Singapore—When #PrayForMarawi trended the day after martial law, I encouraged young Muslims to write. Two years ago, an Inquirer guest column linked acid throwing and Shari’ah law, despite the glaring lack of acid throwing here. Unlike the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), I hoped Marawi’s narratives would be shaped by actual Maranao, not instant experts from Manila.
A law student instead asked me to stress that most Filipino Muslims abhor the Maute group and Islamic State.
Watching our most Muslim city burn, how can the immediate concern of an idealistic young Muslim Filipino be that Muslims not be blamed yet again?
In 2000, I ran Eidos, a short-lived Ateneo de Manila magazine. I immortalized the thoughts of classmates from Cotabato, General Santos and Davao on “all-out war.”
Eidos’ first and only cover featured Rasol Mitmug, a Cotabato City Maranao and president of The Assembly, the Political Science association. Ras recounted a skeptical (but fulfilling) entry. He asked for a special porkless meal at freshman orientation and used Jesuit theology to reflect on his faith.
All-out war pushed him to seek out fellow Moro students. University Belt leaders were sensitive to displaying the Philippine flag. Others at Quiapo’s Golden Mosque accused Ateneans of being tools to subvert other students.
I suggested that we be friends, being from the country’s largest minorities. When F. Sionil José attacked Chinese-Filipinos 15 years later, Ras reminded me of Chinese Muslim nobles, such as Datu Piang, great leader of central Mindanao during the Commonwealth.
The 20-year-old Ras taught me the difference between Tausug, Maguindanaon and Maranao, and the frustrated idealism and search for dignity of Muslim Mindanao.
My 20-year-old self ended: “As complex as the Mindanao issue is, deep down, everyone really knows what has to be done. It is not merely a question of politics or economics. It is a question of dignity.”
Ras and I went on to law school. He became chief of staff of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. He and friends he introduced, such as Marawi’s TOYM awardee Samira Gutoc Tomawis, continue to teach me what my elite
education failed to.
Of Muslim heroes such as Sultan Kudarat, who fought Spaniards beside Lake Lanao. Words like “barit” (homemade “Barrett” .50-caliber sniper rifles) and “bakwit” (evacuate). How Maranao traditions settle rido (feuds).
I continue to learn as bombs fall. How we outside Mindanao overlooked the Maute occupation of Butig town in Lanao del Sur just last December. How sympathizers permeate social media, using photos of damaged mosques from Syria to smear our army. How women in evacuation centers pray during Ramadan in the same abaya they wore when they fled Marawi.
Inquirer guest commentator Macabangkit Lanto recounted seeing Moro rebels walk Marawi’s streets a month after President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972. I documented Ras’ response to all-out war in 2000: “I heard stories of how hard it was during the seventies. I cannot believe it happened all over again.”
The martial law babies grew up only to see it happen all over again in 2017.
Peace negotiators Teresita Quintos Deles and Miriam Coronel Ferrer spoke before the Philippine Bar Association (PBA) in 2014 and emphasized how Moros are ready to call themselves Filipinos, a great emotional step. Nonong Cruz, former PBA president and defense secretary, stressed that our generation must finally see peace.
We perennially dismiss laws as useless pieces of paper and analyze them with emotion, not logic. A year ago, our Moro brethren asked for a piece of paper.
But the emotion that underlaid BBL debates was hostility, even bigotry. Polls showed that those who knew least about the law opposed it most.
Of all the great disciplines our intellect created, it fell to law to permanently end the fighting and evacuations. It must be the shame of our generation of lawyers that it failed. Law could not cement Filipino Muslims’ dignified place in our society.
Law failed, and people are still dying.
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