Propaganda statement posted to the MNLF Website (Aug 14):
Editorial/Bangsamoro Historical Notes: "When will Filipino colonizers end injustice and genocide war against the oppressed Bangsamoro people?" Reverend Absalom Cerveza
The stark injustice committed
by the Luzon-based Filipino colonizers against the oppressed tri-people
(Muslims, Animist Lumads and Christians) of the Bangsamoro homeland of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan (MINSUPALA) has surely led to
the prolongation of the Filipino-Moro conflict in the war-torn territory.
The
decades-long colonial genocide war of conquest by the Filipino colonialist
land-grabbers today has only duplicated the savagery and wickedness employed by
the Spanish, American and Japanese colonizers in the past. The Spanish,
American, Japanese and Filipino invaders have similarly used colonization as
oppressive weapon to subjugate and to enslave the Bangsamoro people of Mindanao. Worse, the heartless colonizers resulted to
using their own alien laws or man-made constitution in justifying their
land-grabbing scheme, plunder and crime against humanity with the callous
intent to deceive both the Filipino and Bangsamoro communities as well as the
whole of humanity forever.
Today,
the Filipino colonizers have used the same colonial strategy to stranglehold
the Bangsamoro people, turning deaf and blind to the grave injustice done
against the colonized victims. Worse, they want to impose a “cursed” identity
and prostituted culture upon the colonized and brutalized Indigenous Peoples.
Thus,
the Mindanao tri-people (Muslim, Animist Lumad
natives and conscious Christian settlers) have militantly opposed their tyrannical
colonial conquest by continuously pursuing a freedom struggle to liquidate
Philippine colonialism in the Bangsamoro homeland.
Today
to help right the wrong, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines
(CBCP) spearheaded by its once President Cardinal Orlando B. Quevedo,
Archbishop of Cotabato, has repeatedly pointed out the “injustice” against the
identity, sovereignty and development of the Bangsamoro people of
Mindanao as the primary root cause of the conflict.
However, the Filipino colonialist land-grabbers, headed by
the political leaders in Malacanang, both Houses of Philippine Congress and
majority of the so-called justices in the Philippine Supreme Court have shown
no moral integrity and uprightness to accept the truth? On this turn of
colonial events, Reverend Absalom Cerveza, Spokesman of the MNLF Peace Panel,
has always bewailed the brazenness and callousness of the Luzon-based Filipino
colonialist land-grabbers in committing the grievous injustice against the
Bangsamoro people of Mindanao. In the past, he
has publicly posited that “Mindanao peace is
Bangsamoro freedom, not injustice of Philippine colonialism.” He has also
called the attention of the Filipino colonizers to take stock of the damage and
danger of the continuation of the Mindanao
war. He has pleaded for the stoppage of the crime against humanity by the
Filipino colonialist occupation forces for Mindanao
peace. He has earnestly appealed time and again to Philippine colonialism to be
straightforward, serious and sincere to achieve a permanent and comprehensive
peaceful settlement to the Mindanao problem.
He has called repeatedly on the Filipino colonizers not to betray Mindanao
peace time and again because it will only make the “Catholic” Filipino nation a
land of war-mongers and continuously “sick man of Asia.”
But
the Philippine government or ‘Imperial Manila’ has had repeatedly betrayed Mindanao peace by reneging on correctly implementing the
peace agreements forged between the government and the MNLF except in
implementing its own unilateral superficial version.
Now,
Reverend Cerveza has posed another question to the Filipino colonizers and the
whole of humanity: “When will Filipino colonizers of Luzon end the injustice
and genocide war against the Bangsamoro people of Mindanao?”
He
is also now wondering why the notorious Mamapasano invasion was designed by
Malacanang to be used again a justification to create another unilateral and
farcical autonomous entity in the Bangsamoro ancestral homeland that never can
guarantee Mindanao peace. The treacherous
Mamapasano invasion led to the killing of 43 Filipino PNP SAF invaders, 8
Bangsamoro freedom fighters and 12 civilian Muslims that contributed to
the rough sailing of BBL to be enacted into law.
