Reflections on the Bangsa Moro

Chron.com | Report of coup plot spurs Philippine state of emergency

In commemoration of the EDSA “Revolution” of 1986, I thought of writing about my experience during that time but I was overtaken by events.

The president declared a “state of emergency” on the very day when the Filipino people commemorates the toppling of Pres. Marcos’s state of emergency popularly known as Martial Law.

Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. I’m afraid the president and her advisers have lost it.

Arroyo’s Presidential Proclamation No. 1017 is constitutionally infirm, illogical, and not based on verifiable facts.

I am truly aghast at the brazen idiocy of her people. They violently dispersed crowds gathered to celebrate the 20th EDSA anniversary, arrested a respected and well-known professor and media personality for trying to negotiate with policemen to allow the marchers to proceed to the EDSA shrine, arrested a leftist congressman based on a 1985 arrest warrant for sedition (against President Marcos!), took control of a second-rate national daily known for its anti-Arroyo stance, etc.

Some of Arroyo’s people keep on insisting that there is nothing to be afraid of since the PP 1017 is not the same as Marcos’s Proclamation 1081 (Martial Law). They claim that Ms. Arroyo has no added powers and that the proclamation is merely a statement of facts.

But then, Arroyo’s people revoked all permits to rally (in effect revoked the right of the people to peaceful assembly), arrested known personalities without warrant, took control of a national daily newspaper, etc.

This reminds of of Mr. Marcos’s declaration of Martial Law in 1972. He kept on repeating that the “civilian is supreme over the military.” The only civilians that were supreme over the militaty at that time were Mr. Marcos, his family and Cabinet.

The only people who truly fought Mr. Marcos and his Martial Law were the Moros and the Communists. It took the Christians 20 years, the martyrdom of Ninoy Aquino and the mutiny of Ponce-Enrile and Ramos to finally rise up and kick Marcos out of the country.

I wonder if the Christian majority have learned something from recent history. Will they allow another dictator in their midst?

allAfrica.com: Uganda [opinion]: The Politics Behind Muhammad Cartoons

A very cogent analysis of the Danish cartoon controversy. This explains why the Muslims in Denmark had to bring the cartoons to the attention of the Muslim world.

Living as a minority is already difficult without the humiliation of seeing things which one holds dear trampled upon by the majority.

But I’m afraid the writer will have a long wait. European artists / intellectuals will not go against the grain this early.

University of the Philippines — a haven for mediocrity

Once Upon A Time, people were hired based on merit – their academic credentials, their intelligence, their capacity to lead, their vision and their character.

The Philippines had leaders like Manuel Luis Quezon, Sergio Osmena, Jose P. Laurel, Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos, etc.

Then came Ferdinand E. Marcos. He had everything needed to be a good leader – intelligence, desire, family background, vision, etc. He surrounded himself with other great men like Rafael Salas.

But Marcos realized that Salas also surrounded himself with exceptional men like Juan Ponce-Enrile and Alejandro Melchor. Marcos became afraid that sooner or later, he would have to share credits with Salas in leading the government. He would have none of that. For Marcos, the country has room enough for only one great man. And so he fired Salas, who decided to work for the United Nations instead.

Marcos then surrounded himself with fairly intelligent men, but the prime consideration was that they must be yes men/women. He then proclaimed Martial Law and ruled the country with an iron hand and an Iron Butterfly (Ms. Imelda Romualdez-Marcos)

In 1983, Ninoy Aquino, Marcos’s fraternity brother and political rival decided he would give up his life for his country. He had a multiple bypass surgery in the US. The US State Dept. officials wanted him out of their country. My brother, Jun Abbas, gave him a blank Philippine passport and a bullet-proof vest. With the passport and vest, he boarded the plane and announced to all and sundry that if Marcos wants him dead, they have to shoot him in the head. They (the killers) obliged.

The Filipinos (mostly middle and upper classes) rose. The Defense Minister (Ponce-Enrile) and Armed Forces Chief of Staff (Ramos) mutinied and called on the people for help. And the so-called EDSA bloodless revolution occurred.

The Filipinos had had enough of Great Men like Marcos. So Salvador Laurel, who was at the height of his popularity, gave way to Ninoy’s non-prepossessing widow, Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino.

Although she came from a very political family, she refused to meddle in politics. All of a sudden, she found herself President of the country. Amid all the confusion, the mediocres of the country, encouraged by the long rule of Marcos’s mediocre functionaries, had themselves appointed to various positions. Mediocrity was thus officially institutionalized.

Today, mediocrity rules in government agencies and all State-run or controlled organizations. The premier State University, University of the Philippines, has become the bastion of mediocrity. The present President and Diliman Chancellor are classic examples of mediocrity in positions of power and leadership.

In a survey of Asian universities, UP was rated number 48. It could have been much lower were it not for its reputation as the school of Philippine political leaders. In the reputation category, it was rated No. 2 in Asia!

