, stereotyped impressions have been preserved: Muslims have been treated as pirates,

barbarians, juramentados who kill Christians, etc. Glossed over is the fact that Islam built the first higher type of civilization in what would become the Philippines. Islam brought with it a whole range of politico-socio religious practices, generally put into place without erasing preexisting ethnic cultures and beliefs.

The arrival of the Spaniards and the introduction of the Catholic religion sharply divided what was once a people united in pre-colonial beliefs and practices. Thus were born the animosities between Christian and Muslim Filipinos, exacerbated by the writings of the Spaniards who considered the Muslims enemies. The stereotyped impressions of the Muslims were perpetuated by early textbooks which followed the Hispanic colonial perspective. A case in point was the so called "Moro Wars" pointing to Moro attacks on Christian territories pillaging and kidnapping "slaves" with nary an explanation of the war from the Moro side, from whence it must have looked much like a war against colonial aggression.

The cry for a better presentation of Filipino Muslims and their plight as a minority group did get a response from nationalist historians.

To bring Moro history into mainstream Philippine History, the role of the Muslims in the Filipino struggles against colonialism has been emphasized by pointing to the Muslims continued fight against the

Spaniards. The exploits of Sultan Kudarat as a freedom fighter have long placed him on the roll of Filipino heroes. The charge that Muslims were not part of the revolutionary struggle of the Christians was refuted by Cesar Majul, noted scholar on the Muslims in the Philippines, who theorized that while the Muslims did not directly contribute to the rise of Philippine nationalism, theirs was a parallel movement stressing the anti-colonial aspect of Philippine nationalism. Historian Samuel Tan, whose scholarly research and writing has focused on the struggles of the Muslims, has more recently followed this perspective in his book, The Filipino-American War, 1899-1913, contrary to mainstream history that the Filipino-American War ended with the establishment of civil government in 1901.

While there were occasional Muslim revolts against the Americans and later against the Philippine Republic, generally for legitimate causes, the sense of separateness of the Muslims was strengthened with the birth of Bangsa Moro in the 1960's.

This new CenPEG book, Rethinking the Bangsamoro Crucible: A Reader thus serves as a valuable resource documenting the struggles of the Moro people from their early beginnings (Abreu's article) to contemporary developments: the negotiations of the MNLF and the MILF with the Philippine Government; the economic issues and neo­globalism, etc. With a progressive viewpoint, the scholarly articles of Kenneth Bauzon, Julkipli Wadi, and Temario Rivera, among others, present the Moro perspective and their desire for self-determination. The issues of American presence in Mindanao and its connection to the anti­terrorist campaigns, and "development programs" are highlighted for what they really are.

There are, likewise, socio-cultural articles like the study of the Muslim women of Palawan (Maria Carinnes P. Alejandria) and that of Muslim songs of resistance (Alexander Martin Remollino).

Rethinking the Bangsamoro Crucible: A Reader is a welcome resource for all who are interested in understanding the Moro view of their own history and culture.

OSCAR L. EVANGELISTA

Professor of History (Retired)

University of the Philippines

Diliman, Quezon City;

Consultant, Palawan State UniV.

The idea of coming out with a Moro reader took off during some

informal talks among Fellows and staff of CenPEG sometime

June 2007 about the conduct of the May elections in the Muslim provinces. CenPEG had been in the thick of the election monitoring through its involvement with the non-government Task Force Poll Watch (TFPW), the mobilization of its student volunteers from the Volunteers Integration Program (VIP), and networking with lawyers groups and other poll watchers. Naturally, interest also centered on the elections in the ARMM with reports reaching the CenPEG office that dramatized widespread voters disenfranchisement, cheating, and the involvement of corrupt election officials in fraud.

Disturbing in those discussions and poll watching was the graphic and brutal truth of a region in prolonged disquiet - a whole society unhealed from its generational wounds of violence, grinding poverty, and election manipulation. ARMM and other Muslim provinces constitute the most depressed region in the Philippines - the outcome of land grabbing by landlords and transnational corporations, and of being left out from so-called development paradigms that all the more fueled armed conflicts with deep historical roots.

