VIEWS

For Peace in Mindanao:
Mutual Acceptance, Not Cultural Solidarity
by B.R. Rodil

What can we, educators, do to contribute to peace in Mindanao?

In the first place, how do we view ourselves? We normally and often proudly proclaim to the world that we are the moulders of the young. We train them to become leaders of the nation. Ours is an honored profession, we say.

Although I must say that we are not so honored when it comes to salaries, which is why we resort to sidelines like selling longganisa, tapa, bra, panties, insurance, and so on.

We are also carriers of the national culture. But what is national Filipino culture in Mindanao and Sulu? Can we truly and realistically speak of one unified solid culture in order for us to discuss today, and in peace, the subject of cultural solidarity? And are we properly equipped, as educators, to do so?

Are we aware, for instance, that there are at least, aside from those who migrated from Luzon and the Visayas, 18 tribal indigenous tribes in the region, and 13 Islamized ethnolinguistic groups, equally indigenous, who, together, constitute, respectively, approximately five and twenty percent of our regional population?

Are we aware that we who make up the 75 percent, mostly migrants or born to migrant parents, are dominant not only in the field of commerce and politics but also, and especially for our purposes here, in the sphere of education? Which means that the culture we are propagating is that of the dominant group? Which, in effect, wittingly or unwittingly, tends to marginalize the cultures of the dominated minority?

Are we aware that we in the dominant majority are also the carriers of colonial, I repeat, colonial — Spanish and American cultures?

Let me go into specifics. We accept and uphold the rule of the majority. We got the institution of "majority rule" from the Americans. And as a matter of democratic principle, it is basically sound. In fact, this is the way all our elections go, from the selection of class officers to the choice of national leadership. Also, new local political units like barangays, municipalities and provinces are created through a plebiscite.

Our history

But do we know how we, the majority, became the dominant group in Mindanao? Do we know why in the first place we have to have this Institute, and this discussion on cultural solidarity? Let me retrace history very quickly.

Once upon a time, a Portuguese mercenary named Magellan came to Limasawa. He entered into a sandugo (blood compact) with the people there as proof that they came as friends, and as friends they were hosted. In our culture the sandugo means that the contracting parties become blood brothers, not just friends, sworn to defend and help each other in times of need, and will not take advantage of one another. The priest with him said the first mass ever in our islands — and we Catholics fondly look back to this day as the day when Christ set foot on our shores.

But what most of us are no longer aware of is that after the mass, a tree was cut down, formed into a huge cross and planted on top of a hill. Magellan told the people that with this sign, they would be safe from storms and lightnings, and from their enemies. What he did not tell them was that with this cross, he took possession of the islands in the name of the King of Spain, and that, therefore, we were no longer the possessors of our lands. As far as the world was concerned, the King of Spain was the new owner!

Those of us who were conquered and colonized fought back for more than three hundred years and gave birth to the Filipino nation. And on June 12, 1898, the first Republic of the Philippines formally came into existence.

Those who were colonized and successfully liberated themselves from the Spanish colonizers were the Filipinos in 1898. But were we all colonized? No! Certainly not, but many of us are not aware of this historical fact, too.

The peoples of the Cordillera fought back Spanish invasion forces and were not colonized. The Aetas of the Sierra Madre successfully avoided the colonizers and were not subjugated. The Moros or Muslims of Mindanao and Sulu have always held their heads high before us and are especially proud that throughout the entire three hundred and thirty three years of Spanish attempts to subject them, they have remained unvanquished. The 18 indigenous tribes of Mindanao, too, generally remained free.

Consciousness-wise, these were not Filipinos in 1898!

Filipinos of their own accord?

Then, how did they become Filipinos? For our purposes, this, I submit is a very important question. Did they become Filipinos of their own accord, or by the will of another? The answer is clear in our history.

On December 10, 1898, Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris. For $20 million (Mexican dollars), Spain sold the entire Philippine archipelago to the Americans: those territories which have been colonized by them but recovered by the Filipino revolutionaries and formalized into the territory of the Republic of the Philippines six months earlier and those territories which they never subjugated!

What did Spain own that she could sell on December 10? Nothing! And what did the Americans buy? Nothing! But colonizers were never in the habit of ever seeking the opinions of their victims. Well, to make the long story short, the Americans with that land title neatly called the Treaty of Paris came with a total of 256,000 American troops, spent $350 million, killed one-sixth of the Filipino population of about 8 million, and more than 20,000 Moros, etc., and conquered us all — all to assert U.S. sovereignty in their new insular possessions.

It was the American aggressors who decided that all of us should be Filipinos. It was they who decided that their new insular possessions should be called Philippines. And with their program of compulsory universal education, they moulded Filipino minds after their own image and likeness — little brown Americans as one American author prefers to put it.

Civilized and uncivilized

One unfortunate value which our new colonizers introduced into our system was the categories they made of our population. They classified us into civilized and uncivilized. The Christians were the civilized, and the uncivilized were those they called "Moros" and "wild tribes". And this classification stuck and was amply reflected in the policies and structures of colonial government.