UNDER
PHILIPPINE COLONIALISM, CAN ARMM AND CONTROVERSIAL BBL BRING MINDANAO
PEACE?
“It
is impossible that the unilaterally created ARMM and another Philippine
Congress-enacted BBL can bring Mindanao
peace,” said Chairman Prof. Nur Misuari of the Moro National Liberation Front
(MNLF).
He
has emphasized that the comprehensive solution to the Filipino-Moro war in Mindanao is for the two parties in agreement to correctly
implement the international peace agreements. He could not just understand why
the ‘peace process’ is used by the Manila government to prolong merely the Mindanao conflict to institutionalize Philippine
colonialism in the occupied territory.
He
has also bewailed the colonial strategy of the Manila government to divide and
to deceive both the Bangsamoro leadership and people in order not to implement
correctly the international peace agreements that have guaranteed to establish
‘just and lasting’ peace in war-wracked Mindanao.
He has always expressed the positive view that the September
2, 1996 GRP-OIC-MNLF Jakarta Peace Agreements could definitely end the
Filipino-Moro war in Mindanao once correctly and sincerely implemented by
Philippine colonialism instead of using dilatory and deceptive political
tactics in undermining the agreement. The MNLF chairman has just recently
presided over a general meeting of MNLF political, military and religious
leaders in the MNLF GHQ in the Bangsamoro heartland. The meeting was attended
by the different MNLF State Committee (or Command) chieftains, military
officers and religious headmen from all over Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan,
including North Borneo. How does the MNLF
Chairman diagnose the problem besetting Philippine colonialism vis-Ã -vis the
farcical Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and controversial Bangsamoro
Basic Law (BBL) that proposes another version of autonomy to be simply called
“Bangsamoro?” It is recalled that all unilateral fabrication of the Philippine
government geared to attain Mindanao peace, such as the Marcos version 2-region
autonomy (region 9 and 12), 4-province ARMM created by the Corazon C. Aquino
regime and the 5-province ARMM crafted by the Arroyo government, proved only a
miserable failure to net Mindanao peace.
Presently,
President Benigno S. Aquino III, the son of the first lady Chief Executive, has
boldly with sinister design embarked on duplicating the “failed experiment” or
political legacy of her mother and other predecessors by stubbornly posturing
for the passage into law of the controversial BBL.
However,
with the controversy now surrounding the BBL political project, bordering on
the Mamapasano invasion fiasco, non-consultation of major stakeholders by
OPAPP, unconstitutionality question, etc., the sure betrayal of Mindanao peace is again a probability.
On
this colonial development surrounding the political strategy of Philippine
colonialism, MNLF Chairman Misuari has pointed out that both the ARMM and the
new version prospect autonomy based on BBL is nothing but a mirage to delay
only the complete settlement of the Mindanao
war. The unilateral political exercise of the Manila government to bring
meaningful and durable peace to Mindanao may
border only in wishful thinking and deceptive formula. Surely, it would be
impossible to bring peace to war-torn Mindanao
because it would emanate from another peace agreement that can be easily
betrayed by Philippine colonialism.
The
MNLF chairman has cited the simple fact that the Philippine government has had
forged three peace agreements with the MNLF since 1976 up to 1996. But none of
the substantial peace accords has been correctly and completely implemented
except unilaterally establishing the 2-region 9 and 12 fake autonomy in 1977
and later manufacturing the 4 and 5-province ARMM that dismally ended only as
the “cheating capital of Philippine elections.”
He
has again reiterated that “without justice, there can never be an end to the
war in Mindanao.”
WHY
CAN’T PHILIPPINE COLONIALISM BRING PEACE TO MINDANAO?
In
revisiting the historical era of the Spanish land-grabbers in Luzon, Visayas
and Mindanao, it all started when the dark
historical past was punctuated by buccaneerism and so-called exploration
conquest.
The
foreign invaders patronized injustice and used the vehicle of colonization in
land-grabbing native lands and enslaving the native inhabitants. The Spanish
invaders for one started in using the “law of the jungle” that “might is right”
with all impunity in colonizing the natives and robbing them of their agricultural,
mineral and aquatic resources in the name of their despotic king, country and
religion.
