Neighborliness: Redefining Communities at the Frontier of Dialogue in Southern Philippines.

By Erdman Pandero

The communities in the Southern Philippines are wounded and scarred by the never-ending atrocities between the Philippine Government and Muslim rebel groups who are fighting for their land, their identity and their autonomy. The neighborhood communities between Muslims and Christians are the most affected in the atrocities. It affects the way they live, move and act as neighbors to one another. The neighborliness in the region changes as the landscape of the political and social arena changes. Thus, it is but proper that the healing and reconciliation begins in the same scarred and wounded neighborhoods.
This study identifies three narratives of neighborliness in the region; (1) the intentional communities established during the American regime, (2) the neighborliness introduced by the Bishops and the Ulama in response to the document Nostra Aetate, and (3) the proposed neighborliness anchored in the document A Common Word Between Us and You.
The Basic Ecclesial Communities and the Ummah are the communities at the frontier of this new neighborliness. These are the communities who are challenged to live the spirituality of reconciliation as they live this new neighborliness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543463569

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Copyright © 2017 by Erdman Pandero.

ISBN:                  Softcover                  978-1-5434-6355-2

                            eBook                        978-1-5434-6356-9

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Rev. date: 12/07/2017

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CONTENTS

Abstract

Introduction

A.   Thesis Statement

B.   Background and Brief History of the Conflict

C.   Rationale: Three Kinds of Neighborliness

D.   Audiences

E.   Pastoral Context

F.   Practical Theology Method

G.   Description of Research Method

Chapter One:   The Neighborliness of the U.S.-imposed Intentional Communities (1898 – 1965)

A.   Introduction

B.   Islam in the Philippines

C.   Lure of the Lands

D.   Conflicts of the Land

E.   Christian and Muslim Defenses – Rats and Barracudas

F.   Jabidah Massacre

G.   Summary

Chapter Two:   The Efforts to Build a Different Kind of Neighborliness: Dialogue Since Independence (1965 – Present)

A.   Introduction

B.   Christianity in the Philippines

C.   The Attitude of the Catholic Church Towards the Religious Other Before Nostra Aetate

D.   Nostra Aetate and the Attitude of Dialogue

E.   Interfaith Initiatives in Mindanao

F.   Bishop Tudtud and the Local Approaches to Dialogue

G.   Father Sebastiano D’Ambra and the Peace and Dialogue Movements

H.   Peace Education Centers

I.   Basic Ecclesial Communities

J.   Summary

Chapter Three:   A Common Word between Us and You as a Platform for a New (Third) Kind of Neighborliness in the Southern Philippines

A.   Introduction

B.   A Common Word Between Us and You

C.   A Common Word in the Philippines

D.   Islam Call for Peace: Qur’an and Hadith Perspectives

E.   My Neighbor in Islamic Perspectives

F.   Loving My Neighbor: A Call for Justice in Islam

G.   Muslim Ummah in the Philippines

H.   Summary

Chapter Four:   A New Neighborliness in the Southern Philippines: A Dialogue of Daily Life and Common Social Action

A.   Introduction

B.   Reconciliation: A Way to Move Forward

C.   BEC and Ummah at the Frontiers of New Neighborliness

D.   Women, Imams and Priests in the Peacebuilding Process

E.   Storytelling and the Dialogue of Life

F.   Pursuit of Justice and the Dialogue of Social Action

G.   Summary

Conclusion

Bibliography

ABSTRACT

The communities in the Southern Philippines are wounded and scarred by the never ending atrocities between the Philippine Government and Muslim rebel groups who are fighting for their land, their identity and their autonomy. The neighborhood communities between Muslims and Christians are the most affected in the atrocities. It affects the way they live, move and act as neighbors to one another. The neighborliness in the region changes as the landscape of the political and social arena changes. Thus, it is but proper that the healing and reconciliation begins in the same scarred and wounded neighborhoods.

This study identifies three narratives of neighborliness in the region; (1) the intentional communities established during the American regime, (2) the neighborliness introduced by the Bishops and the Ulama in response to the document Nostra Aetate, and (3) the proposed neighborliness anchored in the document A Common Word Between Us and You. The proposal hopes to come up with a neighborliness that is geared towards healing and reconciliation. The context of this healing and reconciliation is in the dialogue of the life, in the daily encounter with one another in the mundane and ordinary activities. As this dialogue of life deepens, they are led to a more meaningful dialogue, a dialogue of common social action, a fight for justice, for freedom and equality and for the preservation of nature and the environment.

A Common Word Between Us and You is the proposed platform for a lasting and sustainable peace and right neighborliness in the region. This proposed platform respects the hearts of Islam and Christianity as it is anchored on both the Qur’an and the Bible. The document humbly and honestly accepts the power as well as the responsibility of both Islam and Christianity in the present age. It is a timely and praiseworthy Muslim initiative that proactively promotes collaboration between these two great religions. The intensive use of both the Qur’an and the Bible creates a new form of interreligious dialogue and a rediscovery of a platform with which Islam and Christianity can rebuild trust between and among them. The document calls for a common word, the love of God and the Love of neighbor, as the starting point towards healing, reconciliation and peacebuilding.

