i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
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The Moro people can be<br />
part of a plural society<br />
without losing their identity<br />
OMAR SOLITARIO ALI<br />
T<br />
HE 500 years of virtu-<br />
ally continuous war<br />
against the Moro<br />
people—launched<br />
in the beginning by<br />
the Spaniards, the<br />
Americans, the Japanese,<br />
and then the <strong>Philippine</strong> government<br />
<strong>for</strong> the last 58 years—is<br />
proof enough that the Moro cannot<br />
be annihilated through massacres,<br />
using paramilitary marauders<br />
(Ilaga), depopulating communities<br />
and grabbing land, establishing<br />
Christian settlements in Moro areas,<br />
burning whole villages, hamletting,<br />
ear-cutting, and other inhuman<br />
methods. Up till now, the Moro<br />
stand tall despite heavy battering<br />
by mighty <strong>for</strong>ces.<br />
Some elements of the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
military, some political leaders,<br />
and some business groups had this<br />
notion that the insurgents should<br />
be terminated by <strong>for</strong>ce; that there<br />
is no way to lick them through<br />
peace; that they are a negligible<br />
portion of the population—15,000<br />
armed followers, 2,500 full timers,<br />
40,000 mass support or roughly<br />
one percent of the five million<br />
Muslims in the <strong>Philippine</strong>s. But<br />
that is oversimplification. There is<br />
no way to terminate that 55,000 or<br />
so without collaterally damaging,<br />
affecting, or converting the entire<br />
Moro population, thereby making<br />
the war mutually destructive and<br />
unending.<br />
Conversely, after five centuries<br />
of Moro resistance to <strong>for</strong>eign domination,<br />
after 33 years of the latest<br />
phase of Moro conflict that began<br />
in 1970, the Moro insurgents and<br />
the people in general should by<br />
now accept the fact that there is no<br />
<strong>for</strong>eseeable victory in the coming<br />
century if the goal remains carving<br />
out a portion of <strong>Philippine</strong> territory<br />
to establish an independent republic<br />
ruled by Muslims. If victory were<br />
really possible then they should<br />
have won in the early 1970s when<br />
they were a united front; when<br />
the Organization of the Islamic<br />
Conference (OIC) was extending<br />
unlimited financial, material and<br />
political support; when the Moro<br />
masses were solidly behind them;<br />
when the United States was pinned<br />
down by détente or the Russian<br />
factor and unable to declare itself<br />
the policeman of the world.<br />
FACING HARD REALITIES<br />
Today Moro insurgents are deeply<br />
fragmented. A great number of<br />
them are with the government or<br />
have decided to lie low. The OIC<br />
will no longer support armed<br />
struggles. The Moro people as a<br />
support base has tremendously<br />
weakened or lost hope in the<br />
Moro insurgents. <strong>No</strong>w the United<br />
States as the self-declared antiterrorist<br />
crusader of the world is<br />
alert and eager to go after Muslim<br />
insurgents wherever they may<br />
be, and especially if they can be<br />
declared terrorists.<br />
The Moro Islamic Liberation<br />
Front’s (MILF) desire <strong>for</strong> a United<br />
Nations-supervised referendum is<br />
actually not feasible. That worked<br />
in East Timor because the Christians<br />
there were united and firm<br />
in their desire to secede from Indonesia.<br />
The Moro people are not<br />
that united in a desire <strong>for</strong> secession<br />
and the MILF will surely not<br />
be allowed to coercively influence<br />
the outcome of a referendum.<br />
The hindrances to peace are<br />
tremendous. Our constitution is<br />
deemed sacred even if fighting<br />
can be avoided just by restructuring<br />
the system of government as<br />
allowed and provided <strong>for</strong> in that<br />
same charter. There are some<br />
influential chauvinistic Filipinos in<br />
Luzon and especially in Mindanao<br />
who want nothing less than continuing<br />
and completing the crusade<br />
to terminate Islam and Muslims<br />
in this country. They think<br />
that after five centuries, success<br />
is near, with the Muslims driven<br />
from Luzon and the Visayas and<br />
now restricted to only a third of<br />
Mindanao. For full political and<br />
economic takeover of Mindanao<br />
to happen, what remains only is<br />
to finish Muslims off.<br />
It will take a strong-willed<br />
and broader-thinking <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
leader to go beyond the subjective<br />
analysis and recommendations<br />
of interest groups and<br />
reverse our maladies. We must<br />
begin by accepting the hard fact:<br />
there is no military solution to the<br />
conflict. The antidote is peaceful,<br />
