Inside Philippine politics & beyond

Sen. Bongbong Marcos’ daddy messed up Muslim Mindanao big time

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Now his son wants to play there, too

By Raïssa Robles

Starting today Monday, as Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos tries to block a proposal to cancel this year’s Muslim Mindanao polls, it is a good time to remind Filipinos that Muslim Mindanao continues to be in a terrible state mainly because of his father, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

 

Marcos dismembered and balkanized the once-vast Muslim Homeland as part of his strategy to crush the Moro rebellion that killed over 10,000 residents, rendered half a million homeless and left psychological wounds that are gaping  to this day.

Here’s my proof: Before Martial Law was imposed, the Philippines had 66 provinces. During his 14-year dictatorship, Marcos added eight more – four of them by chopping up what we now call Muslim Mindanao. This wide-scale dismemberment took place in 1973, a year after the Muslims led by Nur Misuari and his deputy Hashim Salamat had risen in armed revolt.

The two provinces that were placed on the chopping block were those where the armed rebellion was fiercest – Cotabato and Jolo. Jolo was the home province of Moro National Liberation Front Chairman Misuari and Cotabato was the birth province of the MNLF vice chairman Salamat.

How Marcos carved up Muslim Mindanao

First, Marcos issued Presidential Decree 302 on Sept. 11, 1973 which lopped off a chunk of Jolo province to form a new one – Tawi-Tawi.

A month later on November 22, 1973, Marcos issued Presidential Decree 341 which sliced the vast province of Cotabato into three: North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao.

The Muslim residents  of Cotabato were violently pushed back to the newly-created  Maguindanao province on, the northwestern part. They were forced to abandon the lands that their ancestors had handed down to them.

Before the year ended, on Dec. 27 1973, Marcos further cut up what remained of Jolo province by making one of its cities – Basilan – into a stand-alone province with the same name. He did this ostensibly “to provide the close government attention and for the purpose of spurring its growth.”

I obtained this information about the Presidential Decrees from a book entitled Book of the Philippines 1976 published by Aardvark Associates, with Yen Makabenta as Editor-in-Chief, Conrado de Quiros and Alvin Capino as Assistant Editors, and Fe Mangahas as Research Director.

From my interviews with officials of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which broke away from Misuari’s MNLF, and with various Mindanao provincial officials including former North Coabato Governor Manny Piñol, I confirmed that massive displacement of Muslim residents had taken place in the once-vast Cotabato province. But not so much in Jolo province.

This massive displacement in Cotabato has not been addressed to this day, 38 years after the Mindanao wars. The MNLF peace pact of 1996 was silent on this issue. By default, the MILF became the political broker for all those Muslim families dispossessed of their lands.

And now comes the son of the dictator who caused all this misery

In his Facebook page, Sen. Bongbong wrote:

I hope you’re all enjoying the weekend…. I have always been against the cancellation of the elections, the appointment by Malacañang of officials to elective posts of a supposedly autonomous region at that, and amendments to the Organic Act that created the ARMM without the necessary approval in plebiscite.

He did say ALWAYS.

Senator Bongbong has forgotten or maybe doesn’t want to remind Filipinos that his daddy was the Father of Muslim Autonomy that of course turned out to be a sham and has given all subsequent Philippine governments such a massive headache to this day. Because Marcos had promised the entire Mindanao plus Palawan province in an agreement witnessed by Libya, and then he reneged on it.

That agreement has proven to be the stumbling block for arriving at a negotiated settlement on Muslim autonomy to this day.

And now Senator Bongbong Marcos is a CHAMPION of democracy

But wait. Why is he, really?

Could it be due to his family’s flowering political alliance with Vice-President Jejomar Binay’s PDP-Laban Party, which is fielding candidates for the ARMM elections this August? And is it for this reason that Sen. Bongbong wants elections to take place?

In my article entitled Fool military honors for Ferdinand Marcos? Yes, oh yes!, I wondered whether a Binay-Bongbong presidentail tandem was shaping up. One of my Facebook friends BenCy G. Ellorin, a reporter for MindaNews, wrote in reacton:

It could be. Another writing on the wall is the debate on ARMM election postponement: Binay’s PDP Laban is ready for the election with Pax Mangudadatu, and Bongbong is against postponement. And look who are behind the postponement thing? My sources say, they are Mar Roxas people in LP ;)

Could both Binay and Roxas please keep their hands off Muslim Mindanao, please?