At that time also, the peace talks between the GRP-MILF ground to a halt over the issue of the Bangsamoro ancestral domain. There was also news of more joint war exercises between U.S. and Filipino troops in Sulu and other provinces in pursuit of what was turning out to be a permanent war against the Abu Sayyaf. The whole situation spoke of a region torn by

critical conditions in the socio-economic and political spheres while the search for stable governance remained fruitless. There were opposing views on how to approach the peace process. But some of the modalities of crisis resolution being pushed either tended to obfuscate the fundamental issues or were driven by goals that made peace even less promising.

These impressions gave birth to a plan for CenPEG to come up with a publication in the form of a Moro reader. A major reason for the plan is to publish the reader as CenPEGs contribution toward rekindling public awareness on the issue of the Bangsamoro struggle for secession or self-determination. Another is to offer the book as a reference material for current and future discussions on critical Moro issues particularly among people's organizations, non-state institutions, human rights groups, poll watchers, academic community, democratic governance institutes, media, and Moro-oriented research agencies. The last is to revive interest among CenPEG's network of partners, online subscribers and publication readers, roundtable/ forum participants, and other sectors for the amplification and resolution of Moro issues particularly on self-determination, policy legislations, and other aspects of governance. In the course of editorial work, the Moro reader eventually evolved its title Rethinking the Bangsamoro Crucible: A Reader.

Views and options

The contributors to this book - many of them scholars and educators in their myriad fields of academic and non-academic expertise in the Philippines and other countries - represent varied perspectives on looking at the thematic issue, the Bangsamoro struggle for self-determination. The views and, in some respects, policy recommendations of the authors are based on their own assessment of the complex issue. But this should not dilute the fact that their studies are a product of a shared interest, as defined in the preceding paragraph, as well as a shared belief that the Moro people have the rights to life, freedom, land, and progress.

CenPEG's policy study program includes conducting research and analysis of the Philippines' political and governance system. The Center's multi-disciplinary approaches developed by its roster of Fellows and researchers dissect politics and governance in the context of the country's socio-economic and political structures and dynamics. As in the rest of the national society, one particular perspective looks at the Moro situation and the difficulties of crisis resolution in the context of power relationships as defined by the control of resources and, hence, by power hegemony. The Moro reader is CenPEGs first step at assessing the interplay of forces and other actors in the Bangsamoro, including the role of feudal-based political dynasties, traditional warlords, transnational corporations, foreign intervention, and state bureaucrats that continue to pin the Moroland to its institutional injustices and, hence, recurrent armed conflicts.

Historical backdrop

Nearly all the research studies in this book provide some historical backdrop to the thematic issue. Giving specific focus on the historical overview are the studies of Lualhati M. Abreu, "Colonialism and Resistance: A Historical Perspective," and Julkipli Wadis "Multiple Colonialism in Moroland." Abreau's study reiterates the roots of the nation-states among the Islamized indigenous groups in Mindanao­Sulu-Palawan with influence extending to parts of Visayas and Luzon even before the European incursions and Spanish colonial annexation of the archipelago in the early 16 century. The resistance of the Moro peoples against these trepidations in order to guard their nation-states and ethnicity was waged through the long period of colonialism, chiefly by Spain and the United States, followed by the founding of the Third Republic in 1946 that began the arbitrary assertion for the territorial co-optation of the Moro provinces, resulting in the ethnocidal attacks by the Philippine armed forces and government-backed private armies during the 1950s-1960s triggering the wars of secession and self-determination of the 1970s until today.

