Ghost of past injustice lurks in Marawi

While Marawi continues to endure relentless battering, another problem of epic proportions looms. Pandora’s Box was recklessly opened by military authorities when they announced on television that more than half of the city’s land area is classified as a military reservation. To the residents of Marawi, the news was too much to bear. Judging from the number of callers asking for my legal opinion, the announcement has unleashed the tiger in the Moros: They are outraged, agitated, up in arms. They said they are being pushed to a corner where they have no recourse but to fight—and fight to the death. The radicals among them, their number exponentially increasing as Marawi burns, are claiming: Jihad fisabelillah or the fight for the cause of Allah is justified.

When on TV a military officer waved documents supposedly proving their claim, I almost fell off my chair. I could not believe what I had heard. I know that there are areas classified as military reservation in Marawi, but not that big (according to reports, of the 96 barangays, 64 are within the military reservation, leaving only 32). I initially overlooked the ramification of the reports until I  realized the legal consequence of the claim. If true, this means that the land is not alienable/disposable and cannot be owned by private individuals; the bakwit who have lost their houses in the Armageddon-like siege will also lose their land; it will ipso facto make their title, if any, void ab initio; the land disputes pending in the courts will be mooted; it will turn the bakwit into gypsies with no place to stay, like wandering Jews (nemesis of Islam) and the Rohingya of Myanmar.

The ghost of injustice against the Moros during the Commonwealth period is being resurrected. During that time, all unregistered lands, including the ancestral domain of Moros, were declared public lands (Public Act No. 926) and Muslims could only own

10 hectares while non-Muslims were allowed 24 hectares (Public Land Act of 1919), etc.

I tried to assuage my callers’ fears. I told them it is their birthright to own the land passed on to them by their forefathers, and no piece of paper can take their ancestral land away from them. I also comforted them with advice that their land title which underwent a tedious administrative process has the de jure  presumption of validity and is legally defensible “against the world,” as lawyers describe it. However, I felt a sense of remorse at not telling them that their title could be fake because it covers government land and their professed ignorance cannot justify their ownership.

Officialdom is well advised to factor into its actions the sensibilities, feelings and plight of the residents of Marawi, especially those crammed in the evacuation centers. It should refrain from dishing out information that creates more confusion, fear and suffering, and exacerbates the schizophrenia that thousands of them are now battling. I know there are proclamations releasing some areas in Marawi from the reservation, like the 1,000 hectares granted to the Mindanao State University. It is best for policymakers to consider releasing the lands not essential for military purposes by presidential proclamation in favor of actual title holders and/or occupants.

I never fail to remind worried residents of Marawi that we have a Moro champion in Malacañang. The President has Maranao blood (which accounts for his votes of more than 90 percent in the area in the last polls), and  adhering to lessons from history, he will not allow such an injustice to be inflicted upon his kin, knowing that it is injustice of this kind which forms the root cause of the festering Moro problem. I hope I am not wrong.

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Macabangkit B. Lanto (amb_mac_lanto@yahoo.com), UP Law 1967, was a Fulbright Fellow in New York University for his postgraduate studies. He has served the government as congressman, ambassador, and undersecretary, among other positions.