Aroha/Aruga: Love and Care

E kore au e mate, ka mate. Ko te mate, ka ora ai ahau. I shall not die, when death itself is dead, I shall be alive. - Titokowaru, Maori Rangatira

*****

These were the words inscribed on a memorial found in Dunedin North Cemetery, where I was extremely fortunate to take part in a hikoi (walk) alongside my classmates and professors at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. The memorial was to commemorate Parihaka, a Maori iwi (community) in the North Island of New Zealand that became a center for nonviolent resistance to European occupation.

In 1880, members of the Parihaka community were captured as prisoners and made to march from their ancestral homeland in the sub-tropical North Island (Te Ika-A-Maui) to the much colder, temperate South Island (Te Waipounamu). The slave labor that these prisoners were made to endure is what built the main thoroughfares and infrastructure of Dunedin, New Zealand’s first and oldest city. Much of their work is still visible in the Edwardian architecture that runs rife through the center of town. A memorial to Parihaka exists overlooking Andersons Bay and the Otago Peninsula.

It is extraordinary to me that an event that occurred over a century ago still causes so much generational grief. Members of the Parihaka community still make the trip down to Dunedin to mourn for their lost ancestors, who were buried in mass graves in Dunedin North cemetery and whose grave markers are nowhere to be found. Their whakapapa, or genealogy, is rooted so deep into their culture that it felt sacred to bear witness to it.

I know more than anyone that generational grief is also, in a rather twisted way, personal. My mother was taught by nuns of the Religious of the Virgin Mary (RVM) in Kidapawan City all throughout her elementary and high school years, and yet she met and fell in love with a man who was most unlike anything she’d been raised to believe: my father, a decorated police officer, was Tausug as far as the eye can see. I was their only child. His career, paired with his wandering eye, meant that I was never raised in Tausug culture, nor do I speak the language fluently. Any hope of being taught by him was snatched away forever when I was 15; I lost both of my parents to cancer six months apart.

I could barely fathom the idea of losing one parent, let alone both of them. With their death, I lost years and years of a relationship that should have lasted until my adulthood. Never will I see my mother holding her grandchildren in her arms or my father walking me down the aisle at my wedding. I wasn’t thinking of my cultural heritage, or what it meant to be Moro and Tausug and raised Catholic all at the same time, and the moral responsibility of both worlds. There was a lot of abuse and neglect done to me at the time by people who should have cared for me, and I still struggle with it. I wish someone had realized that I needed more than financial support – I needed love, care, respect, understanding. I received none.

It wasn’t until I was a financially independent adult that I undertook the journey of reclaiming this hidden part of my identity. You could call it “lukso ng dugo,” or curiosity, but my longing for my parents led to me wanting to find out as much about them as I could. The name Tausug literally means “people of the current” and it was evident in what I had always known my father to be. Those who hail from Lupah Sug are a fierce, proud, and deeply loyal people who, at their mightiest, ruled over the Sulu Sultanate. What does being Moro mean for me? Would I be Moro or Tausug enough for others? Hell, would I ever be Tausug enough for myself?

The opportunity to discover all of this came to me when I was working in the peacebuilding field alongside my colleagues at the Al Qalam Institute of the Ateneo de Davao University. My then-boss, Datu Mussolini Sinsuat Lidasan, is Iranun; my closest friends in the Institute are Star, who is Maguindanaon, and Nur, who is Maranao; our stakeholders were from many different Moro-Muslim tribes, including Tausug. I was also able to travel back and forth to Cotabato, Zamboanga, Iligan, discovering more and more parts of myself that made me Moro. I was elated.

However, this process was met with a lot of judgment from others who were not used to me being so forward about my Moro identity. I remember the cruel words of a certain relative who said to me, with no trace of irony, that “the only good Moro is a dead Moro.” If I misbehaved, they said, I would be sent back to Jolo. I also remember someone else referring to my high school sweetheart, who is Sama Dilaut, as my “muklo” boyfriend.