political and diplomatic.<br />
AN ACCIDENTAL STATE<br />
Our policy makers must make<br />
a delicate and radical decision.<br />
They must re-diagnose this country<br />
in order to affirm the fact that<br />
it is pluralistic. This is one state<br />
by accident of history but not<br />
one nation because nationhood<br />
is ethno-linguistic, religious,<br />
cultural, historical, artistic, and<br />
serial. The Moro as far as nationhood<br />
is concerned is truly distinct<br />
from that of the Filipino.<br />
The Cordillera people, the<br />
Bicolanos, the Ilocanos, the Cebuanos,<br />
the Ilonggos of Western<br />
Visayas, the Warays of Eastern<br />
Visayas, those of the Cagayan<br />
Valley, the Tagalogs, those in<br />
Eastern Mindanao and <strong>No</strong>rthern<br />
Mindanao—all of them are<br />
lumped under one system and<br />
one rule of conduct. But they are<br />
all basically different. In each of<br />
their habitats, there are traditions<br />
and commonly accepted norms<br />
which other areas or regions<br />
might consider unacceptable.<br />
The <strong>Philippine</strong> government<br />
and the MILF are negotiating and<br />
talking about cessation of hostilities,<br />
ancestral domain, economic<br />
development, demilitarization<br />
and rehabilitation. But there has<br />
been constant violation of past<br />
agreements because there are no<br />
broad parameters, political systems,<br />
or structure of government<br />
that will give way to mutual tolerance,<br />
coexistence, productive<br />
competition or unity in diversity<br />
tailored to the temperament,<br />
ethnicity, and plurality of <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
society.<br />
Federalism is thus proposed as<br />
possible savior of the peoples of<br />
the <strong>Philippine</strong>s. Federalism is the<br />
embodiment of unity in diversity of<br />
productive competition, of mutual<br />
tolerance and coexistence, of giving<br />
way to plurality yet not giving<br />
away belongingness, of encouraging<br />
the optimum use of latent skills<br />
and resources in every region, of<br />
allowing the free advocacy and<br />
practice of distinct cultures and<br />
religion, of self-determination and<br />
autonomy in every region, of making<br />
each region responsible <strong>for</strong> its<br />
own future instead of relying and<br />
then blaming an overburdened<br />
central government.<br />
A TRIPLE SUCCESS<br />
In a federal <strong>for</strong>m of government,<br />
the <strong>Philippine</strong>s will be subdivided<br />
into states, each of which will have<br />
a state constitution providing <strong>for</strong><br />
laws in consonance and complementary<br />
with a federal or national<br />
charter. Each state will have its<br />
own Supreme Court, legislature,<br />
and executive branch headed<br />
by a chief minister. All states will<br />
be contributing portions of their<br />
income to sustain the efficient<br />
functioning of the country, such<br />
as national defense, finance, and<br />
<strong>for</strong>eign service. But instead of the<br />
national government distributing<br />
IRA (internal revenue allotment)<br />
shares, congressional countryside<br />
funds, and the like, the states will<br />
be in control of their regional resources.<br />
The national constitution,<br />
promulgated and affirmed by the<br />
whole <strong>Philippine</strong> population, will<br />
give sufficient consideration to<br />
generally acceptable principles,<br />
but will leave local issues to be<br />
shaped by peculiar state policies.<br />
With a state of their own<br />
(which they may call an Islamic<br />
State), where they may adopt<br />
the Qur’an and Hadith as main<br />
features of their state constitution,<br />
whose land and resources Muslims<br />
will effectively control, the<br />
pledge of the Moro mujahideen<br />
<strong>for</strong> the liberation of the homeland<br />
and firm establishment of Din El<br />
Islam will have been achieved. It<br />
will be a strong and progressive<br />
state because it will be a component<br />
of a bigger and mutually<br />
supportive <strong>for</strong>mation. This is also<br />
an honorable way out <strong>for</strong> the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> government, which just<br />
has to be open-minded so that this<br />
country remains intact, united, and<br />
progressive. All of us may then<br />
declare triple success: we gain<br />
what we want, we won it fast, and<br />
we won it through peace.<br />
May the MILF and the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
government be divinely<br />
guided so that they will not give<br />
up on peace and consider alism as a win-win<br />
feder-<br />
option.<br />
Omar Solitario Ali, a <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
MNLF commander, is mayor of<br />
Marawi city.<br />
28 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT