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S
eems like the whole Media fiesta that is raging around the the Duterte’s of Davao City, specifically on
-leave
Mayor Sara’s
 fists and the Duterte father-and-son fingers is opening up old raw emotions about the subjugation of Mindanao to the 100-year-old elephant in the room
 the legacy of colonial rule,
Imperial Manila
. Many Davao folk have now taken to responding to perceived incursions of Manila-based pundits (not
to mention the investigation team sent by Malacanang to sort the sh*t out of Davao’s quaint feudal politics) into what they believe is “their
 
business.”
 
“Mind your own business” apparently is the intelligent argument of choice of our Davao “brothers,” fellow
Luzonians. Is that a fair call? Maybe it does hold water. After all, Filipinos for so long have seen their 400-year subjugation to the colonial rule of Spain and then that of the United States over the first half of the 20th Century as shameful realities of their history. This shame manifests itself in rather flaccid efforts mounted by one Filipino politician or another over the last 60-od
d years of “independence” to scrub off as many traces of this legacy as they
could from the cultural character (perhaps with a river stone, as tradition dictates). It started with the summary re-writing of history 
declaring the 12th of June 1898 as the country’s day of “independence”
and relegating the
real
one on the 4th of July 1946 to some sort of token recognition of some imagined
“friendship” with the United States. And it all culminated with
 
Thanks to the 12 bozos who voted against US military bases in the Philippines in 1991
 Senate President  Jovito Salonga, Sens. Wigberto Tanada, Teofisto Guingona, Rene Saguisag, Victor Ziga, Sotero Laurel, Ernesto Maceda, Agapito Aquino, Juan Ponce Enrile, Joseph Estrada, Orlando Mercado, and Aquilino Pimentel
 Filipinos have, right in their faces today, a sad lesson twenty years in the making in what it is like to languish outside the American sphere of what is globally relevant.
Perhaps, today, the fact that the Philippines is
still
 a nation that presumes to be composed of a northern island historically ruled by a bunch of quaint Ilocano- and Tagalog-speaking tribes and a southern island chain composed of largely Cebuano-speaking remnants of ancient sultanates, is a testament to the strength and endurance of the colonial legacy of European civilisation in the Far East. Beyond the passive-aggressive approach Filipinos take to loudly assert their indigenous identity above the sheer weight of substance of European culture, not much more than a whimper comes out: laughable
changes in the names of major roads, a curiosity of an initiative to change the country’s name to “Maharlika,” and,
 most misguided of all, imposing the northern imperial Tagalog dialect as
de facto
 the
“official” national language. This inability to get beyond a rather pathetic idea of what being “nationalistic”
is all about begs a simple question:
Are we
 forcing
 
the issue of a Philippine “national identity”?
 One person who, along with Yours Truly, was cited by national treasure Manuel L Quezon III as delivering
among the most “provocative” works over the last twenty years is David C. Martinez. Martinez has taken a
scholarly approach to exploring the option of  partitioning the Philippines into its natural constituent
 
Poverty, inequality, and corruption plague the Philippines six decades after independence. Of the past five  presidents, only one took office and left it without military intervention, and he was a general. In his controversial book, A Country of Our Own (2004), David Martinez describes the Philippines as a failed state.
The country in his eyes comprises five regions (“nations”): Cordille
ra, Luzon, The Visayas, Mindanao, and Bangsamoro. He proposes holding legally binding referenda in each of these places to determine whether those who live there wish to remain inside the Philippines or form their own independent country. In a conversation
moderated by Stanford’s Don Emmerson, Martinez and the Filipinist scholar Lela Noble will
examine arguments and evidence relevant to a crucial question: Is the nation-state project still valid for the Philippines?
Today, in the aftermath of the Duterte imbroglio, it seems that the issue of how
different
 Mindanao is from Luzon in both manner, style of thinking, and approach to governance has come to light. It is the elephant in the room we could no longer ignore. Perhaps it is time we face the real
debate
 on how viable this notion
known as “the Philippines” remains.
 
