Cordillerans and Muslims: Not so worlds apart

This is my reaction to an article that my friend Frank Cimatu wrote in Rappler, SAF 44:  Beware When Cordillerans Don’t Weep. Just like many Filipinos, I wanted to react. To be outraged.  It was an immediate reaction I guess by many since the acts done to the “Fallen 44” as they are also being called was brutal.  I wanted to react like many of those based here in the comforts and safety of Metro Manila, but I couldn’t.  I couldn’t because of deep ties and love for many Muslim and friends from Cordillera where a number of SAF 44 came from.

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When I joined the NGO sector years ago, my areas of assignment even today were the Cordilleras and ARMM.  It was my work in these areas that I have made lifelong friends between Cordillerans and Muslims.  Two in particular have become my dearest brothers and among my best friends – Frank Cimatu, from Baguio City and Ed General, from Jolo, Sulu. 

 

Ed once gave me two fighting cocks for my father.  I carried these gifts from Jolo to Manila. Frank on the other hand gave my father who loves to read like him a book on farming because he thought my Papa had a farm but I told him that he and my brother have a farm for breeding fighting cocks. Frank and I have travelled to provinces of the Cordilleras while Ed has taken me to places many have only read in the papers because of conflict and military encounters. Places like Indanan and Patikul. Worlds apart in customs and traditions but Frank and Ed seem to find a common love for beer and women. Women’s rights that is and reproductive health. It was in our trainings on Gender and RH Reporting among journalists that I met these two and bonded. 

 

I wrote this to remind Frank and Ed about this bond and in a way remind us not to make the Mamasapano tragedy as Ed calls it, “a Muslim-Christian conflict.” If we are not sensitive and responsible for all our reactions, we will contribute to increasing prejudice towards Muslims. A prejudice that did not happen with Mamasapano but is already ingrained in the subconscious of Christians whether we admit it or not. It is the conflict and the fightings that we have heard about practically all our lives that in my case instilled this fear of Muslims and fear of going to Mindanao when I was growing up. 

 

Seeing the forest not just the trees

 

I am not an expert of history nor of the conflict in Mindanao.  I am just starting to read the Bangsamoro Basic Law so I will not even attempt to give my reaction to it unless I am a politician who can get away with grandstanding when the cameras are rolling. But here is what little I know. I know that when it comes to Reproductive Health, the people of ARMM has the worst state among all the regions in the country. The highest number of maternal deaths come from ARMM and Northern Mindanao. In education, 37% of Muslim youth in ARMM have not even been to school based on the 2013 Young Adults Fertility and Sexuality Survey of the University of the Philippines. While forty percent of Filipinos live in poverty, in ARMM, 70% of their population are poor.

 

There are many conflicts in ARMM. Civilians fight for their lives on a daily basis. Dying of illness, poor nutrition, lack of basic services to name a few.  If we see only a portion of what’s happening in ARMM, we may not notice things that are thriving and struggling. Many people are still hurting from Mamasapano, but let us not lose site of the potential that could be achieved when there is peace.

 

Do the Bangsamoro weep for the dead?

 

I asked because I must have missed the news about the civilians and even members of the BIFF and MILF being featured. But the videos of the brutality and how some SAF 44 members were killed haunts us that we probably could care less what happens to members of BIFF or MILF. Maybe in time, our emotions will not be so controlling and we will be able to see what happened from the point of view of the other side. 

 

In one of my trips to Jolo, Ed took me to a post-funeral reception. Muslims must bury their dead almost immediately. I have never seen so much food. I did not see sad faces. Just a gathering to talk about the life of the family member they just buried.

 

I wonder how it was for the families of the 18 BIFF and MILF fighters who died in Mamasapano. Were they also calling to the spirits to avenge the death of their loved ones? Were they also calling for “all out war,” as I saw once in a social media post? 

 

Desire for Peace by All not Just the Government and the Bangsamoro

 

I believe that we must call for peace and call it even more loudly than the government and the Bangsamoro because this will help us unlearn all the decades, even centuries of “brainwashing” that Filipino Christians were subjected to that has shaped what I think is our view of the conflict in Mindanao.

When we put our desire for peace above what we are currently feeling on the Mamasapano incident, we will achieve a sense of peace within ourselves as Christians and the way we look at our Muslim Filipinos. Yes, Filipinos. I hope we never forget this fact. Let us not allow the politicians to control the conversation.  Let us read the law, learn the history more compassionately and join the conversation equipped with more information. I think this is a better way of honoring the Fallen 44 who did their jobs and accomplished their mission to get the known terrorist Marwan. – Rappler.com

Chi Vallido is an independent filmmaker and Advocacy Specialist of the Forum for FP and Development, Inc