Bridging the Divide

The signing recently in Malacañang Palace of the framework peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has brought many here in Mindanao new hope that true and lasting peace may not only be possible but realistically achievable in the near future.  But it is a hope and optimism that is tempered by decades of false promises, dashed expectations and missed opportunities.  After all, the savagery of war and its destructive effects on the many affected communities in the war-torn areas in Mindanao remains a disturbing reality of our times.

The framework agreement should be seen for what it is - a starting point for the hard negotiations that will have to hammer out the final peace agreement that will ultimately lead to the establishment of the new Bangsamoro political entity that it envisions.  Already it has been challenged and rejected not only by other rival Muslim revolutionary movements like the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) who see it as a betrayal of the Moro or Muslim cause but also by non-Muslim and mainstream groups, legal experts and prominent politicians who see the accord as violative of the spirit and intent of the 1987 Constitution and thus problematic to justify both legally and morally.

There are also more than a few, even in Mindanao, who fear that the agreement may become a catalyst for the formation of more extremist and radical, Islamic breakaway groups like Ameril Umbra Kato's Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) who have branded the moderate MILF as the vilest of traitors to the struggle of the Moro peoples and who continue to advocate armed struggle with total secession as the final goal rather than just settling for enhanced local autonomy under the Philippine state.

Who's Bullying Who

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 or Republic Act No 10175 which was just recently signed into law by President Noynoy Aquino is now causing a growing storm of controversy both on cyberspace and outside it, the breadth and ferocity of which certainly caught the government by surprise.  The fact that Malacañang had been forced to speak up in response to the multiple legal challenges already filed against the new law in the Supreme Court and  the rising clamor from many sectors of Philippine society for certain portions of that particular law (specifically those dealing with criminal penalties for online libel) to be either removed or amended only proves, in my view, how cavalier and hasty if not capricious it had been in allowing this new edict to become law without really thoroughly studying its legal and moral ramifications beforehand.

Senator Francis Escudero, in a recent media interview, made the staggering admission that he and many of his colleagues in the Senate had failed to take notice that the provisions on online libel contained in the then proposed bill may be legally, if not also morally, questionable when they approved it.  He has promised to look for ways to amend or "tweak" the new law specifically to decriminalize the libel aspect of it although the civil liability portion may be retained.  Senator Alan Peter Cayetano also plans to file a similar bill in the Senate that would address the same issue.

How such presumably astute legal minds could not have seen the defects in this law when it was reported out by the congressional committee that studied it and when the same was discussed in the bicameral conference committee that hammered the final version of the bill that became the law is a fact that simply strikes me as beyond belief.  It appears now that only Senator Teofisto Guingona, who filed the only dissenting vote in the final voting for the bill in the Senate and who now is one of the parties formally questioning provisions of the new law in the Supreme Court, may have been the only prescient one who was able to recognize the then proposed law as legally objectionable at that time.

Twisting History

I was just barely nine years old in 1972 when Ferdinand Marcos placed the entire country under military rule and ushered in more than a decade of authoritarian rule.  I remember playing with other kids on the street outside our rented apartment in Cebu City late in the afternoon of September 23 of that year and being admonished by a frantic grownup neighbor to all go back home because "martial law" had been declared.  As the sirens wailed that night to announce the nightly curfew that was to become a daily fixture of the lives of all Filipinos of those times, I laid awake in bed wondering what in the hell was "martial law" and why was such a fuss being made about it.

On vacation in Lianga some months after, I not only noticed but felt the heavy military and police presence everywhere. Piles and mounds of old, rusted firearms, shotguns and rifles, all surrendered or confiscated (many of them of World War II vintage), dotted the front yards of police stations and military camps.  Every night, as curfew hour approached, policemen or constables of the Philippine Constabulary then would man checkpoints at strategic areas all over Lianga.  The sight of an elderly police officer in uniform sitting on a wooden chair with only the light of a kerosene lamp to drive away the darkness and dozing off, one hand on the butt of his holstered revolver, while manning a lonely street corner post near our house in Lianga would always be one of my enduring images of the early martial law years in this town.

Main Street

In Lianga even today, we have little use for street names even if they do exist.  Directions for finding a particular house or any other location are always given in terms of the nearest prominent landmark or simply by diagramming through words, gestures and hand signs the general direction that had to be taken and the twists and turns that have to be made in order that one can get to where one is supposed to go.  It's a small town anyway where everyone virtually knows everybody.  Even strangers and outsiders are not expected to get really and hopelessly lost unless, by sheer stupidity or the lack of even any modicum of common sense, they deserve to.

That is why it was only when I was in my late teens when I learned by an accidental glance at a street map (yes, Lianga did have a street map even then) mounted on the wall of one of the offices at the municipal hall that the main street of the town, on which southern leg our family house was located, was named Rizal after the national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.

It actually stretches straight and true the entire length of Lianga from south to north and runs parallel to the national highway just a short town block to its left.  On the opposite side lies a narrow strip of land mostly reclaimed over the decades from the sea and now cluttered tightly with residential houses except for the middle part right across the town's parish church which has always been set aside for the major structures and buildings that constitute Lianga's business and commercial center.

Look Back

My average day in Lianga nowadays starts with a routine so familiar that I often go through it it with nary a conscious thought as if I am on autopilot or cruise control.

As I get out of bed at about six in the morning, one hand immediately reaches out to flick on a switch on a power strip fixed to the wall on the right side of the headboard of my bed.  This turns on an internet modem and a WiFi router.  Then I grab my trusty Samsung tablet on a side table and, while still in pajamas, is quickly out of the bedroom and off to the kitchen to brew a cup of  hot coffee (sugar free but most certainly not decaf).

Then in the lanai of the house facing the sea and the slowly brightening horizon beyond the expanse of Lianga Bay and the blue-green waters of the Pacific Ocean, I would sit hunched over an old wooden table that used to belong to my paternal grandfather, steaming mug within easy reach, and leisurely checking my email inbox plus the day's latest news online while the sunrise of the new day breaks out in front of me.  A video call or two may occasionally interrupt my web trolling then it's on to Facebook for messages and updates from friends.

I am sure, the breathtaking sunrise vista taken aside, this routine is not exactly uncommon for a lot of people even here in the Philippines and more so elsewhere in the civilized world.  What makes it notable in my case in Lianga is that just six years ago, it could have been only not possible but the kind of stuff a local tech junkie of that time could have only dreamed about.

Shaken Again

It started with the faintest hint of shudder.  I remember I was sitting in front of my computer, eyes on the monitor, and trolling through Google News, since I was not able to watch television the whole day.  I looked up instinctively and as I turned around to check what was wrong, the shaking suddenly grew stronger.

Earthquake! The tremors became more violent, certainly the strongest I had ever felt in my entire life and as the walls vibrated and the windows panels of my room in the first floor of our house in Lianga started to jiggle in earnest, my eyes involuntarily turned to the time display on the task bar of the computer monitor.  It was about 10 minutes to nine in the evening of the last day of August just a week ago and, in those harrowing seconds that seemed to drag on endlessly, I had a mental image of myself still frozen in a sitting position, fingers still on the computer keyboard and seemingly waiting for the house to fall down on me.

The shaking went on for more than a minute, ebbing and gaining strength in a cycle as if a series of underground sea waves were pounding and crashing through the bedrock underneath Lianga and still I sat there still immobile and still.  Then it finally subsided and as everything grew still. It was only then when I managed to shake myself loose and despite a sudden queasy feeling in my stomach as if I just came off a roller coaster ride, I jumped up to check on everyone else in the house.