MINDANAO is the land of promise. Have you ever heard this phrase before? It was commonly heard when Ramon Magsaysay was president, and that was in the fifties. There was migration of Luzonians and those early settlers from the Visayas in the Mindanao region when it was yet underdeveloped but features rugged mountains, lakes and long seashores. The lakes yielded fish and minerals like gold hidden beneath the surface of the mountains was found. In my youth I often read that in some magazine articles. Now the region have many upper class families. Aside from the Dutertes, the Florendos, Dominguez, Dizons, Zubiris, Uys and many more surpassed the wealth of the Negrenses and Capampangans. (The negrenses had their annual Kahirup ball and the Pampangos had their Man Communidad Pampanguena. They had their yearly gatherings where they displayed heirloom jewelries. Women garbed with expensive ternos. No such events in Mindanao then. If ever there were, they will pale in comparison.
FAST FORWARD: Now we can add to that declarative sentence this one. Mindanao has many promising politicians. There’s now the presidential daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte Carpio and Pambansang Kamao Senator Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao and Senator Bong Go. The trio is now considered presidential materials. The three national figures shared the limelight of President Duterte, except maybe Pacquiao. Will the next president be coming again from the land of promise?
THROWBACK. It was mid-sixties when I first visited Mindanao. It was some kind of an adventure. I was young and so curious. My friend Marino Guiao of Angeles City, who worked as a karate instructor in Clark Air Force Base, invited me to join him and wife Elizabeth. Our destination, Pagadian, then the capital town of Zamboanga Del Sur. Me and Marino instantly fell in love with the place. Laid back, friendly residents, cheap prices and beautiful women. We decided to stay. We established Beaux Brotherhood Kyukushin Hai Karate Club in a rented second floor of a building in the downtown area.
I met a Kapampangan who worked as warehouseman (bodegero) of Rice and Corn Administration (RCA) forerunner of National Food Authority stationed in Ipil the halfway town between Pagadian and Zamboanga City. He invited me there and met more Kapampangans, mostly from Tarlac since the RCA adminstrator then was Jose Feliciano of Concepcion. Diosdado Macapagal was then president.
I was invited to have a good time in Zamboanga City one weekend. On that Sunday early afternoon when our bus reached the city, I can't help but exclaimed, Wow, what a beautiful place! Pasonanca Park, Cawa Cawa beach, Plaza Pershing, Nuestra Seniora Del Pilar Grotto and many areas you visit even in the dead of night was so safe, like how it was safe to travel to any point in Zamboanga Peninsula, Basilan and Jolo, Sulu. Almost every place, Cotobato, Dipolog, Marawi, Bukidnon and Davao. I stayed in Davao City for one week and hosted by my cousin Francisco Dizon. I remember the steak dinner I had with him at the Davao Insular Hotel and tables were filled with affluent families.
I had several Muslim friends. There was no ethnic quarrel. There was peace all over Mindanao. Though some filtered news that trouble was brewing in Cotobato. Still nursing a broken heart, I accepted the invitation of a friend to work as newswriter for the Cotobato section of Mindanao News Tribune edited by Bert Tesorero and printed in Davao City. Not long after, I was invited by Fred Babao, station manager of DXMS, to become an assistant news director of the station's news bureau. Datu Udtog Matalam was governor of the Cotobato province and Salipada K. Pendatun was the congressman of the province which was then a lone congrssional district, and not yet gerrymandered. There was utmost peace, till a movement was being formed and gained ground, the Mindanao Independence Movement (MIM). And later, the Moro National Liberation front (MNLF) of Nur Misuari, and the once peaceful Mindanao was bathed with blood. Remember the Marawi siege?