The
Spanish buccaneers or ‘conquistadores’ forced their way to the Orient,
particularly Southeast Asia, starting early 1500s to land-grab the islands situated
in Visayas and Luzon in the name of ‘exploration’ and ‘proselytization.’ They
also in turned converted the natives into Christianized colonial slaves as the
Spanish king considered the commoner Spaniards his loyal servants and soldiers
of genocide war of conquest.
Although
the 1521 Ferdinand Magellan exploratory invasion ended in a debacle because he
was killed in mortal combat by Rajah Kulafu (‘Lapu-Lapu’), a Tausug/Sama
Bangingi warrior from the Sultanate of Sulu, the Spanish invaders under Miguel
de Legazpi pursued in occupying Visayas islands around 1540s. The Spanish
buccaneers named the island habitat ‘Islas del Filipe’ (‘Philip islands’) in
honor ofthe immoral and “king of inequities” Philip II of Spain. The
islands of Luzon were later included under the
new Spanish land-grabbed nation, which in the beginning was inhabited by
flourishing civilizational settlements under the Muslim and non-Muslim natives.
The Spaniards called the native settlers distinctively “Moros” after the
Muslims of Mauretania whose inhabitants were called “Maurus”, “Moors” or
“Mauris.” Mauretania with Arab support conquered and ruled Spain for 782
years.
On
one hand, the Spanish invaders branded “Indios” the non-Muslim settlers in Manila. While the Spanish
colonizers easily subdued the settler native Indios, the Moros in Manila under
Rajah Sulayman Mahmud and Rajah Matanda as well as Rajah Lakandula of Tondo
(‘Tondal’) fought fiercely the Spanish invaders in the so-called Battle of
Tondal. But at the end of the day the native Muslims were defeated by the
heavily-armed Spanish soldiers. The remaining Moro settlers in Luzon hurriedly
withdrew from the area to seek refuge in Brunei
and Mindanao.
In
1977 Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil cited the historical antecedents of Luzon pre-Hispanic period in her own candid words. She
clearly narrated:
“It
is hard to believe that Manila was once firmly
under Muslim heel, Muslims controlled the seat of government, the wealth and
trade and down the Pasig and Boi Lake Batangas
as well as the sea lanes to Mindanao and Borneo.
The Muslims were the ruling class in Luzon;
the rich traders, cultural leaders and missionaries, the ones with the know-how
and the right connections, the literacy and what’s more, the right religion.”
After
three centuries later, the American and Japanese invaders pursued the
colonization conquest of Filipinas (later Philippines)
composed only of the islands of Luzon and Visayas as well as ‘Moro Nation’
(Bangsamoro homeland of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan).
While both the American and Japanese marauders handily defeated the Filipinos
of Luzon and Visayas, they met stiff resistance from the Moros of Mindanao. The
Bangsamoro people considered them similarly just another ugly face of
colonialist land-grabbers ruthlessly on rampage to trample their fundamental
human rights and freedom.
The
Muslim freedom fighters of Moroland continuously staged open revolt against the
American colonizers during their more than 40 years of colonial conquest in the
region. The strong protest against American colonial rule was demonstrated both
in violent and peaceful means.
The
American dark crusade in the Bangsamoro homeland was notoriously marked by the
merciless and brutal massacres of Muslim fighters and civilians characterized
by the mountainous Bud Bagsak and Bud Daho battling events in Jolo Island.
Indeed
the 1906 Bud Daho battle was literally a “massacre” and only proved the
wickedness and brutality of America
to pursue colonial land-grabbing. The heinous incident massacre only showed the
propensity of the American soldiers to brutalize aboriginal natives in
depriving them of liberties and ancestral homeland as perpetrated against the
native aborigines in North America. The Bud
Daho massacre explicitly mirrored the brutal U.S. government colonial conquest
campaigns against the Bangsamoro aborigines of Lupah Sug (Sulu).
The
clearest violation of human rights and deprivation of the basic freedom of the
island natives was even protested by a conscious American writer in 1910,
coming out with a personal journal thesis that read:
“Reflection on the ‘Battle
of Bud Daho,’ Jolo, Sulu, March 1906.”
