Sad but necessary truths

In the unfolding of the national narrative, Mindanao has always occupied a mystified position in the dominant Filipino imaginary vis-à-vis the other major island groups because of its reputation as a place of conflict inhabited by violent people. It may well be an unfair depiction shaped by a defeated colonial power unable to conquer the valiant Moro and Lumad resistance while struggling to usurp its vast agricultural and mineral resources. While many colonized Filipinos have been quick to embrace the interests of foreign enterprises and the landed elite, the original inhabitants of Mindanao, specifically the Moro and Lumad peoples, have resisted this through war in various forms or by taking flight further into the interior of the island’s dense and lush forests.

Whatever reputation outsiders have of Mindanao may have at the present, must be seen from these historical lenses – that Moro and Lumad peoples of the island have lived in relative peace and abundance before the imposition of the Philippine nation-state to their indigenous ways of living. Since then, there has been a long-drawn war between those who seek to appropriate the rich indigenous resources of the island backed up by government and the disenfranchised minority forcefully sutured into the Philippine body politic by various administrations.

The rise of ISIS and the persistence of the Abu Sayyaf are, in the final analysis, the results of these historical forces, that must be made clear. The emergence and longevity of these extremist groups feed from the deep well of historical disenfranchisement brought by the Philippine government through its various iterations in the island of Mindanao. The spectre of global terror that these groups claim as their own at present merely coincides with the globalization of disenfranchisement in this late period of global capitalism. Whether these terror groups are the bastard children of changing political fortunes, clan wars, the drug trade, and shadow economies, the managed catastrophe that characterizes the failures of governance in the south is as such because of a single purpose – the plunder of Mindanao’s resources.

The same historical and persistent attempt to corner the island’s natural bounty into the raw material requirements of the global capitalist machine has also spawned a vibrant and engaged resistance in the islands’ hinterlands for the past few decades among the peasant and landless classes. Many of them came from the ranks of the setter migrants who were once also driven away from their land in Luzon and Visayas. Now that they are in Mindanao, they realized they have nowhere else to run to if the agricultural plantations and mining corporations come in and drive them away.

This is also the realization of the indigenous peoples of the island who have come together under the Lumad banner. Once the custodians of vast pasture lands, rivers, and forests, that allowed them abundant yet simple indigenous ways of living, they are know in the margins of the sugar, banana, and pineapple plantations that have pushed their communities aside. Where would they go except to resist lest they be driven off the cliffs by these rampaging and violent business interests with the full backing of the state?

Thus, there is nothing inherently violent about Mindanao per se, but instead, it has been the steady waves of invading armies coming in to pacify a disenfranchised population that have caused the conflicts that we now see in full display in Marawi, Bukidnon, Compostela Valley and in other parts of the restive island.

With the assumption of Mindanao’s own son, Rodrigo Duterte into the presidency, it was expected he is intimate with these sad but necessary truths. Many were counting on him to bring this subversive narrative to the fore and swing government especially its military towards a more nuanced footing with the island and its troubled history. Instead, what we have seen was a return to the old tactics of past colonial rulers and previous governments. Mindanao was to be whipped into submission, by brute force if necessary ! That, for them, is still the only way!

With the declaration of martial law and its looming extension, Duterte has turned to the same brutal yet ineffective tactics in facing the problems that beset his and our homeland. Come to think of it, the heralded son of Mindanao is really a reflection of the contradictions of the island. His stint as mayor of a major Mindanao city no doubt shaped his penchant for macho theatrics and posturing that is emerging to be the main feature of the national policy. Unfortunately, instead of using his presidency as the means to get us out of this hell-hole shaped by history, he prefers to keep Mindanao in the muck of cyclical violence and underdevelopment as he unleashes once more the dogs of war against his own people.