Wadis "Multiple Colonialism in Moroland" takes cognizance of the Philippines as being burdened by a neo-colonial status under the United States. In his study, however, Wadi clarifies the four major strands of control over Moroland: U.S. colonialism, Philippine colonialism ("direct, relative to the Moros"), multilateral colonialism which includes corporate globalization, and the current U.S. colonial invasion particularly in southern Philippines under the global "war on terror." The authors formulation illustrates the nuances of colonialism in Moroland even as he reminds us about the "'short-sightedness, factionalism, and disunity" seriously plaguing the Moro struggle while

Muslim trapos (traditional politicians) end up benefiting from the peace dividend and presumed economic development in Mindanao.

Independence or autonomy

In his "The Struggle of the Muslim People in the Southern Philippines: Independence or Autonomy?" Temario C. Rivera notes that the Moro movement to establish an independent state has gone through cycles of armed struggle, international diplomacy, mediation, and peace negotiations without reaching any satisfactory closure. The current demographic and political realities in southern Philippines, he says, dramatize the difficulty of pursuing an independent Moro homeland but the continued marginalization of the Muslim-dominated provinces remains a potent force for resistance. He warns that the renewed presence of U.S. forces in Mindanao could derail efforts for a lasting political solution since American intervention largely subsumes the local armed conflicts to U.S. strategic interests in its current war on terrorism. With the Moro struggle reaching a critical stage, it is time to look for feasible alternatives and one of these, Rivera avers, is to expand or deepen autonomy whether in the framework of federalism or by radically amending the organic act that created the ARMM. He also points out the many intractable issues related to legitimizing the creation of the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) as proposed by the MILF.

Indeed, in the ongoing peace process between the GRP and MILF that is brokered by the Malaysian government, the major contentious issue is the ancestral domain. Abreu's second study, "Ancestral Domain Claim - the Core Issue," seeks to provide clarity to this controversy stressing, in particular, that this territorial claim is at the core of the Bangsamoros fight for self-determination. Historically, Abreu writes, the ancestral domains claim is based on the Moro peoples customary laws that date back to pre-Spanish colonization and has been the rallying call for armed resistance to retake their homeland. The MILF leadership, in the current talks with the GRP, categorically identifies its claim over predominantly Moro communities. Even if they appear to be flexible, this precisely remains thorny not only because there are non-Moro indigenous peoples and other settlers in these communities but also because, as reported, while the MILF is asking for 1,000 barangays the GRP is willing to allow only 600.

Neoliberal globalization

Kenneth E. Bauzons "Ruminations on the Bangsamoro Struggle and Neoliberal Globalization," brings a new dimension to the analysis of the Moro struggle. His ruminations center on "the role of overarching economic policies and principles" being pushed by the Philippine government at the behest of the global institutions of foreign governments packaged under "neoliberal globalization" which, he laments, even Nur Misuari, leader of the MNLF, failed to recognize or anticipate. A concrete illustration, Bauzon writes, is the neoliberal formula behind the 1996 final peace agreement between the GRP and MNLF that brought to an end the Moro rebels two decades of rebellion. The United States, Japan, Australia and other countries, Bauzon notes, have staked their interests in Mindanao - dangling economic aid while pursuing other programs that are essentially counter-insurgency instruments as they set their eyes at deeper geo-political and economic objectives.

The paper, "The Economic and Security Intricacies of the Bangsamoro Struggle" seeks to substantiate Bauzons neoliberal globalization underlying the peace agenda and other forms of foreign intervention in Mindanao. But this paper of Bobby M. Tuazon also underscores the interplay of renewed U.S. economic objectives and the infusion of economic assistance in Mindanao, on the one hand, and the pursuit of geo-military or security objectives in Southeast Asia through its basing operations in the southern Philippines, on the other. Tuazon notes that the U.S. peace overtures to the MILF and its support for the peace process with a pledge of financial grants contingent on a final peace accord are apparently designed to soften Muslim guerilla intransigence as it deepens its basing facilities and operations in the region. Interestingly, there are clues that the MILF is open to negotiations on the U.S. military bases and, apparently, Moro leaders do not take the U.S. presence with a modicum of concern.

