The Mindanao conflict revisited (Part 2)

While I believe that everyone is equally right in their picture of the origins and causes of the Mindanao conflict, I also believe that everyone is similarly wrong in its callow confidence on how to end this conflict. Lately, the government and the Bangsamoro have more than a little difficulty in keeping up a happy moral face. Both are having difficulty especially in cultivating a culture of amity and sharing because they regularly spike each other’s dark fantasy of retaliation and revenge. when confronted with a crisis, the government and the Bangsamoro with their vast array of spins, alibis, and rationalizations always end up in a proverbial political standstill. Like performers of a Christian moro-moro play, both parties simply perpetuate the stylized and exaggerated struggle between themselves designed to end with, supposedly, the defeat of the latter. Realistically, how can the Bangsamoro be confident at all about its short-term as well as long-term prospects with militancy since it cannot defeat the military and its apparatus? And how can the government be overly confident of vanquishing the Bangsamoro with its militarism approach just short of ethnic cleansing? Why does this grotesque misconception persist? How do we get out of this quandary? Here’s my take of solving the Mindanao conflict. We must accept the fundamental truth that throughout our years of war and conflict, the real enemy is nowhere to be found! After all these years of riding the highways and byways of our disparate and stubborn struggles, we realize that we have been riding the wrong ideological horse, so to speak. Thereby, having realized the futility and anachronism of our existing ideology, we must now abandon it and replaced it with a new one. The new ideology is not hard to find. It is an ideology rooted in the past. It is the ideology of how Islam was introduced to Mindanao. Not by warriors but by traders and missionaries. Consider this, if the Bangsamoro primarily regards itself ideologically as a nation of traders and missionaries, then we won’t be preoccupied with these unnecessary deaths and wasteful clashes. Instead of spending hundreds of millions on how to kill one another, why not spend the largesse in creatively rebuilding existing Bangsamoro towns and cities into productive city-states rather than elusive sub-states? Why city-state? Because its prioritization of trade and commerce is not only more basic to the Bangsamoro physical well-being, but is also an easier task to plan and implement. Just imagine the possibilities. No more expensive and ineffective peace process and no more violence, to boot. Needless to say, that a Bangsamoro city-state is more relevant and responsive to the accelerating globalization of both population and capital engendered by changes in communication and information technology. While cognitively empowering, creating a sub-state is unproductive, if not, illusory. It is unproductive because its preoccupation with war and political conflict sap our limited energy from engaging in serious entrepreneurial, managerial, economic development, and cultural renewal. It is also illusory because, while it is easier to talk about establishing a political sub-state, creating a workable structure, is not, much less, a functioning one. This means that for now, it is more pragmatic for the Bangsamoro people to settle with what they have rather than what they want. So, here is a crazy idea. Although I dream of a Bangsamoro Clark-like freeport along the Moro Gulf, for a starter, why not develop Al-Barka, Basilan, let’s say into a trading center of PX and duty free shops? For example we can design a masterplan of a two-tiered town center for Al-Barka, Basilan dominated by a mosque surrounded by residences, a K-12 school, and a polytechnic-based junior college and by a harbor terminal with an adjoining airport, all connected to the central business district (CBD). And yes, I am crazy enough to provide planning and consultancy services for the Bangsamoro people, pro bono. All I need, let’s say, is for the MILF to provide me with the best Muslim architect and Muslim civil engineer in its ranks to work on the proposed plan. How many among us really think that this task is more difficult than war to do? How many among us really think that planning for our mutual destruction is more desirable than using our imagination and creativity to build? If we don't, then, what are we doing? Finally, to all "rebels and crazies" out there, here’s something to think about: watch here. Read: The Mindanao conflict revisited Part 1 _____________________________ The author is a professor and director of Urban Studies Program at California State University, East Bay and an urban and regional planning consultant. Email:efren.padilla@csueastbay.edu