By Maulana Bobby Alonto
As the Armed Forces of the Philippines intensifies its aerial and ground bombardment of Moro communities in Mindanao and starving of Moro refugees with military food blockades to collect the multi-million peso rewards on the heads of MILF commanders Ameril Ombra Kato and Abdurrahman ‘Bravo’ Macapaar, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been repeatedly announcing to the public the ‘new peace strategy’ of her regime in confronting the conflict in Mindanao. The President, says her spokesmen, has changed the rules of the game. No longer will she be holding peace talks with armed groups but directly with the communities. Also, any dealings with the MILF shall be in the context of DDR: demobilization, disarmament and reintegration (rehabilitation, as her spokesmen erringly put it).
From these pronouncements, it is clear that the Arroyo regime has abandoned the Mindanao peace process. After the aborted August 5 MOA-AD signing ceremony in Malaysia, the nationwide anti-Moro and anti-Muslim campaign, and the consequent fighting in Central Mindanao, Jesus Dureza, the presidential mouthpiece, informed all and sundry that the regime would no longer sign the MOA-AD “in its present form or in any other form”. Arroyo even followed this up by disbanding the government peace panel. Continue reading
THE BIG EXTRA CHALLENGE
By Tommy Pangcoga
The term “right to self-determination” – more popularly known by its acronym, “RSD” – and particularly in the context of Mindanao and the centuries-old struggle of the Bangsamoro people, has been widely misunderstood, especially by the mainstream majority of Philippine society. It is because it is always associated with the armed struggle, waged by the two major Moro Fronts against national government.
The sharp and sometimes violent reactions of Non-Moros (and also some Moros) against the struggle of the Bangsamoro is borne out of their ignorance of the latter’s history as a people, their way of life, their present problems, and their present struggles and aspirations. It is also caused by their fear of how the Bangsamoro will treat them and their properties if the Bangsamoro will be restored of their RSD. These imaginary fears (sometimes real) are partly due to not only by how the Moro were portrayed by the colonizers – which was carried over to the neo-colonial times, as traitors, villains and untrustworthy people – but also because of past bad experiences against the Moro, thus the stereotyping. Continue reading →