Friday, December 19, 2008 Valdehuesa: Roots of modern conflict in Mindanao, token attention, betrayal By Manuel Valdehuesa Street Talk
(Fifth of 10 Parts)
THE uneventful years of president Carlos P. Garcia's administration (1957-1962) and short-lived hype of the ineffectual Mindanao-Sulu-Palawan Association (Minsupala) was followed by the entry of Diosdado Macapagal as president and our own Maning Pelaez as vice president.
Mindanaons welcomed the tandem and found a ray of hope for a decent share of development. Macapagal made capital of the fact that his in-laws, the Macaraegs, parents of First Lady Eva and grandparents of current president Gloria, settled in Iligan City. It enabled him to claim affinity and sympathy for Mindanao and its developmental needs. Thus it was expected that he, together with Maning Pelaez, would earnestly work to improve conditions on the island. But it was not to be.
Shortly after they took their oath of office, Macapagal appointed Maning to the Department of Foreign Affairs -- where he would pose no threat to Macapagal's political plans. Maning had made known that he wanted the agriculture and natural resources portfolio but Macapagal ignored his wish and insisted on keeping him at the DFA. Not wanting to rock the boat so early in their term, Maning had no choice but acquiesce -- effectively preventing him from participating in decisions affecting Mindanao.
However, as a way of making good on his promise to help the island, Macapagal created the Mindanao Development Authority and appointed CDO mayor Tinying Borja as its chairman on concurrent capacity. But that's about all he did. The MDA was a paper authority, with no funds and no real powers.
Borja did plunge into his tasks vigorously, eager to draw up a master plan for Mindanao, which he had hoped would include a circumferential railway and electrification powered by Maria Cristina and new dams. But his earnest efforts proved futile. Macapagal never gave his work the attention or resources it deserved.
Before long, Tinying realized there was no substance to the MDA and his role in it -- which proved more ceremonial than anything. He resigned in disgust and confined himself to city affairs. He became disillusioned with Macapagal, who would not give Mindanao its rightful share of development or the national budget.
As everyone knows, the Macapagal-Pelaez tandem snapped towards the end of their second year in office when Macapagal "borrowed" Maning's honor to extricate his administration from a bribery scandal that shook his cabinet and Congress. There's de-ja vu in the way the NBN-ZTE scandal has shaken Macapagal daughter's today!
Maning felt deeply aggrieved and betrayed - it drove him to quit the cabinet peremptorily. That abrupt parting of ways once again dimmed hopes of Mindanaons, who by that time were becoming more alarmed as massive immigration from the north continued to fill up the island.
Before Garcia and Macapagal, Mindanao was largely terra incognita to Manila. The province of Cebu -- which could easily fit in a small corner of Mindanao -- had a larger population. But by the time Macapagal became president, the demographic landscape had radically changed. Large settlements filled up Mindanao lands from the coasts to the uplands while its forests resounded with the incessant whirring of circular saws and the traffic of huge logging trucks.
To be fair, many enterprising Mindanaons also managed by that time to scrape up capital through joint ventures and other imaginative arrangements -- and joined the timber-cutting smorgasbord, making great fortunes alongside their Luzon, Visayas and/or foreign partners.
Greed is contagious. It begets exploitation... and injustice.
Former UNESCO regional director for Asia and the Pacific and director at the development academy of the Philippines, Manny heads Gising Barangay Movement: valdeman_esq@yahoo.com