Provinces dominated by Christians easily became regular provinces like Surigao and Misamis (now Occidental and Oriental); provinces heavily populated with anyone or more of the so-called "wild tribes" (which later became interchangeable with "non-Christian") were made special provinces like Agusan (which included Bukidnon); and provinces inhabited, though not necessarily dominated, numerically that is, by Moros became part of the Moro Province. These were what were known then as the districts of Davao, Cotabato, Lanao, Zamboanga and Sulu.

The policy of government for the Moros and non-Christians was that of absorption and assimilation. As early as 1906, the Americans decided that the cultures of these people were too absurd to serve as a basis for civilized government. And so, their cultures were given no room for recognition and adoption in the field of education.

Private property

What about in the sphere of land ownership? In the first place, American-imposed land laws, which unfortunately are still in effect today, adopted the regalian doctrine and the torrens system, or in short, the private property system with respect to land. As far as they were concerned, there was only one state domain. Communal or tribal domain, or even the state domains of the various Muslim sultanates which had been there even before the Spaniards came and remained intact during the entire period of Spanish colonialism were given no room in the legal system. But just to be sure, they passed a law in 1903 declaring null and void all land grants made by datus or sultans, Muslim or non-Christian, unless effected with government consent.

But what must they do with these Moros who, in their view, were simply incorrigible troublemakers? These could be contained with armed might, they felt, but this was very uneconomical. So, they experimented on an idea: the more lasting method would be to make the uncivilized live side by side with the civilized, and learn the productivity and peaceful ways of the civilized. Thus, in 1912 they passed a law opening the agricultural colonies of Pagalungan, Pikit ang Glan. The experiment was a success; the first colonists (Cebuanos and Maguindanao in one site; the Cebuanos and Manobos in another, etc.) lived together in harmony. And that experiment became the basis for opening the rest of Mindanao to land settlers and homesteaders. In other words, the "agriculture colony" concept of that time was the rough equivalent of a counter-insurgency program, implemented to subdue the "uncivilized Moros." This, of course, was not the only reason for the resettlement program.

Now, who benefited from the resettlement program which was initially introduced by the Americans and later continued or sustained without question by the various Philippine administrators after 1946? The migrants from Luzon and the Visayas. Partly because land laws were designed in their favor.

For example, the Public Land law of 1903 stated that homesteaders were entitled to 16 hectares. In 1919, this was increased to 24 hectares. At the same time, the specified hectarage allowed to Moros and non-Christians was 10 hectares in 1903 and reducedto 8 in 1919. The amended public land law of 1936 reduced the homestead size back to 16 hectares, and cut the hectarage for Moros and non-Christians to four hectares. You will see, therefore, that laws operated in favor of homesteaders from Luzon and the Visayas.

How did the colonial situation affect the population balance? Until 1939, the Christian migrants constituted the minority in Mindanao and Sulu. By the 1948 census, the trend has been the reverse.

Clash of Cultures

But what has all this historical excursion got to do with our present topic? And to peace education in the region?

First, we have to understand that if we have a clash of cultures in Mindanao and Sulu, this is a situation which was the artificial creation of the colonizers, and we who happen to be the present protagonists cannot be held to be primarily responsible — as if this was the way we wanted it to be from the very beginning. We have been thrown into each other's lap by forces bigger than ourselves. And so, although in the past many of our ancestors were made to fight one another, we cannot now do the same.

Second, those of us who belong to the dominant culture happen to be the ultimate beneficiaries of colonial policies, and those who are presently in the minority cultures happen to be the losers. It is for us who have gained the upper hand to initiate the correction of inequities brought to our lives by colonizers.

If indeed we accept those who are less in number and who have very little tribal or ancestral lands left to them as brothers and fellow citizens, then the least we can do is to accept these people, acknowledge their distinct cultures as fundamental human right and give them ample room in our curriculum. The truth is we, educators, know so little about them and their cultures. So far, the most that many of us have done to them is to make them subject matters for our masteral or doctoral dissertations and that's that. We obtain our MAs and Ph.D's. but what have we given them in return?

Cultural pluralism

Finally, if we have to be instruments or agents of peace, we educators have to mould the minds of our young to the realities of Mindanao, that the people here are made up of at least 18 indigenous tribes, 13 Islamized ethnolinguistic groups and migrants from Luzon and the Visayas, each of which has a culture of its own.

If our main interest is national unity, this is not possible by cultural solidarity. It can only be by mutual acceptance of each other's culture, or the promotion of cultural pluralism. Cultural pluralism is premised, not on the size of population but on the sanctity and dignity of each culture.

Culture is a fundamental human right, like name or identity is to each one of us and must be so respected and upheld. 

(This is an edited version of the paper delivered by Prof. Rudy Rodil at the Peace Education Institute for Educators of Mindanao, jointly sponsored by the International Institute on Peace Education and the Notre Dame University Peace Education Center in cooperation with the Peace Commission, held on December 9-11, 1988 at Notre Dame University, Cotabato City. Though written 14 years ago, we are disseminating Prof. Rodil's piece as a timely reminder for Mindanawons, particularly educators and journalists, as we begin 2003).

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Mutual Acceptance, Not Cultural Solidarity by B.R. Rodil