Saturday, December 02, 2006 Tausug artists rue NGO's abuse By Grace L. Plata
WHAT started out as an endeavor that saw a group of Tausug performing artists coming to Davao for the first time and performing to spread their message of peace is now wracked by "un-peace" after the performers cried foul over the treatment they got from their non-government organization host.
The young Tausug performers, along with their Davao director, trooped en masse to the office of the deputy mayor on Muslim Affairs Thursday to air their grievances and complaints against the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID), an NGO that is co-producing their play.
Arnel Mardoquio, the show director, told the deputy mayor for Tausug Masil Ahalul, Al-Haj, that they wanted to help IID's peace advocacy so they agreed to stage the "Antigong Agong" a stage musicale commemorating the Bud Dahu massacre 100 years ago and performed by the Puddang Lupa Sug Artist Guild of Jolo, Sulu.
It was their agreement that IID would shoulder the food and accommodation of the 22 performers from Jolo.
Mardoquio said the young performers complained to them about not being given adequate food and worse, being served meat that were not halal. Halal is a manner of slaughtering prescribed by the shari'a.
Mardoquio said they have raised the complaints through proper channels within the organization a number of times, but their complaints were not heeded.
The final straw for the Tausug youth, he said, was when one of them was called "baboy" (pig) by one of the staff of the organization. For Moslems, pork and pig are harem or forbidden, regarded as dirty and impure.
Since their complaints to the organization did not yield them anything, they decided to seek the help of the deputy mayor for Tausugs.
Mardoquio said that things have gone way beyond apologies. One of the youth said "the damage has been done".
The deputy mayor for the Tausug promised that he will have a dialogue with the executive director of IID and will try to help the group in any way possible.
The group plans to move out of the house owned by the organization where they are staying at present and will continue their performances without the organization's help. They said they are peace advocates and do not want any trouble provided that their rights are respected.
A representative of the IID, when contacted last Thursday, refused to comment on the complaints but said they will air out their side of the issue very soon.
Antigong Agong was performed at the Matina Town Square last Saturday and will be doing the rounds of schools here, specifically Ateneo de Davao University high school and college departments, the University of Immaculate Conception, and the University of Mindanao.
"The objective of the play is peace advocacy," Kreskin Evora, marketing officer of the play, said in an earlier press conference. The members of the play are, in fact, descendants of the Tausug people massacred in a mosque in Jolo by American soldiers about one hundred years ago -- the story of which is what Antigong Agong is all about.
The members of the play wanted to put an end to the misunderstanding between Tausugs and Americans by expressing themselves, in behalf of the Tausug people in Jolo, through the play.
