It’s our Mindanao, too, right? So why should the 21 million Filipinos living on the island—and many more who trace their roots there—take offense when people from Manila or other parts of the country think they know better than they do when it comes to what’s right for Mindanao?
As a journalist, I have gone to Mindanao many times. I have been awed by the vast potential of the “Land of Promise,” as the second-largest island has long been called, and I’ve often wondered why that promise has never been fulfilled.
I’ve often asked how such a large part of the country that has been blessed with so many resources has remained so poor and neglected in some respects. At the same time, I have always been impressed by the hardy souls who have thrived in Mindanao, even if they have mostly been left to themselves.
But I am convinced now that at least part of the reason why Mindanao has never reached its full potential is that people in the north have always given up on the island at the first sign of trouble. And so Mindanaoans, I think, have developed the attitude that if anyone is going to help them, it will have to be themselves.
The current battle between government forces and the Maute terrorists in Marawi has revived the old controversy about who has the best solution to the long-running violence and strife that have given Mindanao a bad name. In social media, in particular, many people have testified that the people and the government in Manila do not really understand the situation in Mindanao and should allow the first Mindanaoan president, Rodrigo Duterte, to do what he thinks is right, since he is from the island.
Even the Catholic priest who was videotaped after he was captured and held hostage by the IS-inspired Maute terror gang referenced this in his statement, most likely made under duress, when he asked Duterte to call off the military offensive to retake the besieged city. Father Chito Suganob said Duterte should order government security forces to withdraw from Marawi because he, of all people, should understand its “history.”
And the history of Mindanao is replete with examples of the central government quitting on it when the going gets rough, because the island seems too far away anyway and takes too much money, effort and even lives to keep under control. Perhaps this is the history of Mindanao that Duterte wants to rewrite, because he, of all presidents in recent memory, seems the most determined to resolve once and for all the problems that have beset it almost from the beginning of the Philippine nation.
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Duterte’s immediate predecessor, Noynoy Aquino, for example, was no different from the presidents who went before him. Aquino’s most memorable involvement in Mindanao was supervising the siege of Zamboanga City after a small band of members of the Moro National Liberation Front arrived and hoisted the MNLF flag.
Aquino decided to bomb the city almost to rubble, a decision that haunts the government still by way of the people of the once-thriving city who still live in temporary shelters years after the siege. Aquino seemed to have lost interest in Zamboanga after making his point that no one should challenge Manila’s authority—but then, that president was famous for quickly losing interest in many things that did not really concern him personally or resonate with his own experience as a hacendero’s son.
Aquino’s own predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, like Duterte, also declared martial law in Mindanao, albeit in a much-smaller area, the province of Maguindanao. Arroyo made the declaration right after the so-called Maguindanao Massacre, which was really a political dispute gone thoroughly bloody and homicidal—and then she and her government went back to Manila-centric concerns once again.
Joseph Estrada gained notoriety in Mindanao for waging his “all-out war” against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Estrada, during his brief reign, made it his business to retake the MILF camps in Maguindanao and elsewhere, until he got sidetracked by the efforts to remove him from office, which eventually ended up with his impeachment and conviction.
That all three of Duterte’s immediate predecessors were from Manila and nearby provinces is not really coincidence. Since the Spanish colonial period and during the American occupation that succeeded it, even foreign invaders seemed to have decided that Mindanao was just too much trouble to govern, after seeing that their efforts to subjugate the island were not as successful as they were in other parts of the country.
So you can’t really blame the people in Mindanao for taking a skeptical attitude towards interventions and incursions by the Manila government on their island over the years. And for actually believing that they finally have a president who not only understands what is going on but who has the determination to change the way things are.
The skepticism of the Mindanaoans about Manila’s efforts to save them and to uplift their lives thus contrasts sharply with their near-absolute faith of that Duterte only can truly fulfill their beloved island’s promise. I hope they are correct, because if Duterte cannot fix Mindanao, then perhaps, as some people outside of the island have long believed, it can’t be saved at all.