The worst thing that could happen to ARMM ( the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao) is to become the playground of national politicos with their eye on 2016.

 

Comments

  1. Please people just let these Bleeding Yellows have their last breathe with their Yellow Propaganda.

    Saving grace their false Hero and truely a “Traitor” Ninoy Aquino together with the proposed Sainthood of Cory Aquino as their 2 great leaders who saved the Philippines from being a 3rd world country, stopped crimes, rapes, murder and most notorious explosion of “ILLEGAL DRUGS”, prevented the Philippines from becoming like Vietnam where millions of lives lost due to Communist Party, went to Malaysia to make a deal to prevent Sabah Claim via amending in the Constitution Historical Rights, Built Vast Infrastructures that lasts decades maybe even a century, etc.

    • The pattern of propaganda is quite obvious.

      Link the marcos dissent with the Aquinos and call the dissenters yellowtards.

      It doesn’t work anymore.

      My reply to you is – #DontUs

  3. The Tripoli agreement signed by Marcos gave MUSLIMS their first Autonomy Government. He allocated 11 Provinces to Bangsamoro and elected Nur Misuari as the head of all Muslims.

    You don’t know what you are talking about. If you go to MNLF site, the said they were blinded by Jose Maria Sison and Benigno Aquino paid by Malaysians to fight against Marcos.

    If you read all the comments of MINDANANO PEOPLE of this site below you will get EMBARASSED OF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING
    https://www.facebook.com/bongbongmarcos/photos/a.178665755520266.55932.109924549061054/961363233917177/?type=3&theater

    MNLF – THE ORIGINAL MUSLIM FIGHTERS PAID BY MALAYSIA WHO COLLABORATED WITH BENIGNO AQUINO SENIOR TO FIGHT MARCOS
    https://www.facebook.com/MNLF-160991487331400/?fref=nf

    • I know what I am talking about.

      It is you who doesnt know.

      I covered the MNLF and Nur Misuari and his senior leaders.

      Did you?

      Your first paragraph alone is TOTALLY WRONG:

      The Tripoli agreement signed by Marcos gave MUSLIMS their first Autonomy Government. He allocated 11 Provinces to Bangsamoro and elected Nur Misuari as the head of all Muslims.

      Why don’t you see what’s wrong with it and come back to me.

  4. BATAAN Disaster or Solution?
    Try to build a single Nuclear Plant today then you would need $10 – $20 billion depending on the capacity. He was after all right in pursuing it as a strategy to save the millions of future generation their money. All the government has to do is to run it to save the country from further disasters.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Yg-IP4hI (bilin ni Marcos kay Cory)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LazvK7gMcw (Bataan Nuclear Plant was the best strategy it’s too bad the leaders who followed did not have the brains)

    A third world, the Philippines has the most expensive electricity charges in the entire planet bleeding the small businesses, enslaving the common people and scaring the future investors. Why? Because Aquino government fed the Marcos-upgraded MERALCO to the Oligarchies who is now charging way above your neck but did not invest to modernize after 30 years.
    http://www.enerdata.net/…/philippines-high-electricity…

    This is one of the reasons that forced Ilocos Norte under the Marcoses to innovate instead of playing the non-sense of BLAME GAMES that the government and YELLOWTARDS like you are doing. As a result, Ilocos Norte is a MODEL OF THE WORLD to be the first place in the PLANET EARTH to have the most advanced Power Systems.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTv02Bgyo (Ilocos Norte – Wind Farm)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA6VrGNMw (Ilocos Norte – Solar)

    You can throw all the figures all day but that does not dispute the fact that Marcos strategy was right which could have saved the Philippines from disaster and allowed other countries to invest because of lower electricity consumptions and more reliable infrastructures. Not only that, millions of Filipino youths became DRUG ADDICTS and committed heinous crimes. What would you do to the 6% GDP increase when you have ZOMBIES-youth on the street worse than what Marcos was alleged crimes!

