I was having a conversation with my 5-year old son Mimoy one day, suddenly he was asking,”Papa, why do you speak a lot of languages?”. I said, “We’re Muslims, that’s why were good in speaking several languages”. Then he said,” Why is Grandma (my mother) talking in Chavacano?. Why is she christian? Why is Lola (my mother in Law)Christian?”. Being of mixed parentage, I told Amil that we were born as Muslims.
My son couldnt digest the idea. Its hard explaining abstract concepts to a five year old kid. But he can accept the fact he was born a Muslim.
I remember that my Uncles in Basilan and Curuan would say that Zamboanga City and Basilan was actually sparsely populated and that you would hardly see people around. My other Moro Lola told me that most of the land around in the 60’s were inhabited by Moros (although it was sparsely populated then.).
When people think of Mindanao, the imagine a huge percentage of it being occuppied by Muslims and their Lumad kin. However on the ground, you will see exactly the opposite. Historical facts may say so, but statistical facts put Muslims at 30% in Mindanao. Why is this so?
Wars, famine,militarization and harassment has led to a variety of scenarios that led to a Moro diaspora. My older son Hydar is asking why am I here in Manila? I jokingly tell him “Tinanan ako ng Nanay mo!”. But yes, a lot of factors led Muslims in the south to migrate and seek greener pastures away from Mindano. I couldnt tell my son, that although my cousins who visit us would tell stories of Muslim grandeur in Mindanao, and the glory that it was, because even my own cousins feel that there is hardly a place to return to… with all the lands and cities being populated by Christians down south, I can never explain to my children while they are still young “why there are more Christians than Muslims in Mindanao”.
IMHO, like the Illongos, pampanguenos and other tagalog settlers in Mindanao, Luzon and visayas, the Moro People are looking for greener pastures like everybody else. There are still places in mindanao that has more Muslims than Christians, the how come, if Moros feel they are being oppressed in “Christian” cities, not return to aforementioned moro cities?
“because even my own cousins feel that there is hardly a place to return to… with all the lands and cities being populated by Christians down south,”
I might have taken this in the wrong context, but, do you mean to say that cities that have a christian population is not a good place for moros to live in?
im not sure too … most moro have more children than a regular non-moro family … maybe it also has to do with census. maybe life expectancy … but cities have a “underbelly” if you go to squatters area, markets, or just the streets .. you will find a lot of moro but usually there are no census for these areas. these people are only recognized as “group votes” but never as an individual or important members of the cities — as much as possible — cities wants to get rid of them.
hay it baffles me too why we are less in “numbers” when our families have kids by the dozen :0
I have a question , I live in Mindanao and I am a Christian , I have nothing against Muslims in particular except just the ones in Cagayan De Oro (at least mostly) .
I was in a fight with one and he kept boasting that he was a Muslim and I should fear him or whatever. Are all Muslims like this? It seemed as if he was only acting like that because, Muslims as he implied , have their strength in numbers. Doesn’t this seem cowardly?