By Amirah Ali Lidasan
Where angels fear to tread, popular actress Angel Locsin came and earned the love and respect of the Moro people. On June 26-27, this year, she visited the evacuation center in war-torn Munai, Lanao del Norte. Since she and her sister already released their official reflections on the visit, I hope my story will help contextualize it.
When Angel’s brother-in-law sent me a text message a month ago, asking me and my organization to assist them in a low-profile exposure trip for Angel to an evacuation center in my province, I was skeptical. How can one hide Angel Locsin from the politicians and military officials who constantly monitored the remaining evacuation centers in Maguindanao?
The route to Datu Piang is probably the most watched highway. There were several reports of soldiers refusing entry to NGOs, media and relief agencies; practically a food and information blockade. Our organization suffered the same harassment from the military when we had a national interfaith humanitarian mission (NIHM) in October last year.
The other option was Munai, the other venue of the interfaith humanitarian mission last year with Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo. I immediately informed the local chapter of Suara Bangsamoro in Iligan City and the Initiaves for Peace in Mindanao to help us.
When I first met Angel during our briefing in a hotel in Cagayan de Oro City, she explained at length why the visit had to be low-key. She wanted to digest the story of the people, wanted to give the ones she would be talking to the impression that she did not go there as a film star but as a person, as a countryman. She did not need to explain. Angel has been known for her women’s rights advocacy.
But of course, our partners in the local government unit would interpret this differently. In Iligan City, we were met by the mayor and his father, the former mayor. We reiterated our request – no media, no military escorts and no broadcast of her presence. But as soon as we got to our car, we saw several pick-up trucks with loads of people with cameras and police escorts who soon became part of our convoy. We took the diversion road that traversed Kauswagan, where a six-by-six truck full of soldiers also joined our convoy.
I was surprised to see the paved road from Kauswagan to Munai. Earlier in Iligan City, the mayor’s father was telling Angel they needed a farm-to-market road that would help bring progress in his town, a way to resolve poverty that had driven people to join the insurgents in Munai. The road was wide and many kilometers long. We passed by military detachments, armored personnel carrier tanks and soldiers along the roadside every after five to ten kilometers.
Why, war has not stopped development in the area! I wondered if the construction started during the war, and if foreign donors like the USAID (United States Assistance for International Development), which has been implementing the Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) was responsible. No politician or local government agency would release millions of pesos for a road that thick.
When we got to the municipal hall in barangay Tabuk, where since last year the mayor placed all the displaced person in Munai and Kauswagan, the municipal hall was jampacked with people and school children holding streamers to welcome Angel. So, went Angel’s low-key visit.
Inside the mayor’s office, the young politician asked why, of all places, Angel chose his municipality to visit. Previously we briefed Angel that among the five provinces affected by the war last year, Lanao del Norte was probably the most controversial one. There was a public outcry against Commander Bravo upon suspicion that he ordered members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to burn civilian villages. The suspicion was fueled by national and local politicians who distributed firearms to Christian residents.
I guess the mayor did not fully understand that if Angel had visited Munai as an actress, he would have had to pay her millions of pesos to be able to give in to his request. The mayor’s father had prepared a program for Angel, and set up a stage at the multipurpose hall for it. Angel had to give in to that request, in exchange for a closed-door interview with the victims at the evacuation center.
Angel barely had time to interview health and education officers at the mayor’s office. People were pouring in at the tiny mayor’s office at the behest of the mayor’s aunt who was never contented with one shot taken with Angel. Angel only learned that out of the 11,000 population, two thousand children got sick with measles, pneumonia and other common diseases after being camped for a long time in a classroom and bunk houses. There were 50 cases of children afflicted with measles and an unaccounted number of deaths due to diseases.
Angel finally relaxed when she was inside the bunkhouse talking to a family from barangay Ramain, one of the 26 villages affected by the war. With three young women volunteers from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), she pieced together the incident last year. Her personal thoughts in her blog reflected mostly her conversation with Sultan Diyadapon Bayabao, who told her how hard it was to go back to Ramain to farm because of the military presence in the area. The mayor placed all evacuees in front of his municipal hall, a kilometer away from an infantry battalion tasked to ferret Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) forces out of Munai.
While Angel was talking with the victims, youths were distributing blankets to the evacuees, a personal gift from Angel. The volunteers mainly came from youth groups in Iligan such as the League of Filipino Students, Liga ng Kabataang Moro, Anakbayan, the local chapters of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) and STAND-MSU-IIT.
Angel also provided lugaw for the evacuees. She wanted to personally distribute the gifts and join in the parlor games for kids but the presence of so many people prevented her from going out of the bunkhouse.
At two in the afternoon, Angel had to say goodbye to the people of Munai. We did not inform all our escorts of our next stop. We wanted to provide Angel a complete picture of the struggle of Moro farmers and residents in Lanao del Norte, so, we took her to the home of Sultan Macasalong Sarip in Iligan City. Sarip has been battling for land rights against a multinational cement firm whose factory was built blocking his house’ entrance. Tired and exhausted from lack of sleep, Angel listened to the impassioned story of Sultan and his family.
Sultan’s home is no different with the bunkhouses of IDPs in Munai. Sultan never finished the construction of the house due to lack of funds. He told the history of his family’s land, how he gave parts of the land to some Bisaya settlers so that they can have a place to live in. But he never expected a cement factory to force him out of his land.
In her blog, Angel mentioned the importance of land for the Moro people, especially the likes of the two Sultans who farm the lands that they own. Her visit underlined the contradiction in a Moro society – that while we call ourselves Sultans and Bai, we are
no longer the rich and influential families that our ancestors once were before. There is no more sultanate system that gives credence to the bloodline of the royal families, nor lands to claim territory and economic subsistence.
Angel asked why the land is rich but the people are poor. We told her that land ownership was monopolized by rich Moro and Christian warlords who got rich from selling their lands to foreign corporations or taking partnership in plantation businesses. She was exposed to these plantations when she did a film where she played a pineapple
picker in Bukidnon.
We told her about the land laws that legalized the Philippine government’s land grabbing of Moro lands; usually carried out in the name of national interest such as mining and plantations. We told her how the incessant military operations, aerial bombardment and the perennial displacement destroyed the livelihood of the people. We told her how evacuees became captives in their own land, as they were used by national and local government as a selling point to multinational donors and relief agencies.
While it is true that her two-day visit cannot give a complete picture of the problems in Mindanao, her one-day exposure to war-torn Moro areas has opened a lot of realizations for her and for us. As Lawyer Beverly Musni, a convenor of Inpeace Mindanao puts it – when movie stars come down from heaven, they experience the same problems, too. That’s what made Angel go down to Mindanao. She went down to the masses, ate and talked with them–and we know that it was not for show.
Angel is known for her advocacy for women and children rights. She lives the character that she plays, as the heroine of fantaseryes. But only a movie star who lives a real life can empathize with victims. She can bravely call for a stop to the war in Mindanao and for peace talks to resume – and mean it. (davaotoday.com)
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