With the ongoing barrage of left and right debates on the MOA given out by the GRP and the MILF I have nothing else to say but this.
“If you want to know what the real situation is then go look at it in the eyes of the people living there.”
Thus my first point of inquiry is not by reading the agreement nor reading about what the Government and the senate is fighting about I called my good friend from Cotabato and asked him what was happening there and this he told me.
“GMA sold us! The MILF is all over the place that they are torching houses and stealing cows! Most of us have to take up arms because they are harassing us!”
“Damn that ancestral domain shit! The questions they should ask is if we are willing here to be subjugated by the MILF!”
“We haven’t slept for a long time and there had been dead civilians trying to protect their homes from the rebels but they were just too many! They delight on killing civilians while the military doesn’t do anything they just looked until their beloved General Esperon was criticized by the Senate that was the only time they moved in, but at the cost of what? At the cost of houses that were torched to the ground? At the cost of the lives of civilians murdered?”
“If the MILF occupies our lands where will the Christians go?”
After that I asked him if he can get pictures of the burnt houses and he told me he would try as those places are now occupied.
The first thing that came into my mind about the term ancestral domain and the MILF’s struggle for it is the war in Israel that haven’t stopped since the time it was occupied by Jews from world war 2.
It occured to me that the only reason war could be avoided is to let the people decide for themselves and not with the power of a gun.
It’s going to be a dark dark time for Mindanao…
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August 12th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I am from Iligan City and I am one of those who are not in favor of the MOA.
The issue isn’t about muslims and christians fighting over a piece of land since we have tribes that are neither… The cry for independence is rooted from the colonozation of the country. These tribes were not conquered nor part of the decision to be involve in a nation under the power of the north… They just woke up one day and was surprised to be called Filipinos. This is the MILF, MNLF and Abu Sayaffs reasons for rebellion. The BANGSAMORRO aspiration is a noble ideal that’s why ARMM was established… then the MSU system was created. But judging from what has been happening for the past decades, allowing an independent autonomy must be in accordance to the majority’s consent.
The people in Iligan only found out that they were part of the provisions of the MOA 2 days before it was about to be signed by someone in the higher office who is oblivious to waht is going on in Mindanao.
My question is, why only now?? One can’t help but think that this is another political strategy to divert the attention of the poeple from important isseues that the governemnt should deal… an again the people in Mindanao have played has pawns to this governments games. Each time a crisis on her governance comes up, war breaks out in Mindanao.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
A very good point on that one. I personally think that this is GMA’s way of diverting attention from her. Damn her and her government…
August 15th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
[...] is that the administration was neither negotiating in good faith, or with a clear comprehension of the implications of the deal, domestically and internationally. Read Yen Makabenta’s A peace that could lead to war. See, [...]