Back in 1996, when President Ramos signed what was described as a “final peace agreement” with Nur Misuari’s MNLF, I wrote a piece guardedly welcoming the initiative and expressing relief over the possibility of peace in Mindanao.
The pact was, concededly, not perfect, and the signatories on both sides had well-founded apprehensions over certain provisions. But it was a starting point and it was certainly better than secession and the continuation of conflict.
Then, as now, the exhortation was to “give peace a chance.”
The reaction to my column was mixed. Among the letters I received were several angry ones from people who were very unhappy with the peace pact. According to one writer, peace could only be achieved in Mindanao with the total annihilation of the Moros.
“The only good Moro is a dead Moro,” the letter declared, along with the sarcastic comment that I “didn’t know” what I was talking about.
My response was a follow-up column that explained where I was coming from. I conjectured that the letter writer had obviously had a bad experience – more likely, a violent experience – with the Moros, and I expressed sympathy with his plight. But I assured him that I was not entirely unfamiliar with the subject matter.
I explained that my late father had been a Justice of the Peace in Zamboanga before World War II; that several members of my clan were bona fide Mindanaoans; and that an elder sister and her family had experienced the wrath of a Muslim warlord.
Evangeline was a resident physician in a hospital in Cotabato. Among her patients was the wife of the warlord, known in the province to be an insanely jealous man. When the wife commented that my brother-in-law, Rene, was “good-looking,” the warlord gave him the kind of warning that you only hear in Hollywood westerns: “Get out of town by sundown…or else…!”
The family frantically bundled up whatever belongings could be salvaged, along with several small children, and relocated to Cagayan de Oro.
I also informed the letter writer that another brother-in-law had been among the first casualties in the burning of Jolo in late 1972.
Tano Fernandez, husband of my sister, Coring, was a native Joloano. His brother, a Christian like him, was a former governor of Sulu. When the MNLF uprising broke out, Tano refused to leave town, insisting that he would not be harmed by people whom he had known from childhood.
He was wrong. When Jolo was razed, he was slain, along with many others. My sister barely managed to escape. A few months later, in Manila, I attended a gathering of refugees from Jolo, mostly Christians. The horror stories they told were appalling.
“If you think you have a reason to hate the Moros,” I wrote, “so do I. But I don’t.”
I pointed out that the reason for hatred was not a monopoly of Christians like us; that the people of Muslim Mindanao also had as much reason to believe that the only good Christian was a dead Christian.
“But where will all of this hatred bring us?” I asked. “If we keep raking up the reason for hating, rather than the reason for forging a peace, there will never be peace in Mindanao,”
I have asked the same question again and again over the years, whenever the subject of the “Moro problem” would be taken up. I would then observe that as far as the other side was concerned, it was as much a “Christian problem” and an “Imperial Manila problem.” And justifiably so.
Having lived in America for over two decades, I have noted a parallel situation in the “Native American problem,” which is as much a “White Man problem,” as far as the American Indians are concerned.
Like the Moros, the native Americans were also divested of ancestral lands, their numbers decimated by the guns of the pioneers. They fought back, occasionally exacting vengeance on their tormentors, such as in the infamous last stand of General Custer. But for the most part, they were the victims of the European settlers and the U.S. cavalry.
The heroic story of “how the West was won,” is also the gruesome tale of how the native Americans were dispossessed.
The U.S. government has done much to make up for the injustice, to the extent of acknowledging that native Americans constitute a “sovereign nation,” and according them special privileges. Among other things, the proliferation of Indian casinos in California and other states of the Union are part of the effort of the American mainstream to “even the playing field” with the various Indian tribes.
But centuries of injustice cannot easily be erased. To this day, native American school children are reminded by their elders about the fate suffered by their ancestors at the hands of the white men. And, to this day, in spite of federal and state laws giving them special status, native Americans are poor runners-up in the race to achieve the American Dream.
But the playing field is getting more and more even. The leaders of the country and fair-minded mainstream Americans are working to heal the wounds inflicted over the years.
But it will take time for the wounds to heal – if at all.
Similarly, the peace accord that has been signed by the Philippine government with the MILF and the establishment of Bangsamoro – a Moro homeland – is only the beginning of a long journey to a lasting peace.
To expect centuries of injustice to be forgiven and the pain inflicted by both sides on each other to be forgotten is naïve. Like the native Americans, young Moros will continue to be reminded by their elders of the suffering endured by their people – because only by doing so can they expect the young to continue the long and tortuous trek to equality and dignity.
One should also not be surprised if the children of government soldiers slain in the Mindanao conflict and the victims of the burning of Jolo, as well as those slain in terrorist attacks, are told never to forget.
But the process of healing must necessarily entail confronting the truth and dealing with the pain.
It will take wise men on both sides to soothe that pain and to explain that the price that must be paid for peace is forgiveness.
In the meantime, let us all pray that the peace that has been forged – tenuous at this point and, hopefully, more stable over time – will be nurtured and nourished with good will, a spirit of understanding, and the acknowledgment that injustices have been committed and violence inflicted by both sides – on both sides – and the time has come to make amends.
It should matter less who suffered more. What should matter is who will benefit the most from a lasting peace.
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