Ka-Blog!

Inquirer’s editorial cartoon today (August 7) is an outrage. Consisting of two panels and drawn by one GL Daroy, it pictures the Moro Islamic Liberation front as a glutton who gobbled up the pie that’s Mindanao—save for a sliver. It even insinuates that the group is also interested in the rest of the country.

How can something be so patently ignorant, inflammatory, unjust and, given the fact that the crux of the issue is ancestral rights, racist be allowed to see print?

The way I see it, the Inquirer, specifically its cartoonist, has got everything backwards. How so?

First, Muslim Mindanao was taken away from the Bangsa Moro. They were kingdoms of Islamic peoples before there was even a Republic of the Philippines.

Second, they never surrendered their patrimony to the Spaniards, British, American and Japanese invaders. They’ve shed blood since the time of Sultan Kudarat to defend it.

They were never properly consulted when the Republic of the Philippines was created, which eventually included the Bangsa Moro homeland.

They were never consulted by the British and American imperialists when Sabah (North Borneo) was conveniently ceded to Malaysia at the end of the Second World War. This despite the fact that Sabah was given to the Sultan of Sulu by the Sultan of Brunei nearly a century and half ago and despite the admission of the government of Malaysia and the British companies that they still pay rent to the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu.

Lastly, to say that that the Bangsa Moro peoples are justified to fight for the right to self-determination is an understatement. The Manila government is only mostly present in Mindanao through the mercenary Armed Forces of the Philippines acting as private armies of multinational agricultural and mining companies. The Manila government spends more buying bullets to kill more Moros than buying books for the Moro kids. That’s a fact.

No, the MILF and even the Moro National Liberation Front is not the glutton here. Imperialist foreign governments and their rapacious capitalists through the puppet Philippine government are the land-grabbers.

Remember who first settled those areas of Mindanao and have made those their homeland. Remember also who benefits from all the riches of Mindanao now.

By these alone, injustices already abound. At the very least then, we should all think of the Bangsa Moro’s uprisings as a justified way of getting their homeland back.

Now, I don’t know if the fears being expressed by many politicians are justified—that the Memorandum of Agreement initialed yesterday in Malaysia allows for the creation of a new and separate sovereign state within the territorial boundaries of the Philippines. But who did it first in the case of Sabah?  And do we blame the MILF or the Government of the Republic of the Philippines for agreeing to those purported terms? Remember that on the negotiating table, the GRP was the state and the MILF was the belligerent force. The former was supposed to be negotiating on a position of strength and the latter was the dehado. Kaya nga problematic ang cartoon ng Inquirer e. Sobrang bobo naman niyan!

Like most Filipinos I hurt at the thought of my beloved country being cut up like a Chicago deep dish pizza and offered to just about every salivating mouth gaping wide for a big bite. But historical facts are all there to see. Hindi ang mga Moro ang kumagat ng pizza na hindi kanila. Sila po ang kinakagatan, simula pa noong panahon ng mga Kastila. Hindi nga lang kinagat o tinikman, nilalamon pa!

Ngayon, what are the Arroyo regime’s motives for agreeing to those terms? Is it possible that those generals in the GRP panel were simply outwitted by the Moro guerillas as they have been regularly out-maneuvered in the battlefields?

No, I don’t think so. For one, I give the GRP much credit in the area of wiliness. Mga tuso din ang mga ito. For two, the presence of the US Department of State and the World Bank in the signing ceremonies yesterday in Malaysia point otherwise. I count on the imperialists to scream like banshees every time its puppet GRP did something monumentally wrong. But they were there, with US Ambassador to Manila Kirstie Kenney charming the socks out of everyone. Anong meron?

My take is on this particular issue is that the imperialists really want more action on the riches of Mindanao. They are sacrificing the GRP to afford them the chance to negotiate with the belligerent forces directly and mine the hell out of Mindanao even more. The MILF and the MNLF are the real governments on the ground in those areas anyway. Bawas pa ang tong-pats.

But I’m confident that the MILF sees through the real ruse. I doubt if the multinational corporations would find in the Bangsa Moro government the whore that the succession of Manila governments were and is—you know, welcoming imperialist interests with open arms and legs. My only worry is, if the Bangsa Moro government would act like a chaste girl in protecting its patrimony against the rapist, would not this maniac scream “Terrorist!” and send MORE troops to shoot at every Moro they see (like what General ‘Black Jack’ Pershing did more than a century before and what Bush is doing now)?

To the Inquirer cartoonist and to everyone who thinks like he does, be careful on whom you try to picture as the bad guys here—lest you betray your prejudices and thus your ignorance.