Friday, August 29, 2008 Roperos: Not a religious war By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
LET’S face it. The current conflict in North Cotabato is no more a matter of religion than about two competing factions’ inability to agree on a common schedule and program to celebrate their annual barangay fest.
That the Cotabato war has escalated, becoming quite violent and bloody, is not because of the traditional enmity between the Catholics and the Muslims but rather because of a conflict over social and political interests.
To say that up to now there still exists a deeply rooted Christian-Muslim enmity is to deny the fact of the two people’s experience under two foreign colonizers in the past five centuries from the 1500s to the 2000s.
Both peoples should realize that while they are of the same racial origin but with different religious orientation, they are essentially kindred in body and soul as Malays. Before Spain came, there was no “bad blood” among inhabitants from Luzon to Mindanao.
Today, Christians and Muslims in rural areas live out their poverty and material need together. They share their misery and sufferings together beyond the moral and spiritual influence of their respective social and political elites.
A few years ago, I visited villages in the highlands of Agusan del Sur in the company of rattan pole buyers for the furniture makers of Mandaue City. I was touched at how the inhabitants, rattan pole gatherers, lived harmoniously.
The people were of mixed cultural backgrounds and origins. There were Cebuanos, Ilonggos, Tagalogs, Muslims and Ilocanos living with the lumads or the natives. They were of mixed political and ideological orientation. There were elements of the NPA there, and Muslim and military informers.
But while they look innocent and naïve, those who accompanied us around were wise to the ways of the buyers, the lowlanders who, from experience, could hoodwink them at the wink of an eye.
They were skilled in classifying the poles according to diameter, pole length, diameter size, and quality, such as the maturity of the cut poles. They were wise to the environment.
The people who have been dislocated because of the current conflict with the MILF would be the kind who would not hesitate to join Ilaga fighter in defense of the peace and quite of their villages. Many of them could be scions of the early Ilaga who were largely Ilonggos and Ilocanos, rather than Cebuanos and Tagalogs.
But they are fighting now no longer as Christians or Muslims or lumads. They could be fighting now for the peace and quiet of their homes until the MILF came.
