IT COULD very well have been just a slow day on the news front, but there you have it, emblazoned across the October 9, 2014 issue of Manila Bulletin, the headline that went “How safe is Mindanao?”
In truth I would not have noticed it had not Carol Arguillas of Mindanews posted it on her social network page. On closer reading, the article actually refers to a recent travel advisory issued by the Australian government for its citizens under an updated “Kidnapping Threat Worldwide” bulletin that included the Philippines, particularly Mindanao. The advisory urged Australians to reevaluate travel to “eastern, central, and western Mindanao”, specifically to 22 provinces and the city of Cotabato. It also proceeded to acknowledge that kidnapping threats
are also high in Afghanistan, parts of North and West Africa, Colombia, Iraq, Sabah or eastern Malaysia, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
As a Mindanawon who has had to explain to people in Luzon not too many years ago that yes, there is electricity in Davao City and many areas of Mindanao, and that no, Muslims are not inherently untrustworthy, you can understand that reading the headline triggered a bout of hyperacidity.
Understand that this was not simply a misplaced case of ardent love of place. But it is about the unfortunate practice of “rounding off” disturbances to the nearest urban capital or region. As a case in point, The Philippine Star front page for October 10 carried the item “US issues warning on Metro Manila bomb plot”. This was another security advisory, but at least the US Government did not round it off by raising concern about safety in the entire Luzon.
Media practitioners from Mindanao rue how editors outside of Mindanao (and even those who are in it) often dateline cases that happened in other areas to places that are perceived as notorious for security and order problems —Zamboanga City, Cotabato City, even Davao City is not spared—or to highlight the entire southern Philippine region aka Mindanao. One can argue that it is all about enabling the audience to gain a better handle of the location of a story.
But it is another thing to, by poor editorial practices, inadvertently painting an inaccurate picture of an already misunderstood place and peoples.
To be sure there are other worrisome titles that pertain to Mindanao to which we have to pay attention. These include: “3 dead, 7 hurt in Church blast” that The Mindanao Daily Mirror carried referring to the October 8, 2014 grenade attack on a United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) church in Pikit, North Cotabato, and the Interaksyon.com article titled “Tribe council: Murder of Teduray chieftain 'meant to silence lumad struggle for rights'”.
Now those stories certainly gave me considerable stomach woes. Those stories are unsettling primarily because civilians were harmed, and the context in which these harms happened suggest more troublesome concerns.
The assault on the Pikit UCCP church is all the more significant because it again raises the bogeyman of a religiously themed conflict in Central Mindanao, and because the UCCP is among the denominations that are very active in addressing injustice and violence, and promoting durable peace in the Philippines. Several decades ago Pikit and other localities in Central Mindanao had--on top of the actual violence they suffered--to endure being represented as being in the midst of what was conveniently and inaccurately depicted as a “Christian-Muslim” conflict.
Anxiety over the future plight of the indigenous peoples in the Bangsamoro areas is one of the recurring themes in the peace process formally involving the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). An IPDEV survey in 2013 indicated that there were 122,914 IP individuals in 80 barangays in 12 municipalities of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm).
IP leader Lencio Arig who was killed in in Upi, Maguindanao was also a known opponent of mining exploration. Resource extraction through mining and logging has historically been a cause of massive displacement of and violence against indigenous peoples in Mindanao and elsewhere. Concern has already been raised over potential contestation and conflicts over natural resources in the Bangsamoro. The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) and the Bangsamoro Basic Law bill have given a higher share to the Bangsamoro government when it comes to resource exploration and use.
Back now to the question: How safe is Mindanao?
It should not be left to media institutions that hold office in urban capitals to define how Mindanao will be perceived by the rest of the world. More people have access now to media, particularly new media courtesy of telecommunications and the Internet. And while we should remain circumspect about corporate and government agenda in mass media, it would also not do for us to underestimate our capacities for making use of this institution to advance Mindanao and Mindanawon interests.
How safe is Mindanao, relative to say, Metro Manila and Luzon? Truth be told it does not advance Mindanao and Mindanawon interests to paint Metro Manila and Luzon in a poor light. But it will not do either for Mindanao to be continuously portrayed as terra incognita, marked with the words “here there be monsters”.
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