My financial independence became key to this personal journey; it also meant freedom, a freedom to explore just who and what are the people that my father came from. Learning about the history of the Moro people in the context of Philippine history only strengthened my commitment to it. I listened, from Moro elders and traditional leaders to stories about Bud Dajo and the atrocities that American soldiers committed towards Tausug men and women at that time. I read about Oplan Merdeka and the Jabidah Massacre and the four-part interview that Jibin Arula gave to MindaNews. I sobbed through each and every one.

The interview with Jibin Arula in particular cut deep; the lone survivor of the Jabidah Massacre, he was Tausug and of an age with my own father. I could dimly recall my father telling me how he fled Jolo with his family with only the clothes on his back when they burned it to the ground. I looked it up, and he was right; in 1974, the island of Jolo, my father’s ancestral homeland, had been attacked by paramilitary forces in what is now called the Burning of Jolo. He would have been around 22 or 23 years of age, give or take, the same age I am now. My hands shook at the thought of someone possibly raining bullets into my father’s body, and it broke me.

How could I ignore my heritage then? It happened to my family, the father I never truly knew but longed to know, and my aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Dad’s memory, and the memory of all that I have learned, compelled me to want to give back to other Moro people in a more meaningful way. How was I going to do that, however? I didn’t have any meaningful savings, as hard as I tried to save my money from my then-meager salary. My job with Al Qalam allowed me to help them, but I wanted to do more.

I had always dreamt of studying abroad, but those dreams died along with my mother. She had been an engineer, a public servant, an educator. She was fiercely proud of my and my father’s heritage, even if she could not teach me the language or the culture firsthand. I lived for her smile and longed for her love, and she gave both freely. She had wild dreams of her only child being the first Tausug Supreme Court Justice and about uplifting the struggle of the Moro people, and I used to just laugh at her. Those dreams were absurd then, and were even more so when she died. It was never going to happen.

Through some sheer force of kismet, or maybe it was my mother playing God, an opportunity came. I was present at an event hosted by the New Zealand Embassy regarding a scholarship program for Filipinos, and they were looking for Mindanaoan, Moro, and Indigenous scholars to study full-time in New Zealand. Then-Ambassador David Strachan had reached out to Al Qalam to see if we could help invite interested students. I remember the video presentation that they screened like it was yesterday; Open spaces, open hearts, open minds.

While I wasn’t a student anymore, my friend Nur urged me to apply. In fact, he was supposed to apply for it himself, but his plans fell through at the last minute. I didn’t think much of it during the first two application rounds because I really didn’t want to get my hopes up. There are so many other people who deserve it more than me, I thought. I ended up texting a couple of my mother’s closest friends, asking for guidance. My Tita Rona Naidas, my mother’s best friend, told me to go for it. I heeded her advice, just as I heeded her then when she told me I should go to UP Mindanao for college.

A mother’s prayers, whether mine own or her friends, proved to be more powerful than I could ever describe. I felt my heart stop the minute I received word that I had been shortlisted, and that only an interview with certain New Zealand Embassy officials stood in my way between me and a full-ride postgraduate scholarship. Emboldened, and with Datu Muss’ support – he expressly told me that I “needed” to get this scholarship – I flew to Makati for my final interview.

A week before my twenty-fifth birthday, I received word that I was one of twenty-four Filipino scholars who would receive a Manaaki New Zealand scholarship. Ambassador David, who was in town for the Mindanao Young Leaders Parliament launch, congratulated me in person when we met at the event and told me that I was one of only two Moro people to ever receive the scholarship. Me? Moro? Really? There have never been any before?

It was the start of what I could only describe as the most fulfilling, demanding experience of my life.

I left the Philippines for New Zealand in January of 2020. I had reached out to my Mom’s friend, my Tita Evan Dispo, who lived in Christchurch, if she could help me find accommodation. She came through fabulously, connecting me with her friends Cielo and Gilbert Azarcon, who greeted me warmly even though I was just a stranger who showed up at their doorstep with two suitcases and a red winter coat and only $60 in my pocket. I made sure to pay rent on time for the entire duration of my stay.