The decline of UP’s standard is indeed lamentable. Many UP graduates now can hardly speak or even write English. The fault, of course, lies with the system. UP is run by the professors, most of whom have absolutely no experience in managerial or leadership positions.

In order to be part of UP’s faculty, the department’s faculty members or officials (Director, Chair, Coordinator, etc.) will have to vote on it. Naturally, if one has very good credentials, the “mediocres” would not want him/her in the faculty as s/he would be a potential competitor (for promotion, grants, etc.) Thus, the reign of mediocrity at UP is institutionalized.

Filipino taxpayers pay the salaries of mediocre professors. Many of these professors are sent abroad to study (fully or partly subsidized by the Filipino taxpayers). And many of these teachers, who couldn’t possibly study abroad if they were not UP faculty members, soon take their sabbaticals to teach abroad, earning huge sums of money for themselves.

Take the College of Mass Communication (CMC). Its Dean, Dr. Nicanor Tiongson, who had just returned from a very lucrative teaching stint in the US, has gone back to America. He did not even finish his 3-year term as dean. The first Director of the Film Institute, who just finished his PhD from the US, is now teaching in Korea. The person who replaced him, who also just arrived from a high-paying job teaching Filipino in Japan, is now in Singapore for another lucrative teaching post.

They are supposed to be faculty members of the UP Film Institute. Yet they end up teaching other courses (Filipino, Journalism, etc.) abroad.

The Philippine film industry is dying. And the CMC Film Department, now UP Film Institute, has nothing to show through its years of existence. This is because these professors started being interested in films only when they got the jobs or the scholarships. The Dean has no academic background at all in Film Studies. His field is Philippine Studies. The two others were in Philippine Studies and Journalism but transferred to Film Studies in order to get into the department faculty and eventually get scholarships to the US.

Woe to the Filipino people and their educational institutions.

Discrimination at the State University (UP)

In April 2005, I was told by the University of the Philippines Film Institute people to apply for the position of substitute professor. I did. A week or so later, I was told that three people were chosen.

One was kicked out of UP Diliman as Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department because he could not finish his M.A. in the prescribed period. He has an AB in Sociology and was working for his MA in Sociology.

Another has an AB in Film and Audiovisual Communication. She was working for her MA in Creative Writing – but is already beyond the maximum residency requirement. She has NO teaching experience, and has mediocre academic standing in graduate and undergraduate levels.

The third was a German national.

My qualifications?

M.A.in Media Studies (Film) from the UP Film Institute – the first Filipino graduate of the program GPA of 1.03 (probably a record at UP) (Grading system in Philippines is : 1.0 = Excellent, 1.25, 1.5 …. to 3.o=Pass, 4.0=Conditional, 5.0=Fail) GPA of 1.0 for Film Courses High Pass (Highest Grade) rating for Comprehensive Exam The College’s Best Thesis of the Year. Lecturer of Film and Communication courses at UP Film Institute, College of Mass Communication

And that is just for starters.

The Academic Coordinator of the Film Institute wrote a letter to the Institute’s OIC Director complaining of the hiring of the Sociology professor and asked, in behalf of the faculty, for another faculty meeting. The Director dismissed his request with an order to him to process the appointment papers ASAP. At the College Academic Personnel Committee meeting, the appointments were railroaded in spite of the lack of TWO out of four signatures of the Film Institute’s memo-request and the objections of the Chair of the Journalism Dept.

Armed with the letter of the Academic Coordinator and the Institute’s Memo Request (which lacked the two signatures), I complained.

My complaint reached the Board of Regents, who debated over the simple issue for at least 5 months.

Attached are my letters to the BOR (1, 2, 3, 4) . The UP administration saw to it that my letters would not be reflected in any official Minutes but those damaging to me (lies and half-truths) were published and circulated.

Some regents and the UP President and Chancellor conferred with Dean Tiongson and his group but never asked to interview me personally.

If this is not Discrimination, then what is it? At the very least, there was no DUE PROCESS.

I did not ask the help of the Muslim community at UP like the UP Muslim Students Association or the Institute of Islamic Studies.

I thought it was a simple case. I was wrong. The first thing the Dean did was to protect the Institute. The first thing the Chancellor did was to protect the Dean and the Institute. The first thing the President did, although more subtly and terribly Machiavellian, was to protect the Chancellor, the Dean and the Institute.

If the Film Institute’s reason for not getting me was because I was OVERQUALIFIED, I would have accepted it because compared to the two they got, including some of their faculty there, I am truly overqualified.

Alternate address for the BOR letters

Demonization of Muslims in the Media Leads to Discrimination of Muslim Minorities

During the Middle Ages, the burghers, many of them Jews, started to gain economic power. Pretty soon, the Jew moneymen began having a monetary network all over the European continent. Kings and dukes owed them huge amounts of money. The biggest of them, like the Rothschilds gained titles to nobility. But the European Christians were not amused.