The Basic Ecclesial Communities and the Ummah are the communities at the frontier of this new neighborliness. They are identified as the communities who are trying to live the tenets of their faiths in their day to day living. They are also the communities who are challenged to live the spirituality of reconciliation as they live this new neighborliness. This reconciliation is more of a spirituality lived in the day to day life of the communities than of a strategy following a step by step process towards attaining healing and reconciliation.

INTRODUCTION

A.   Thesis Statement

On March 27, 2014, after 17 years of negotiations, the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB). The signing of the CAB hopes to end centuries of animosity and begin an era of real and lasting peaceful co-existence. Two weeks later, the Catholic Bishops and Educators on Peacebuilding in Mindanao released a statement calling for all the stakeholders to "Develop creative historical narratives in contextualizing the history of the Bangsamoro and of Mindanao."¹ It is a call for a proactive and intentional programs geared towards the rebuilding of peace. "We need to come up with creative metaphors/symbolisms that represent the common desire of Mindanawons in the effort of peacebuilding."²

In responding to this call for new narratives and creative metaphors/symbolisms, this thesis-project proposes a new narrative of neighbor/neighborliness as a way of telling the story of Muslim-Christian interactions in Mindanao. In so doing, it both incorporates and moves beyond the neighborliness of the intentional communities of the period of the United States of America (USA) rule, builds on the neighborliness of the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) and the Ummah³, and proposes a new praxis of neighborliness inspired by A Common Word Between Us and You⁴.

B.   Background and Brief History of the Conflict

The Island of Mindanao. Mindanao is the second largest island in the Philippine Archipelago, the other big islands being Luzon in the northern and Visayas in the central part. There are 7,107 islands of the Philippine Archipelago. The island of Mindanao is surrounded by the Philippine Sea to the east, the Sulu Sea to the west and the Celebes Sea to the south, and is the closest island to the neighboring Muslim countries of Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia. Some Mindanao traders of the south find it even more accessible and easy to conduct business and trade, through the Philippine backdoor, to the neighboring Asian countries than to Manila and Luzon in the North. Mindanao has a population of more than 20 million and is home to Christians, Muslims and the Lumads (indigenous people). The island is sub-divided into six regions; (1) Zamboanga Peninsula, (2) Northern Mindanao, (3) Davao Region, (4) SOCCSKSARGEN, (5) Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), and (6) CARAGA. These regions are further subdivided into 25 provinces.

Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the region of the Moro land, was created through Republic Act No. 6734. The region was the offshoot of the Final Peace Agreement in 1996 between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). The region is composed of the predominantly Muslim provinces in the country, namely, Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu, and Tawi-tawi. It is the poorest region of the entire Philippines with a poverty incidence 55.5 percent. This means to say that more than fifty percent of the families in the region are considered poor in relation to the poverty incidence of the entire country.

Spanish Exploration and Colonization. The colonization of the ‘Philippines’ was part of the larger, massive and intensive colonization of the world after the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. The treaty divided the world, peacefully, between Spain and Portugal. The papal bull was both for commerce and Christianization. Commerce was in search for the most valued spices of the east and Christianization was the missionary mandate of the Catholic church from the Vatican.

The first Spanish conquerors set foot in the archipelago on March 16, 1521. The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, having won the support of the Spanish crown, was set to travel to the spice islands of the Moluccas for the most coveted spice trade. However, as fate would dictate, he ended instead in the islands that would later come to be known as the Philippines. At this time, the islands were governed by local chieftains, known as Datus, under a larger governance of the sultans. The inhabitants had been involved in commerce and trade and had been exchanging goods with neighboring kingdoms. They were culturally developed people permeated with the spirit and philosophy of Islam. They interacted, dependently and interdependently, with each other. As part of the larger Malay race, they developed close affinity and friendship with other island groups and kingdoms. From historical accounts, it was known that tribes of Mindanao and Sulu, even before the coming of Islam, had the most superior culture and civilization. This culture and civilization rose to greater heights when infused with the spirit and philosophy of Islam, the tribes becoming Muslims.⁵

Ferdinand Magellan reached either the island of Limasawa in Leyte or the island of Masau in Butuan. The former is located in the islands of Visayas or central Philippines while the latter is located at the north western part of the island of Mindanao. Magellan was able to establish friendly ties with the local chieftain and celebrated the first Mass on the island. He was warmly welcomed by the local chieftain but his eyes were set on the bigger and more progressive tribes of the nearby island of Cebu. His expedition was short-lived. Since the local chieftain of Cebu, Lapu-lapu, resisted the presence of the foreign invaders, the locals fought valiantly in the battle of Mactan which resulted in the death of Magellan and with his death, the end of the expedition.