    NEGLIGENCE causes Emotional Disorder, penetrated the ENTIRE country.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ-rFr90Vo

    Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was stopped. Power Plant disaster after 30 years
    http://asian-power.com/…/more-expensive-electricity-in…
    https://www.techinasia.com/lower-electricity-bill-wattsmart
    http://opinion.inquirer.net/…/high-power-rates-driving…

    But because of the EMOTE begets emote people and that is now where our future generation is heading to being RETARDED. EMOTE don’t prosper . lol

    PHILIPPINE AGENDA – to be EMOTE, FEEL RETARDED AND OPPRESSED BY BBM because Ilocos Norte has everything. LOL

    • I have nothing against nuclear plants.

      But if you build it near an earthquake fault, and if you cut corners while building it, and if you riddle it with bribes and payoffs, that is where the Marcos nuclear plant went very very wrong.

      Using the words yellowtard, EMOTE, FEEL RETARDED – is that how you intend to win arguments? by name calling?

      Is that what the Marcoses have taught you?

      Tsk, tsk.

  5. FACTS:
    YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN THOSE UNSCROPULOUS ANTI-MARCOS FOREIGNER AND LOCALS WHOSE ONLY INTENT WAS TO DESCREDIT SOMEONE’S GOLDEN ACHIEVEMENTS

    1) 90 PERCENT of Marcos projects are MONEY-generating infrastructures
    2) All PROJECTS WERE funded with LOANS and “NEVER FROM TAX PAYER’S MONEY”
    3) THEY generate money and it is supposed to be paid for itself or the LOANS but the next administrations SOLD the infrastructures to PRIVATE SECTORS
    4) In return, THESE INFRA have already made enough money and 10x more than that to pay the $12-$18-billion foreign debts
    4) (Government’s Total Debt $26-billion) but all money were paid to their own loans or they are part of the “HOLDINGS” and PARTNERS to siphon these monies
    6) All Ferdinand Marcos projects were for “POOR PEOPLE BUILT FOR FREE WITHOUT ASKING PEOPLE’S TAXES”

    EXPLANATION OF MONEY MAKING INFRASTRUCTURE:

    BUILDINGS:
    HOSPITALS – charges people, if became privitazed – charges doctors for space, equipments, water systems, Universities – educational training or make Filipino People in Health Care to be top notched in the world (Nurses) that brings in money for the people and for the country. These hospitals also saved the lives of common people.

    LAND MARKS – tourist spots. Folk Arts Theather, PICC are examples of money making infrastructures in the last 40 years that hosted performances, SUMMITS and bring BUSINESSES out of LOCALS and INTERNATIONAL sources.

    CONCRETE HIGHWAYS and BRIDGES:
    TOLL GATES Bring in money – not only that, roads and bridges are one of the most important tools for an advanced country to move business, people, equipments, tourists, students, parents, travellers. The bridges shortened the gaps and attached towns, cities, province and even few islands. They bring in money for the business, for the poeple. They bring in education to the youth when there’s no other alternative to reach places. Roads and bridges were built for THE COMMON population not just rich business people.

    DAMS, HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER and IRRIGATIONS:
    AND ALL OTHER MONEY MAKING INFRASTRUCTURES BUILT FOR THE PEOPLE
    http://amazingpilipinas.blogspot.ca/2014/10/president-ferdinand-marcos.html

    NUCLEAR PLANT:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96g-mIP4hI

    How can you build a HIGH-SPEED train when you can not even supply ELECTRICITY to MANILA? The answer is the NUCLEAR “POWER” PLANT!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Yg-mIP4hI (Marcos to Aquino)

    OR MORE OF THESE:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAjh6rGNMw (doer and talker)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT0od2Bgyo (doer and talker)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuaMB3J2M8 (doer and talker)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDy16DPKgM (doer and talker)

    I don’t need to go on. I can’t help but to DISPUTE THE LOWEST FORM OF DEGRADATION to the best ever former President without explanation.

    PEACE!

    • You are right about one thing, ann,

      90 PERCENT of Marcos projects are MONEY-generating infrastructures

      These generated a lot of money for the Marcoses to stash abroad as part of their ill-gotten loot.

      thanks for pointing that out.