Abhoud Syed M. Linggas paper, "Understanding the Bangsamoro Right to Self-Determination," is strong on using the framework of international treaties and conventions to assert the Moro peoples right to self-determination, as articulated in the MILF's position in the current peace talks with the GRP. Bangsamoro leaders, Lingga states, had under U.S. colonialism asserted their right as a nation-state. Such assertion was followed by strong resistance against attempts to be integrated into the imminent Philippine republic and in renewed moves for an independent state during the 1960s until the war of secession raged through the 1970s-1990s led by the MNLF and later the MILF. The paper also cites the GRPs apparent concurrence on the Bangsamoro people's right to self-determination in peace talks with the MILF. A referendum, he suggests, should be held to determine the Bangsamoro people's decision on self-determination or independence. Whatever the case, he echoes an openness to the establishment of three independent states - for the Bangsamoro, the indigenous peoples, and the Christian settlements.

Conversations with Nur

The tribulations of the Moro people particularly as regards their yet unresolved ancestral domain claim and onslaught of neoliberal globalization will persist because the Philippine government is an "untrustworthy and an unreliable negotiating partner." That is why, Bauzon writes in his second paper, "Searching for Peace in the Southern Philippines: A Conversation with Nur Misuari," it is "important for the struggle for Bangsamoro dignity and identity to carry on." The paper is an annotated interview with former MNLF chair and ARMM Coy. Nur Misuari held on August 11, 1999. Despite its belated publication, Bauzon explains that the historical document opens insights into Misuari's definitive thinking at that time and offers some clarity into the events that transpired later including major flaws of the ARMM.

"40 Years of Revolutionary Struggles" traverses the various armed movements in Mindanao led by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The study, written by Abreu and Tuazon, explains the ties forged between the Leftist armed movement and the Bangsamoro rebel groups in the course of fighting a common enemy that made it more imperative over and above their ideological diversity. What is important is that the armed mass struggles share some common roots and grounds particularly, albeit in varying degrees, the Moro people's right to self-determination.

Political dynasties in the Bangsamoro may have similarities with those in the rest of the country but their unique characteristics borne out of the old social and economic structures make them different in many ways. Ruling oligarchs in the Bangsamoro, Professor Wadi contends in his second study, "Moro Political Dynasty," have arisen from the uninterrupted periods of colonialism, warlordism, intervention, and economic marginalization in the Moro society. For the Moro people to attain self-rule, the disposition of the structural roots of political dynasty should be part of their struggle and only then will a genuine Bangsamoro state will arise, Wadi also says.

Muslim women of Palawan

A unique contribution to the Moro reader is Maria Carinnes P. Alejandrias "Veiled Political Realities: The Case of Muslim Women in Palawan." There have been no women mujahideen in the current Moro wars of independence except to perform auxiliary role and this is explained by the strong feudal relations in the traditional Moro society as well as, says Alejandria, the "cultural impediments to the active participation of women in political and economic affairs." But her study of Muslim women in Palawan - which had its share of the Moro resistance since the ^16th century - unearths an increasing level of radical albeit un-articulated dissident politics among them. Still harboring a deep distrust in government, many of the Muslim women the author interviewed were inclined to support the Moro armed movement if "constitutional and conventional means of political participation" do not work.

But certainly there are other ways of fighting in a Muslim jihad. Alexander Martin Remollino, poet and feature writer, writes of the legacy of the Moro peoples artistic expressions of their struggle in his "Songs of Resistance, Tales of Pride in Moroland." The Bangsamoros struggles have inspired artistic expressions mostly through traditional narrative ballads or folk songs. Songs and tales are thus alive and, in 2007, these resonated in radio stations in Sulu and other provinces recounting Moro warriors battles against U.S. troops at the turn of the 20 century. The narrative songs were broadcast as organized Muslim communities took to the streets to oppose the presence of U.S. troops in southern Philippines.

  

I AM STILL WORKING ON ATTACHING THE WHOLE READING MATERIAL FOR YOUR COMPLETE REFERENCE.