There were other Spanish expeditions sent after Magellan but it was the Legazpi expedition (1564) which established a permanent Spanish settlement in the islands. It was deemed successful because it discovered a safer route back to Spain via Mexico. The discovery led to the Manila Galleon Trade, making the Spanish presence in the islands a permanent feature. The explorers, armed with experience and resolve to have access to the spice trade, established permanent settlements in the Visayas and Luzon. The spice trade explorers loved the hospitality of the inhabitants. The explorers revealed their true colors and became colonizers of the once free group of islanders. The once free groups became subjects of the new colonizers. The colonizers easily placed Luzon and Visayas under the Spanish crown and Christianized every inhabitant of the land. Even though the islands of Luzon and Visayas were all easy take for the Spanish power, they were unable to gain access to the vast lands of Mindanao. The "Moros" of the south, so called by the Spaniards because they were Muslims like the ‘Moors’ who had occupied the Iberian Peninsula, resisted the Spanish colonial rule.

The Moros in Mindanao have ethnic and tribal differences. There are "at least 13 ethnolinguistic groups indigenous to Mindanao that have adopted Islam as a way of life. The three largest and politically dominant groups are the Maguindanaon (people of the flooded plains) of the Cotabato provinces (Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat, North and South Cotabato); the Maranaw (people of the lake) of the two Lanao provinces; and the Tausug (people of the current) of the Sulu archipelago. The remaining ten are the Yakan, Kalagan, Sangil, Iranun or Ilanun, Palawani, Melebugnon, Kalibogan, and JamaMupon."⁶

Moro Resistance Against the Spaniards. The Moros of Mindanao resisted this foreign Spanish rule while their northern counterparts, though also resisting, were converted to Christianity. There was no sense of national unity of the entire Las Islas Filipinas during these years of Spanish occupation. It came about only on the latter part of the nineteenth century when the sense of nationalism arose in the northern part of the country. For all the centuries of Spanish occupation, the islands and provinces were regionally under the gobernadorcillo⁷ and further subdivided into towns under the care of the alcaldes. Nationhood was a later development in this country, a development in which most of the Moro leaders did not participate.

As the Christians of the northern part embraced, perhaps not willingly, the presence of the Spaniards in the lands, the Moros of the south continued their resistance. There was never any record of a long and continuous occupation of the Spaniards on the Mindanao soil, save for a few outposts. They were always outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the more experienced Tausug combatants. Thus, it can be told that the Moros of the Mindanao were never under the Spanish crown. When the Philippines was handed over to the Americans during the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the Moros of the south were unjustly given to the Americans when they were never part of the crown. This sentiment of hasty incorporation into the Philippine Sovereignty plays a major role in the ongoing resistance of the Moro people.

War against the Americans. The struggles against foreign rule and subjugation continued for the inhabitants of the south. They resisted the American powers with the same zeal and intensity as with their fight against the Spaniards. Even though the Moros fought endlessly against the new power, the weaponry of a more advanced America was too much for them. The fortresses collapsed, the doors, windows and even back doors of their homeland were forcefully opened for the Christian settlers of the North to relocate themselves to this ‘newfound land.’ The Moros in Mindanao saw right before their very eyes the progressive erection of houses and settlements in their own fortresses. Before they knew it, the lands they had protected against the colonizers were already in the hands of the new settlers. They found themselves having neighbors who do not share their faith, their tradition, or their history.

The present struggle in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. The Moros of the Southern Philippines have been fighting for their rights from the day the Spaniards set their foot on the land up until the time of the present Philippine Government. Countless lives have been lost, families displaced, orphans grew exponentially, poverty and illiteracy soared, stories of violence and crime regularly appeared on the morning news, and insurgencies became more and more frequent. The Moros of the south felt that their clamors for justice had fallen on deaf ears. The battle for identity, autonomy and self-determination seemed to be going nowhere. They chose representatives to speak on their behalf, but their representatives, at times, failed to pursue their just sentiments when lavished with gold, guns and glory by the powerful government officials. The Muslims cried for justice because they were losing their lands to the Christian settlers. They wanted autonomy from the Philippine Government which they perceived to be a Christian government. They fought for self-determination hoping they would be ruled and be guided by the very foundation of their Islamic faith.

The Christians living in the Moro land suffer the same dereliction as the Moros of Mindanao. They are also as helpless as the Moros as the drama and violence unfold. The present generations of Christians in the south were born, grew and established their lives and livelihood in the area. The Moro land is also their home. The Moro people know this. They saw these neighbors living alongside with them. The Moro people could only look back and remember, through the stories and narratives, the time when the land was inhabited by a people living and guided with one faith, Islam and with one allegiance, the Datu or the Sultan. In as much as they wanted to relive the past, they were also realistic in accepting that the landscape has changed. The present generation of Muslim and Christian settlers