Asia-Pacific Solidarity Coalition (APSOC) Statement: The Maguindanao Massacre is also a Ruthless Assault on the Bangsamoro People’s Sovereign Will

Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 13:52
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One week after the November 23 Maguindanao massacre that claimed the lives of at least 57 peaceful citizens, mostly women and journalists as well as innocent travelers—all unarmed civilians– a climate of fear and terror continues to grip many Bangsamoro communities in Maguindanao and other areas in Muslim-Mindanao, Philippines.

The Asia-Pacific Solidarity Coalition (APSOC), a regional solidarity coalition campaigning for human rights, social justice, self-determination and durable peace for the peoples in the Asia-Pacific Region, including the Bangsamoro peoples in Mindanao, joins the international community in condemning the November 23 mass slaughter in Maguindanao and in demanding justice and accountability from the perpetrators, including those who masterminded and coddled those responsible for the heinous crimes. We also call for a break in the climate of fear and impunity that continues to hound the Bangsamoro peoples in Maguindanao and the whole of Muslim-Mindanao.

We continue to mourn the victims who were martyred by their convictions that political and regime change could still take place in Maguindanao through the 2010 elections and other non-violent means,. We also grieve for the brazen and barbaric ways with which the Bangsamoro people’s right to assert their sovereign will through a free, fair and peaceful electoral exercise is once again, trampled upon.

Indeed, another victim from the November 23 mayhem is the ruthless assault on the Bangsamoro people’s sovereign will—their right to choose their leaders and representatives through a free and fair electoral process. This right, we assert, strikes at the heart of the Bangsamoro people’s right to self-determination- –their collective entitlement and aspirations to determine their political status and future as a people in Maguindanao.

But this right to self-determination continues to be effectively curtailed by a coercive and oppressive environment before and more so, in the aftermath of the November 23 massacre.

The Bangsamoro people have been on the receiving end of the seemingly endless cycle of discrimination and marginalization, dispossession, war, violence, impoverishment and powerlessness that spanned generations of families on the one hand—and, on the other, witnessed an alternating reign of local powerful political clans and elite dynasties, nurtured and coddled by successive national regimes in exchange for electoral and other political favors meant to serve the national politicians’ narrow, self- serving interests and agenda.

The people of Maguindanao have been turned into vulnerable pawns caught up in the violence of fierce intra-elite political feuds and rivalry as well as bloody power struggles. They have been pitted against each other, cowed into submission and fear, and even made to turn against their own interests.

The history of domination and oppression of Bangsamoro peoples dates back to the colonial period of the Philippines , but has been perpetuated by the country’s local political clans and local warlords, who were armed and propped-up by successive national governments. For instance, the November 23 mass murder unwittingly exposed as fact what has been whispered around as a public secret for many years: the tight stranglehold of the alleged massacre masterminds, the Ampatuans over Maguindano– – was made possible by the Arroyo regime that acted as its number one coddler, as well as the main beneficiary of this powerful clan’s reign of terror in the province..

The downward spiral in terms of curtailed rights and disempowerment of the people in Maguindanao, is matched by the worsening impoverishment and underdevelopment in the province. Today, while the Ampatuans and their closest kins wallow in opulence and scandalous trappings of wealth and power, Maguindanao is stuck for years as one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines, where life expectancy and quality of life is one of the lowest in the country. Local elites hold sway , taking control over the people’s lives and future, while the vast majority of the Bangsamoro masses, continue to cling on to their daily lives of despair and wretchedness.

But November 23 has not only scarred the Philippines’ dignity as a nation. It also brought about changes that permanently altered not only Maguindanao and Mindanao, but the nation as well. For one, the dark and violent side of Philippine politics has been brought to a searing light, that also offered Filipinos the chance and the choice to act and intervene for change. November 23 exposed the horrific reality of impunity and the brutal reign of the Ampatuans stood out as a recent epitome of the worst in local warlord politics, including their various ghastly dimensions in the country.

The national and international outcry generated by the Maguindanao massacre stemmed from our collective revulsion not only to this madness, but to its unprecedented assaults on our collective sense of decency and our common humanity. Our common humanity is the wellspring of our strength, and a source of our hope that enables us to brave against anything that dehumanizes us, no matter what the price.

We in APSOC, trust and for once, we have never doubted, that this bond of common humanity is shared as well by the vast majority of our Bangsamoro fellow men and women, and the Filipino people as a whole. Just as we have never wavered in our solidarity with the Bangsamoro people’s just struggles for human rights, social justice and equality, including their struggle for self-determination.

Now is the time that we should work together to break the silence and the climate of fear in Maguindanao. Now , more than ever, is the time that we should exert our full determination to break the reign of terror and impunity. Now is the time to muster all our courage to assert the Bangsamoro people’s sovereign will.

This way, we honor the sacrifices of those who fell on that fateful day, and we give justice to the cause which they believed is worth dying for.

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