Monday, June 16, 2008 Mongaya: Ces Drilon By Anol Mongaya Panahom
THE Abu Sayyaf dramatically landed again on the front pages of the nation’s biggest national dailies with its latest caper, the abduction of Ces Drilon, two of her cameramen, and a Mindanao peace advocate Prof. Octavio Dinampo.
In my view, this means:
l The Abu Sayyaf does not appreciate the role media plays even within the context of a guerilla war. Coverage of the ongoing conflict and the pursuit of in-depth stories spell danger for journalists. Either members of the Philippine media just sit and cover safely from afar and thus present a distorted picture of the situation or we follow the path of Ces Drilon of seeking the story right there in Abu Sayyaf lairs despite the hazards.
l The Abu Sayyaf does not believe in civil society efforts towards peace-building. Thus, being a civil society peace advocate is no shield against Abu Sayyaf abductions.
l The country’s armed forces obviously have not crippled the Abu Sayyaf capability for mayhem through the years. Why? I can only guess that, maybe, a solution to the Abu Sayyaf question will end the lucrative annual budget for waging the war.
l The roots of the Abu Sayyaf and the myriad of kidnap groups in Muslim Mindanao could be traced to the slave system during pre-Hispanic times and the Moro-Spanish wars in the 16th to 19th centuries. In that period, Moro pirates attacked Christian towns all over the Visayas and Luzon and brought home their captives to become slaves in Mindanao.
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I have been reading a lot of historical materials about the anti-Moro wars waged in Cebu during the early Spanish period recently owing to my involvement in the history project of the Cebuano Studies Center of the University of San Carlos and the Province of Cebu. I’m writing a volume on the history of Naga City.
The series of Moro attacks then had an impact on the formation of several towns in Cebu. It also had an impact on the early migration of some Cebuanos to Mindanao.
A family heritage book that my late father edited during the ‘70s chronicled the saga of three Mongaya brothers from Medellin, Cebu. During the Spanish period, the three went to Mindanao to look for a brother abducted by Moro pirates. There they started the Mindanao branch of the Mongaya clan.
It seems the practice of kidnapping freemen to become slaves by so-called Moro pirates then found its way to the present-day Abu Sayyaf and other armed groups.
When I spent time in Cotabato City during the early ‘90s writing for the Philippine News and Features, I submitted reports about Moro bandit groups harassing the local business community with kidnap-for-ransom capers. The victims sometime spent months in captivity inside bamboo cages and passed on from one armed group to another.
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Top customs officials are angry that their people in Cebu failed to monitor when the former floating hotel and casino, the Philippine Dream, left its berth off Mactan Island recently. Apparently, the Bureau of Internal Revenue was able to collect taxes from the owners of the vessel but not the Bureau of Customs before the vessel was towed by a tugboat. But what’s this I hear that some officials at the Mactan customs cleared the release of the vessel?
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Fuel prices have gone up again. Good for the administration of President Arroyo that most Filipinos are not as militant as before. But how long can we withstand the weekly onslaught on our pockets?
The administration, I understand, is hell bent on mitigating the impact of the increase in prices. For instance, Secretary Cerge Remonde in a press conference last Friday announced plans for the distribution of rice to the poor in Cebu City though I’m not sure how long the government can do this.
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Mike Limpag of Sun.Star Cebu and some other friends tried to sway me for some time now into transferring my blog “In Between Columns” from Friendster to Wordpress. Let’s see in the next few days.
For the meantime, friends can check out my blog entry on the accusations hurled by Mr. Efrain Pelaez. It seems the guy considers reports and comments on issues unfavorable to him as “rumor and propaganda” and journalists writing about these concerns following “a script.” He has no qualms about hitting journalists who don’t agree with him below the belt. In his mind, only news reports and comments that favor him are facts.
I wrote a short retort to his letter in the Sun.Star talkback. But his rants deserve a longer reply that I posted in the Friendster blog.
(Check out my blog “In Between Columns” at anol.blogs. friendster.com/anols_blog/)
