I lived in the Islamic City of Marawi for six years, from 1977 to 1983, in Mindanao State University (MSU) Marawi campus while completing my undergraduate degree. My hometown is just an hour away in Iligan. In 1973, a year after Marcos proclaimed martial law, the Moro National Liberation Front launched coordinated attacks in Mindanao, massing its forces in capturing Marawi City and other population centers.
I remember a 50-caliber machine gun stray bullet made a hole on the refrigerator at my grandfather’s house near Camp Datu Amai Pakpak. That war raged on for a decade, tapering down only in the early 1980s as I graduated and left the campus. War and its attendant effects to populations in and around Muslim Mindanao, at that time, were normal to us who lived close by. Ambuscades, massacres, evacuations, blood-soaked bodies in the funeral parlors of Iligan and warring politicians, who all swore obedience to Malacañang, were common occurrences and were the familiar social terrain we lived in. We watched how vintage World War II planes bombed Nosa-nosa island off the lake shore town of B’lindong. The legendary story was that the rebels escaped under cover with water lilies, riding with the lake’s water currents at nighttime. We were familiar with gunfire and the boom of the 105 mm howitzers. We fell victims to military abuses in the campus when war-weary soldiers got drunk. As Christian students, we bowed our heads down slightly, careful not to offend Muslims. Despite these, I will never forget the natural beauty of Marawi, and its cool climate nestled in the green valley beside Lake Lanao.
Today, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)-inspired Maute combatants are dug in deep in Marawi City. The positive difference I can see is that Christians and Muslims are helping and saving each other from the onslaught of this new war. In 1970s Christians, which included my grandfather, uncles and aunts, evacuated from Marawi City to Iligan and other Christian areas, while Maranao Muslims evacuated from Christian areas to Marawi. One Maranao family friend told us how they walked from Iligan to Marawi. But now Muslims also walked that distance to take shelter in Iligan and Cagayan de Oro cities.
Politically, the war in Marawi is no different from the past. The international sources of inspiration among the different Muslim insurgent groups in Mindanao normally change along with the times, but the motivation for engaging in violent warfare, including separatist acts of rebellion, remains the same. It is true that the historical conflict, atrocities and injustices go as far back under Spain, but the unending state of contest for political power and wealth among Muslim clans remains to be the perpetual source of violent conflicts in Muslim Mindanao. Clans vie for power and wealth, and once in power, they court the support of the larger Moro citizenry; either by becoming an ally with the power wielders in the capital of Manila and become sole transmitter of IRA funds and other largesse from the state; or found rebel groups espousing different degrees and paths of separation, independence and Islamic practices, and become the proclaimer of the dreamt future society. The Maranao Muslim population in Marawi must have realized how the extremist ISIS model of warfare will disrupt the very social fabric of the population centers. The Maute Group experimented in taking over its own home town of Butig, Lanao del Sur, and currently digging in themselves in Marawi City residential homes. In interclan politics, clans do not interfere much on other clans’ activities to avoid usually long and pestering conflicts (rido) between clans. But, the Maranao clans have been forced to take a stand, by leaving en masse from Marawi, depriving the Mautes of cover and support. The events in the last 12 days have shown that the Maranao society cannot just watch and tolerate ISIS-inspired groups digging in for war in their peaceful abodes.
Martial law will not solve this recurring and resurgent war and conflict in Muslim Mindanao. It will only be the learning, awakening and resolve of the Mindanao Muslim population to push past their unending and fragmented clan politics, the contest for political power and wealth tramps every other institutional form of arbitration and mediation. This nascent form of states within states has to be transcended for the Mindanao Muslim population to prosper economically, socially and politically. The ISIS-inspired war in Marawi is the Maute clan’s chosen path for gaining political power and wealth, in trying to become violently stronger, and, at the same time, attract wealthy sponsors and connections, with ambitions to dominate the province and, probably, Muslim Mindanao in the future.
2 comments
Well written.
and I’ll add: It’s a beautiful place that has people in it that don’t understand the big picture. The big picture being love and mutual respect for one another. Simple as that.