Respect: On Bangsamoro Issue

The Issue of RESPECT: Bangsamoro Issue Lorenzo Ruga, SMITH It has been willed by the Mindanao people in certain regions, the formerly Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao or ARMM to be a separate region designated only for Muslim Filipinos and not for Christians or any denominations certainly for their Islamic faith. Many decades back arose rebels such as New Peoples Army (NPA), Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), Abu Sayaff, and now Bangsamoro Islamic Front Fighters (BIFF). Rebels arise because of poverty and social injustice as Estrada points out. NPA’s and the working class in EDSA and Mendiola who rallies time and again are manifestation of this poverty and social injustice. Rebels arise also because of persecution from religious rights and fundamentalism. The MILF embraced both: poverty in Mindanao and the recognition of their Islamic faith. Since the Mindanao people were not given attention of obtaining these basic rights which had been asked many years ago, it is time to hail the fist and pull the trigger. Christians vs. Muslim, military vs. Muslim rebels. De facto, the Mindanao area is still very poor compared to Luzon or Visayas in the sense of infrastructures, roads and trade. Why? Because they are so contained in themselves as the sole owners of their lands and do not allow others to touch these lands and improve them. This attitude drives away in fear investors and developers thus prevents industrialization, education, work, infrastructures and all kinds of development. “Ang amin ay amin at walang pakialamanan.”1 Negotiation to peace was decades back but it never become peaceful. The solution the south insists is just autonomy. To them, autonomy means peace. Really? In the name of Peace, the present agreement is that the government will give P75 million for Bangsamoro to develop itself and in return their rebels will surrender their weapons. I argue that if the hubris of these people will remain fundamental and stingy to development, the P75 million will just dissolve to dust and their place will never be an investment for the future of their children. The problem is that will they really drop their weapons and never rebel again? Granted that they got already the money sufficient to build itself and the land is Islamic only, will there be peace as means “silence”. They will surely just perpetuate and spread their errors and soon demand the Islamization of the whole country. Human beings can abrogate any law or agreement if they wished so. Human freedom cannot be limited by any law or negotiation because when the will is darkened by greed and extreme idealism (like the Isis), it will not stop itself. They will continue to demand more and more and they will continue to be rebels. It is not about autonomy and funding, it is about respect from the fruit of examining our consciences between what we really want to do and what we really want for the good of everyone. Borderline, respect. After money had been given and their stomach are again aching, they will demand for more money. Differences: Government 1

“What is our is ours, no one should interfere.”

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The government is so slow to give them what they want. The spread of doubt and the lack of trust in the MILF The lack of attention and the luxury of the north

MILF - They kill their brothers and sisters who are both Filipinos and Islam and Christians - If the enjoyment of Islamism is to be discussed, do they not enjoy it as that mosque are in many places in the Philippines? - Are not the many traders in the busy places in Manila who are tolerated from faking patented products and selling them in side roads that causes more traffic because the walking spaces were all covered by their fascinating products are Muslims and that they too enjoy wealth - By being trouble makers and rebel organizers, before their fellow Muslim, do they contribute peace to their immediate families? - They fail to see the atrocities and mess, the deaths and destruction of infrastructures in their own locality that slow down good life - Is this what their religion teaches them and that this is the only thing they want to do all their lives and as a tradition, their children to defend it? - The killing of Marwan and Busan was not the issue here. They are to be executed because they are traitors in the country.