Big war, small wars

Government declares war. Government negotiates. Rebel forces attack. Why are we not surprised?

Military solutions of the past have never worked out. Since colonial times, under Spain and the United States, no assault on the conflict areas of Mindanao has ever succeeded. Nor have we seen a breakthrough under any Philippine president, including under Erap Estrada who now claims his all-out war achieved total victory. If it did, how come government is still at the battlefront?

Manila will always be the wrong party to determine the strategies to solve and end the Mindanao conflict. Manila has always understood Mindanao in its own terms and for that, it will always remain an irrelevant player, an interloper even, when it comes to Mindanao affairs.

In the naiveté of Manila, which still sees through a Spanish colonial lens, the Mindanao problem will always be the state versus the rebel forces. By disarming Moro resistance, it would have established peace. Listen to Teresita Quintos Deles: by giving P5 million to the MILF for a leadership training program, the government provides a distraction away from guns. But P5 million or P55 million, the conflict will go on.

For there is one essential aspect of Moro culture that Manila has never quite understood. In 2007, Oxford-educated Jose Jowel Canuday published his study on “Big War, Small Wars: The Interplay of Large-scale and Community Armed Conflicts in Five Central Mindanao Communities” in a book commissioned by the Asia Foundation’s conflict management program, “Rido: Clan Feuding and Conflict Management in Mindanao” (Wilfredo Torres III, ed.). A Mindanao anthropologist and journalist, Canuday’s study may well be the reference for government in finding a solution to the problem in Mindanao’s conflict areas.

Canuday had observed that localized armed conflicts—clan feuds known as “rido”—feed on large-scale wars that are fought between state forces and rebel forces. Perceived enemies in clan feuds often use the military resources of either the state or the rebels, depending on where their loyalty lies. It is thus the community character, the interplay of power and social relations that Manila overlooks. It is an incredible fact that among local armed conflicts, nationalism for a Bangsamoro state is not even discussed.

Government hardly makes analysis of the power relations manifested in the domination and violence occurring at the local communities where most of the firefights erupt. To be sure, the MILF has its arsenal of sophisticated weaponry. But so does the local populace. Among Moro communities, a firearm is de rigeur. It is a status of power. Some might call it a gun fetishism; it is more of an honor fetishism. A gun has power to restore clan honor when honor is debased.

A ticklish matter is the issue of “lost commands.” Skirmishes are often reduced as perpetrated by these so-called “breakaway groups.” Canuday recalls Ghadzali Jaafar as having once dismissed a local assault as “never sanctioned by the MILF Central Committee and was an independent decision of a few, totally outside the realm of the MILF.” But when many firearms are in proliferation even among ordinary households, practically everyone is a lost command. Even if government negotiates, how may it account for these multitudes of lost commands?

It also overlooks the fact that many seats of power in Moro towns and provinces are shifting locations depending on who becomes mayor or governor. In many towns in Lanao del Sur, for instance, the municipal hall as we know it to be is never existent. The house of the local leader is the municipio. Notice this same trend in the province of Maguindanao. When Zacaria Candao was governor, the provincial capitol was at Crossing Simuay in Sultan Kudarat town. Under Andal Ampatuan, the capitol was in his hometown of Shariff Aguak. Now with Toto Mangudadatu, the provincial capitol is in his hometown of Buluan. Government may negotiate for peace on the level of the macro war, but it misses the point of the micro wars.

Canuday relates one local conflict escalating into a large-scale war complete with aerial bombardments and massive evacuations. One of the local protagonists wanted the conflict settled in a Shariah court. But the judicial body was composed of members associated with an MILF local command antipathetic to one of the protagonists. “Parties at odds often call on larger forces due to the failure of existing conflict-resolution mechanisms in the community to settle disputes.”

In the end, the author makes an unusual advice: the solution may lie in creative means of conflict resolution, not in armies.

Marawi City and Lanao del Sur, as well as Tawi-Tawi, Basilan and Sulu, are among the most beautiful places in the entire country where nature still functions like clockwork. How come these have never become places for tourism? Who would want to go there, when almost every household has a firearm? The ongoing, silent diaspora of the Moro people is an indication of lives feeling uncertain and helpless and fed up with clan feuds.

The book has this blurb from a Lanao del Norte resident: “Life with rido is like being a prisoner in your own house. A person without rido can go anywhere. A person with rido is like a carabao tethered to a tree. He can only move as far as the rope will allow. When you have rido, you are never stable, you are like a prisoner. You cannot work, you cannot go out of your house, you cannot help anybody, because you are afraid your enemy will kill you.”

The secret may lie in resolving small wars. Ultimately, the Moro people will have to solve that by themselves. Simply, Manila doesn’t have the keenness to do it.

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