Western literature is full of anti-Semitic propaganda. Shakespeare’s Shylock is perhaps the most famous Jewish character in Western literature. Throughout the Middle Ages and well into the Industrial Age, anti-Jewish policies were enacted all over Europe.

The result of this anti-Semitic media products resulted into one of history’s biggest massacres – the German extermination of some 6 million Jews during World War II.

In the case of the Muslims, the situation is similar. Since the Middle Ages, the Church fathers had a continuous propaganda against the Muslims – the so-called heathens and infidels. This of course resulted in the Crusades, which united most of the Kingdoms of Europe.

The Christian Crusades were a failure. But the exploits of some Christians like those of Richard the Lionheart became the stuff of Christian legends. Attacks on Islam were a normal feature in Christian literature, both academic and popular.

In the Age of European Colonization, which coincided with the fall of Muslim power, Western literature on Muslims and Islam became condescending and even romanticized as something noble, feminine and eminently conquerable.

After World War II, the world witnessed the creation of several Muslim states. Although still controlled by the Western powers, the Muslim Voice suddenly made its appearance in the world media. Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan led the articulation of Muslim aspirations.

In the 1970s, the OPEC, especially its Muslim members, flexed its muscles and declared an oil embargo. The Arab countries, as well as the Western oil companies, suddenly found themselves extremely rich – with a lot of economic power.

The Western media promptly blamed the Arabs and Muslims as the culprits in the world oil crisis. The Western-owned oil companies were exonerated. This time, caricatures of Arabs as uncivilized desert nomads (Bedouins) turned to Arabs as uncivilized but very rich oilmen buying everything Western.

With the Cold War going on, the Muslims, who were the natural enemies of Communism, were the dearest friends of the West. But with the fall of Russia and most of the Communist world, the Muslims found themselves in their traditional role – as enemies of the West.

With Bush’s and Blair’s War on Terrorism, the Muslims found themselves having a new Identity. They are no longer heathens or infidels or exotic Orientals. They are simply Terrorists.

Muslim Minorities are Worst Victims

Anti-Muslim propaganda is inimical to all Muslims, but especially to Muslim minorities living in non-Muslim countries. These Muslims are already marginalized and continuing anti-Muslim propaganda simply foster discrimination by the majority.

Philippine case

In the Philippines, anti-Muslim propaganda has been institutionalized by the Spaniards since the 17th century. Spanish literature, documents, Church sermons and official policies are full of anti-Muslim (against all Muslims not just Moros) material. The indios or naturales (non-Muslim natives) were fed not only anti-Muslim sermons but also anti-Muslim entertainment. Zarzuelas or moro-moro were popular musical stage plays whose protagonists were Christians and Muslims (of any country). The Muslims were always the villains in these plays.

When the Americans came, the slogan became: “A good Moro is a dead Moro”.

Even after the independence in 1946, anti-Muslim stories can be found in newspapers, films, comics and even school textbooks.

When I was in Grade VI, I was scanning my younger sister’s Grade III textbook. I was so shocked to read the Moros described as “bandits, pirates and outlaws.” I remember showing the book to my brother who was in college. He simply laughed and said, “So what’s new?”

Through the years, I’ve seen the Moros / Muslims mocked, insulted in films, on TV, in comic books, on Radio and in newspaper stories, columns and even editorials.

Through the years, I have been forced to defend the Moros / Muslims in school, office, seminars and various fora. I even wrote several letters to various newspapers and magazines. Finally, I gave up as it is simply futile.

My elder brothers have been more vocal in defending the Moros / Muslims. But they are politicians. I am not. I am just a simple Moro gentleman.

Firestorm over Danish Muhammad cartoons continues * * ***

Graven Images and Freedom of Expression

Today’s Christians could not understand why the Muslims do not want the image of their prophet displayed in any form or manner. After all, a picture paints a thousand words. The Christians have forgotten their very own Ten Commandments. In fact, the Second Commandment in Exodus Chap. 20 is quite straightforward:

You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow to them or serve them, for I the lord, your God am a jealous God.

Now what’s wrong with an image? Simple. Once people start making images of their leaders, it would be just a matter of time for those leaders to become gods themselves – worshipped by the multitudes. This of course would contravene the Christian and Jewish God’s First Commandment:

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

And because of Christian propensity for making graven images, they now find themselves kneeling and praying to all sorts of statues and images of they holy men and women whom they call Saints. Jesus’s mother is hailed as the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of God.

Muslims, as much as possible, follow the teachings of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad (peace upon them all) and all the other prophets of God. Muslims therefore follow the Ten Commandments – to the letter.