“A
Pen Warmed-up in Hell, Mark Twain in Protest 97 (1910).”
“A tribe of Moros, dark skinned savages, had fortified themselves in the bowl
of an extinct crater not many miles from Jolo, and they were hostile and bitter
against us because we have been trying for eight years to take their liberties
away from them…General Wood’s order had been to ‘kill or capture those
savages’…The enemy numbered six hundred – including women and children and
children – and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry
for his dead mother. –Mark Twain, Grief and Mourning for the Night.”
During
the short-period Japanese colonization campaigns in early 1940s, the Moro
freedom fighters of Mindanao only proved the
Bangsamoro people’s tag as the “unconquered race.” They registered in the
Japanese journal to have killed thousands more Japanese imperialist soldiers
compared to all the combined Japanese soldiers killed in Luzon
and Visayas by the Filipinos.
To
the very end of their freedom struggle against the new rampaging Asian
colonizers, the Muslim freedom fighters never wavered and surrendered to the
tyrannical Japanese forces unlike the Filipinos of Luzon, marking the “Fall of
Bataan” and the “Fall of Corregidor Island.”
After
World War II, the treacherous colonization of the Bangsamoro homeland and the
ancestral Cordillera Region of the Igorots were perpetrated by the U.S. government
in conspiracy with the Philippine Commonwealth regime. The Mindanao territory
of the Bangsamoro people and ‘Mountain
Province’ of the Igorots were
illegally and immorally incorporated into the U.S. government-created “Philippine
Republic” on July 4, 1946.
The
1946 American-Filipino conspiracy of depriving both the Bangsamoro and Igorot
peoples of their fundamental human rights, independence and sovereignty to
stagnate, to suffer and to face “suicide” under the “rotten to the core”
(according to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte) Philippine colonial leadership
has just led to the Filipino-Moro war in Mindanao today. Furthermore, it also
resulted to the continued restlessness of the Igorots in Filipino-occupied
Cordillera Region.
In
emphasizing, the tragedy of both the Moros and Igorots under Philippine
colonialism, the crystal-clear analysis of Joseph E. Fallon in 1987 is worth a
review. He vividly illustrated:
“At
the start of the U.S.
occupation of Moroland in 1913, the Muslims represented approximately 98% of
the territory’s population. Virtually all of the land at that time was owned or
occupied by the Moros. As a result of half a century intensive, systematic
Filipino colonization, the Moros are now a dispossessed minority in their land.
They constitute only 40% of the current population (Filipino sources claim they
are just 27%), own less than 17% of the land, most of it barren land in remote,
mountain areas, and have had 80% of their people reduced to the status of
landless tenants…after so many decades of abuses and betrayal, for the Moros
and Igorots to trust Manila and to remain with the Philippines would not only
be naïve, it would be suicidal.”
Indeed,
the clear objective analysis has only confirmed today the miserable
backwardness, stagnancy and uncertainty of the Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao
and Cordilerra Region under the Philippine colonial government. The colonized
victims can never hope to fully progress and develop under Philippine
colonialism that only takes pride in continuous injustice and genocide
war.
In
the final analysis, to help end the historical injustice inflicted by the once
Spanish, American and Japanese colonizers on the oppressed Bangsamoro people of
Mindanao, why can’t the past colonizers see
the light of true justice today? Why can’t they help right the clearest
injustice committed against the Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao and Cordillera
now still suffering untold misery, agony, uncertainty and inhumanity under the
Luzon-based Filipino colonialist land-grabbers?
Why
can’t the justice-conscious Spanish, American, Japanese and Philippine
government today morally end the monumental injustice committed against the
colonized Bangsamoro and Igorot peoples of Asia?
Does
this mean that Spain, America, Japan
and Philippines
have no morality and humanity at all to be a true and justice-conscious nation?
–osm, mnlfnet.com
http://mnlfnet.com/Articles/Editorial_14August2015_WHEN%20WILL%20FILIPINO%20COLONIZERS%20END%20INJUSTICE%20AND%20GENOCIDE%20WAR.htm
