A Long Overdue Post on BJE

I have not lived too long in Mindanao to understand its situation, but I have lived in it to deserve an opportunity to state my side on the matter of the creation of the BJE. I arrived in the island years ago afraid of a war that has long been fought between the military and the muslim rebels. Coming from Manila, only the images of bombings, rolling tanks, flying mortars and dead bodies were what I associate with the island. I looked out of my hotel window the first day and Zamboanga City was like downtown Manila with narrow streets, dingy places, old rundown theaters, lots of people, situated along the bay with a mini fortress. I was like taken into a recreation of Manila in an island 2000 kms away. Aside from the occassional bomb scare, the city was experiencing a change, business was up and new buildings were constructed. Not as fast as everyone hoped for but there was movement.

Then there was BJE. I am not a lawyer to comment on its merit, but the way I see it is the MILF will be handed areas in Mindanao as part of their ancestral domain. My views in the matter: 1. Was it not covered by the agreement with MNLF? 2. The creation of ARMM did not improve the lives of the people in the area covered by the charter. Why include a bigger area? 3. What is the purpose of giving them these areas? Is it to govern? Is it just to appease whose egos? Or there is a different agenda altogether for the government? 4. I maybe wrong but I don't see large numbers of people crying for the fall of the government here in Mindanao. Is the movement backed by guns and terrorism only?

When I ask locals, they just answered it has always been this way. But when will it stop? Maybe it can be answered by when did it start? History has been afraid to expound on what really is Muslim Mindanao. For most part it has even neglected it. I never really learned my Mindanao geography and history until recently from books published by the Ateneo press. It is not part of standard elementary textbooks. Films about the area are romanticized adventures and the recent ones are taken straight out of the imagination even the supposedly war movies. So where can we get our answers when all these years, we have tried to erase them from our memories like what we have done with our recent past?

I have grown to love this place. In fact I am even more comfortable now moving in this city than Manila. To see it change for something better is what everyone here hopes for. Locals cannot afford to live anywhere else. If we just let it deteriorate because of egos and principles and hidden agendas, we are not doing it a great service. I hope there will be a time when they can bring back the glory that was Zamboanga.

Plantacion Bay Cebu

Great? I was away for a weekend. a spur of th emoment thing. Trying to get away from life for a while. Landing on the Cebu airport, the display for Plantacion Bay greets all the travellers as you pass through the baggage claim. On the center was a huge booth complete with palm trees and of course a clerk complete with a wide brim hat, grey uniform and boots. I could not remember if its a zookeeper's uniform or a hacendero. Anyway that got us excited.

We headed to the resort. The staff was friendly and eager to help you. The food was surprisingly not not great.

But it was the lagoon itself. Advertised as Spanish colonial, the architecture and landscape was really at a lost. The villas are actually modern with takes on some Bali inspiration. The dreadful thing was the artificial lagoon with that awful artificial brown waterfalls with the black boulders on the rim and sand all over the rest of the place. Its like somebody never thought of how these things really occur in its natural setting. For someone who is used to going to the extent of an adventure just to see good beaches, this is not your thing. Its like going into a sanctuary of dead corals.

For service and food, I would give this place a rave for food that can relieve a breakfast craving and great service that can pass an english test. For the amenities and the architecture, I would give this place a rant. It never did advertise itself as a tropical getaway, but a spanish colonial resort is so far from what it is.

In the Presence of My Enemies

I got to the Cebu airport 3 hours ahead of my flight to Davao. In the only bookstore in the vicinity, there was a lone copy of Gracia Burnham's account of her ordeal with the Abu Sayyaf last 2001. When the book came out, I was indifferent. I am one of those millions of Filipinos who believed whatever the media dishes out. I am one of those millions of Filipinos who never bothered to read.