 
PARADIGM SHIFT| No peace in Mindanao until Muslims get their own independent state
 
IF WE WANT to have peace in Mindanao and particularly a self-sustained and long-term peace, we need to be realistic, not just conjure up a quick fix. I endorse the current peace agreement between the Philippine government and the MILF arguing that the peace process should continue, because the absence of peace is war. Understandably the people of this region are tired of war and want peace. But it would be naïve to  believe the proposed Bangsamor Basic Law would bring long lasting peace to Mindanao. It is easy enough for any rational individual to understand what Muslims in Mindanao want and why they have
 been fighting for decades; they are loudly and clearly telling the Philippine government, “Give us our home back, and we will take care of our home.” That is why passin
g the Bangsamoro Basic Law will not put an end to the conflict in Mindanao. Why can there not just be an independent Bangsamore State allowing them to do what they want to do  because ultimately they are going to do it anyway. Muslims have fought for decades for them to be left alone, as an independent state with their own protection and leadership. Undoubtedly, the Muslim people of Mindanao in the Autonomous Region are separated from the Philippine government in many ways. The Philippines government obviously does not have any sovereignty over the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM); if it did, those 44 police
commandos would not have died. Since Manila does not have control over the Muslims’ region, even
the Philippine government cannot conduct fair elections in the area and cannot have checks and  balances. In addition, what has happened to the federal money that has been sent to the region? Where have those funds been used? As of now state officials are hesitant to go there and implement initiatives or to oversee ongoing efforts. Giving the Muslims their own state would not affect the Philippines as a whole in any negative way after all, but rather would help. At least the government will not waste Philippine tax money to make certain clans richer and richer. For Muslims to have independence, the issues of the disputed Muslim territories must be resolved because it is very difficult to achieve independence if the leaders do not know which territory they are going to control. It is also naïve to believe that if the Philippine government gives the Muslims their own state, there would be any peace among them; the difficulty is that Muslims themselves need to unite enough to form a government. As of now, if we do not see any fighting among the MILF, the MNLF, the BIFF, or other Muslim rebel groups, it is because they all have a common enemy, which is the Philippine state. Once the Philippine state gives them their own independent government, then they will fight for  power among themselves. It is true, though, that the Philippine government should not treat Mindanao as a colony regardless of this probably outcome. As a hindrance to peace, the large scale of corruption and a constant cycle of violence have empowered segments of Mindanao. The poverty levels in its war torn areas are much higher than at any other time or in any other part of the country, even though the Muslim region is rich in minerals, oil, and natural gas. Experts already argue that the ARMM, set up in late 1980s, has been very bad. It is a corrupt system of governance that empowers despotic warlords and nepotism. The peace must be accompanied  by the machinery of a true government that serves its people, not the corrupt few.
 
Every year since 1982 we have celebrated the International Day of Peace with the world promising to end conflict, yet conflict still remains a painful reality around the globe. Likewise, conflict is the greatest impediment to sustainable development on the Island of Mindanao. If we cannot put the conflict to an end, Mindanao will still remain one of the poorest islands in the country, especially the Muslim Autonomous Region. Peace sustains development, and development sustains peace. For these reasons, both Muslims and the Philippine government should continue to make peace happen. The more the Philippine government and the MILF push hard for peace to happen, the fewer people will  be killed in the conflict. The Philippine government and the MILF have already notched up some important achievements by working together. We all know that without political commitments there can be no peace. But making peace happen should not be reserved only for political leaders or national or international organizations. Peace in Mindanao cannot be imposed from above. It must be fostered from below, through third parties from churches, citizens, private organizations, among others, all of
whom stand to gain from the achievement of peace. The people’s cry for peace should convince those
at war that this current commitment to peace cannot be reversed, and that the guns must be permanently silenced. When we are involved in conflict, it is very easy to lose perspective. An angry man may seemingly give his best speech but then he regrets it forever. Corruption in governance is the biggest obstacle to  peace in Mindanao, because it undermines trust and shared values that make society work. The reason  people pay taxes to the government is in return for essential public services, but when that government starts to use public money for its own personal gain, then the benefits and services start to diminish, followed by a loss of trust. All branches of government
 – 
 the legislative, judiciary, and executive  branches
 – 
also have become compromised. Corruption more often happens in autocratic systems where one person rules, so that there is no check and balances among the branches, like in the ARMM region, because small groups of elites rule. The effective way to keep corruption in check is to implement rule of law. If the current peace process involves a broad swath of society, establishes balanced branches of government, and implements a solid rule of law, then everyone will gain
Article excerpt
 
Introduction Cesar Majul, a distinguished scholar of Muslim Filipino studies, relates the following about the colonisation of Mindanao, which started in the early twentieth century in the Cotabato region under the American colonial system:
When the Americans came to Muslim lands after their arrival in the Philippines, they initially labeled the inhabitant[s] savages who needed to be pacified.... The Americans then assumed responsibility

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