Ironically, we religionists often find ourselves in the unusual position of arguing against religion’s importance. All too often religion becomes a media-imposed veneer to cover a far more complicated ethno-tribal reality, with deep colonial roots and a lingering post-colonial sequence.
Consider the Philippines, a creation of colonial Spain, occupied by the United States for the first part of the 20th century, and an independent nation-state only since World War II. The Philippines only attracts the attention of mainstream Anglo-American media when violence occurs—especially if that violence involves Muslims in the Southern region.
Such was the case this past Monday, the 23rd of November. On that fateful day, fifty-seven people were killed in a brutal roadside attack on a convoy of Mindanaoans. They had been joined by journalists who came to cover an unprecedented event: the effort to register minor local politician, Ismael or Toto Mangudadatu, as a candidate for governor, challenging the political dynasty of one of the region’s most powerful clans, the Ampatuans.
Muslim Autonomy, Christian Recalcitrance
Why does all this political jockeying matter? There are local races throughout the Philippines prior to the presidential election, which is scheduled for May 2010. Since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo cannot run for office, the race is wide open. A major concern in Manila, for the Luzon-based central government (GPR) and whoever becomes the next president, is the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Specifically, the GPR does not want the ARMM to acquire official status.
On paper there has been a commitment to pursue and even to grant autonomy for Muslims in this area, the southernmost of the three principal regions that (with Luzon and the Visayas, consisting of the Panay, Negros, Samar, and other islands) define the Republic of the Philippines. An agreement brokered over 15 years ago remains unimplemented, allegedly due to terrorist activities by Muslim separatists in the South known as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). In fact, the agreement has languished largely due to local Christian recalcitrance and the political interests of wealthy and powerful Ilustrado—the Manila elites who were first favored by the Spanish and then the American occupiers. It is they who control, manipulate, and benefit from all power arrangements in this former Spanish and American colony.
As recently as summer 2008, a ceasefire was brokered between the GPR and the MILF, but local Christian communities on Mindanao objected to its provisions. Fighting resumed, with low-level conflict between a whole set of protagonists continuing to this day. They include the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP)—who represent the official government—in addition to the local paramilitary groups who back these government forces. These armed groups total not less than 300,000 while the MILF cohort, at its maximum strength, numbers just 15,000.
Such asymmetric warfare would not be able to continue as it has for more than a decade without the local knowledge of the MILF fighters, the maritime distances, and the rugged jungle areas which comprise the larger Sulu archipelago within which Mindanao is located. It’s also noteworthy that civil society is as vibrant as government is weak in this region. During the past decade, several local initiatives to sustain existing peaceful relations, or to build bridges creating new zones of peace, have come from non-governmental and non-partisan umbrella peace advocacy groups that include Muslim, Christian, and Lumad (indigenous people) representatives.
Despite such efforts, however, last week’s massacre is likely to be recast as a quasi-religious struggle. My sources come from the region itself. In March 2009, I was working in Mindanao on a Carnegie Foundation-funded project to understand how citizen options could be secured for Muslim minorities in the southern region. I observed firsthand how quickly all the local initiatives for peace, like all events in Mindanao, were filtered through the double lens of Muslim exceptionalism: Moro politics (MILF rebels are separatists who do not respect democracy, human rights, etc.) and warlordism (each of the leading Muslim clans carves out its own territory, allies, armies, lines of payment/protection, etc.)
Casting the Massacre in Religious Terms
When I first heard of this latest, horrific incident, I wrote to several of my contacts in Mindanao whose collective sense was one of despair about the outcome. It won’t be long, I was told, before religious colors will be attached to the Maguidanao massacre. It will come in three forms.
First, recent histories remind us that the Christian side of Mindanao’s sizable South Cotabato Province was the breeding ground for the ILAGA movement in the 1970s—a Christian militia which fought with as much rigor and violence as the Moros. Then, in December 2008, churches were bombed in Northern Cotabato on the same coastal stretch of Mindanao with Maguindano and Sultan Kudarat. While the MILF was blamed in the national media its leaders rejected accusations, pointing instead to several local politicians, themselves Christian and identified with the resurgent ILAGA movement. The victims of Monday’s massacre were not just politicians but also lawyers, journalists, and professionals, all from these same Muslim-dominant areas. If the GPR fails to arrest and try the real masterminds of this heinous crime, armed groups will seek revenge in yet another cycle of what is called rido or clan vendetta (though it is, in fact, broader than the facile, tribe-restricted designation suggests).
Tags: ampatuans, autonomous region in muslim mindanao, christians, gloria macapagal arroyo, mangudadatu, massacre, militia, mindanao, murder, muslims, philippines, political violence
Do not think that democracy always should be to harmony, while autocracy is the sword each other, full of blood. Today is the United States, Britain, France constantly going through a variety of changes, not mention conditions in all aspects are poor countries such as the Philippines.
See, the Philippines is extremely tortuous road to democracy, but the direction is always forward, which shows most people agree the democracy and the courageous people of the Philippines. This bloodshed has just exposed the great fear of democracy that the extreme monocrats have had, resulting in the development to a frenzied state violence against the defenseless. Such as, not only bound to others, cast aside, and his own cowardice and incompetence exposed. This not only proves that democracy is indispensable, just to prove that it is against the extreme monocrats of those who designed weapon, I believe that the Philippines would not be to give up their pursuit. I just hope that this problem will be resolved without using any cash advances and without taking more lives.
Phillipinnes can be extremely violent place, especially becouse of huge rich/poor and religion differences. I have been there few times and witnesses those kind of things..
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