Next was an orientation of the school’s grounds. I gasped at the stunning Clocktower and administration building which overlooked the Leith River and the yellow roses that were planted to commemorate the University’s 150th anniversary, the Link which bridged the AskOtago help desk, the International Office, and student lounges to the massive – to me, at least — library, and the fire trees that shaded the main pathways along the other buildings. The University assigned each of us an Immigration Adviser as we settled into our new life. Mine was Claire, a tall, thin, blonde woman who spoke warmly and told me to call her if anything happened.

I also met up with Jeremy Simons, a former neighbor of my Ninang Carol who had lived and worked in Davao City for years and was also getting his PhD at NCPACS – which is a coincidence because that is where I would be getting my master's. He showed me around the Centre and introduced me to the people there, who were all friendly if a little harried because they were dealing with many pressing deadlines. He also showed me where to get $3 lunch at the OUSA building, right across the master's suite on Albany Street. That tip helped me save a lot on food when I did my study there.

It wasn’t always good, however. I remember a particularly clueless fellow who, in a wild misunderstanding, had been worried that I had gone all the way to New Zealand “to study to become a terrorist.” I also struggled with the unpredictable weather, an echo of the city’s Scottish roots. Whatever cold I felt, however, was made up with the warmth of the Kiwi folk around me. New Zealanders are some of the most kind, generous, and loving people I have ever met. The concept of manaakitanga, a value that means hospitality and generosity of spirit, was made very clear to me.

I was, however, extremely nervous about my classes. It had been a good four or five years since I had been in a classroom setting. I felt that everyone was smarter and more wellinformed, and I felt so deeply, well, foreign with my strange identity and even stranger features. I did my best to keep up while my professors spoke about theories that I had not thought to put a name to and events that I had never even heard of. I felt small – my experience was very localized to the Bangsamoro, to Mindanao, to home. Would I ever be able to match up, talk about these experiences, and do them justice? Was I Moro enough, Tausug enough, to tell these stories?

This strange inferiority complex bothered me immensely. I had been taught all my life to value myself, but years of being worn down by insults and neglect had worn me down. I didn’t feel worthy of my spot, which was ludicrous. I had so much to learn and was eager to listen to my classmates and professors, but I had to reflect on whether my words were of any value. The first time that most of my classmates will have ever heard of the Bangsamoro would be through me. I had to do it right. To compensate, I did my best to listen as they taught us stories of nonviolence in the New Zealand context – the Moriori people, who chose death rather than forsake their pacifist values, struck my heart. The efforts of their descendants to rebuild their culture and language awed me in a way that I hadn’t felt before. I couldn’t let myself feel inferior anymore after that.

Oddly, the legal definition of what a Moro is was something that reassured me. According to Republic Act 11054, or the Bangsamoro Organic Law, Moro people are defined as “Those who, at the advent of the Spanish colonization, were considered natives or original inhabitants of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago and its adjacent islands, whether of mixed or full blood, shall have the right identity themselves, their spouses and descendants, as Bangsamoro.” My father was clearly Tausug, and I am very much his daughter. Through him, I am part of a rich cultural heritage that manifested itself into a search for meaning and then to my studies abroad. I am not the perfect Moro, but that’s okay. I can only be myself.

Before I could fully comprehend the enormity of these ideas, the world turned on its head when the New Zealand government declared a full lockdown of the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This meant that all my classes had to be fully online until the situation recovered. As international students, we were given a choice to return to our home countries or stay in New Zealand. I had only been in the country for six weeks.

It was an easy choice to stay. There was no home to come back to and no family waiting for me. I thought jadedly, at least this pandemic would be unable to take anyone I truly loved. They had all died before I came over, and this thought felt ugly and wrong. But it was the truth.

With classes fully online, I ended up deciding to stay outside of the Azarcon house and into my new boyfriend Josh’s flat to ride the storm of the lockdown over. I was convinced that this was either the worst idea ever or the best. We met mere days into my arrival, and everything happened very quickly after that. I met his family, which included his lovely daughter Olivia, mere days before the lockdown happened, but this was