Seven years after and having had lived in Mindanao for the past three years, I bought the book out to satisfy my curiosity. The book started with the kidnapping at Dos Palmas in Palawan. The group's transfer to Basilan and the year long captivity with details on the subsequent release of the Filipinos hostages after ransom were paid and the forcing of women to marry them. The beheading of an immigrant. Tales of diarrhea and hunger and having to survive a predicament not really of one's fault.

Seven years after, the book speak more truths to me and made me understand what is happening in Mindanao especially Zamboanga, Basilan and Jolo. People in Manila have long romanticized the situation. Mindanao is the Philippine's Africa. And Gracia's account might well be the Asian version of "Out of Africa". But the truths written in the book were just brushed off by the government and the military. And like any citizen in this God forsaken country, I believed them. I beleived that no ransom was paid especially when Regis Romero was released. I beleived the military was straight enough not to provide guns to the rebels. I believed that the government is on top of the situation.

I tried to look the other way. Because the truths hurt.

1. The military gets a cut from the ransom money paid to the kidnappers.
2. The military provide arms to these kidnappers. The money paid by the people for taxes used to buy guns are used to kidnap and kill its own people.
3. There are ransoms paid for every victim in the kidnapping.
4. The military was responsible for the death of Martin burnham and Edibohra Yap.

It may seem not to matter now for most Filipinos. Issue after issue. The media hug each but nothing gets resolved. The issues just fade away like a bad memory in a country ailing with Alzheimers's Disease. This is my country. Maybe this is why they call this place Paradise. You can actually do anything and get away with it.

Colonial Mentality

I was reading Gilda Cordero Fernando's speech published in the Inquirer magazine last Sunday. I am one of those who can relate. I did not grew up in the same era though as Ms. fernando. But I lived in a time somewhere close to that - a time of transition. That was when it was considered baduy to speak in Filipino, read tagalog komiks, watch tagalog films, drink local coffee and the social status is based on the smuggled imported goods you buy from greenhills, cash and carry or cartimar. I was also taught to read using a primer with characters named, Ann and David. I read books with illustrations of children with blond hair riding in cars and wearing winter clothes. So my dreams were of rose bushes, wheat fields and tractors. I dream of owning boots and metal lunch boxes, playing with wheelbarrows and haystacks. I was looking for swans, chocolate candy bars and of course apples and oranges.

But what was around me? The roses were small with climbing vines making its way through the thick sampaguita trellis. And the sampaguita always smell better. I saw hectares and hectares of ricefields with coconut trees but never saw a wheat field. My friends were named Pepe, Sabel, Atan, Bulyot and Tulindoy. I have never worn boots. I bring my lunch of a plastic container and I still remember the smell of fried pork on top of sinigang na kanin and my face frowning if I was having it four days in a row. We played luksong tinik, taguan, piko, patintero and the classic gerbase which I do not really know if that's the right spelling. We have chocnuts, lemon drops, marie cookies and kornik. I was happy with what we have then except when I started reading and began wanting what I cannot have.

Years later in college, I was talking with my classmate who studied in an exclusive girls school in Manila. In a random conversation, I mentioned reading "Bituing Walang Ningning" in komiks before Sharon Cuneta did the movie. She suddenly burst into laughter as she admitted to reading it from copies of their maid. So we ended up with a banter on all the stories we have read.

It was an eye opener, being Filipino. There were other instances when I relized that its not the artifical world we crave and instilled in our minds that truly makes us happy, but the celebration and recognition of who we really are does.

Ms. Fernando said once you become a Filipino, you will never let go of it. Exactly what I wanted to say for a long long time.

Louvre Greek Masterpieces

You will be amazed thinking that these were done long before you were born and survived. Immortality is the true test of a classic.

Wall Climbing

Church of the Transfiguration

Perched on a hillside along the highway going west from Zamboanga City is the Church of the Transfiguration. Dedicated to Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, the Church has an altar with glass windows looking out into the sea. In the center is an abstract painting of the Transfiguration by the Italian parish priest's brother. Both breathtaking marvels. They make one appreciate God's love for all.