While there are Muslims who insist on having images of the Prophet Muhammad, the great majority followed the Second Commandment. After more than 1,400 years of Islam, its great Prophet was never deified unlike Jesus, Zoraoster, Mithra or the Egyptian pharaohs who ended up becoming gods themselves.

But the issue regarding the caricatures of the Prophet drawn by Danish illustrators, published in a national Danish magazine and re-published in several European newspapers is a totally different matter.

Images of the Prophet are not new. Some Muslims, especially Shi’as, exhibit images purporting to be the Prophet in their houses – woven in carpets or sequined cloths. I have heard that some even wear shirts with images of the Prophet.

But the caricatures by the Danes are something else. They are, to say the least, in bad taste. They reflect pure bigotry and ignorance of Islam. And of course, they promote the Western idea that Muslims are Terrorists and that the suicide bombers are mindless idiots whose only motivation is to have virgins in heaven. How about the young Muslim women who give their lives for their Cause? Would they get male virgins in heaven?

And what caused this entire hullabaloo? A Danish writer Kåre Bluitgen was apparently miffed because many Danish cartoonists refused to draw pictures of Muhammad for his children’s book on the Qur’an and the Prophet.

In the first place, what right or qualification does he have to write about the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad? The fact that he wanted artists to create images of Muhammad for his book simply proves that the does not understand Islam and the Qur’an. So what is his business writing a book on the Qur’an and the Prophet? Does he merely want to malign Islam and the Muslims?

Incensed by the apparent cowardice of the illustrators, Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, took it upon himself to teach the Muslims a lesson. After all, how dare the Muslims dictate what great Danes can write or not.

He called on Danish illustrators to submit to him caricatures of the Prophet of Islam. He then published these drawings to illustrate an article on self-censorship and freedom of expression.

Mr. Rose and other European journalists are angry that they could not write what they want to write about the Muslims for fear of violent retaliation. Have they not heard that the pen is mightier than the sword? The Muslims have suffered so much precisely through the poisoned pens of European and other non-Muslim writers / journalists /academics / Orientalists.

With freedom comes responsibility. The non-Muslims cannot just write anything against the Muslims in the name of freedom of expression. The Muslims have also the right to protect their reputation and their right to the untrammeled pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

Right now, Muslims are being bombed out of their villages – in Afghanistan and Iraq and even in Mindanao. They are considered terrorists unless proven otherwise. In airports the world over, including in Manila, Muslim travelers are refused entry simply because they somehow look like terrorists.

The world’s media is owned by the West. If the Western media people do not restrain themselves from propagating lies, half-truths and all sorts of insinuations against the Muslims, then what would happen to the basic human rights of Muslims the world over?

To have peace, all parties must understand — truly understand – one another. Toleration is not good enough. There must be understanding or comprehension of the other’s history, present circumstance, culture, traditions and aspirations. There is no more room for stereotypes fostered by bigotry and arrogance. And most importantly, there must be Respect for one another.

The Jews may think they are the Chosen People and the Europeans / Americans may believe they are God’s gift to Humanity. The Muslims have no such pretensions. But Muslims the world over bow to no man or woman. They bow only to God.

But it does not have to be a zero-sum game. It is imperative to find the win-win scenario.

Muhammad cartoon row intensifies

Six newspapers reprint Muhammad cartoons

* **

Freedom of Expression or Sheer Bigotry and Arrogance?

The Muhammad caricatures now inflaming the Muslims all over the world is simply one example of the callousness, bigotry and hatred of the Christians against the Muslims of the world. This is indeed a sad fact, but this is a result of the Christian propaganda against the Muslims since the Middle Ages.

Who said the Crusades ended during the Middle Ages? England’s General Edmund Allenby, upon the English occupation of Jerusalem on 11 December 1917, declared: ‘Today the Crusades have ended.’

And of course, we all saw and heard on world TV George W. Bush’s call for a new Crusade at the start of the New Millennium. So what else is new?

A few years ago, I was amazed to read in a tabloid that a Philippine Court (I think it was the Supreme court) dismissed a petition by some Muslims against a newspaper which published an article mentioning that the Pig is the god of Muslims. The Court said it was part of the writer’s freedom of speech and expression.

There was no uproar against anyone. I don’t know how many Moros or Muslims (including foreigners) have read the original article. I clipped the newspaper report intending to give it to my lawyer brothers so they can do something about it. But I lost the clipping. When I told one brother about it, he asked for the clipping. Eventually we all forgot about it.

I was only 6 years old when I came to reside in Manila. That was a long time ago. There were few Muslims in Manila then. It was normal for us Muslim kids to have fights with our Christian classmates because they used to say that the Pig was our God. Most Christian Filipinos think that the pigs are the gods of Muslims and the cows are the gods of Hindus because the Muslims don’t eat pork and the Hindus don’t eat beef. In a pork-eating society, the Filipinos could not think of any reason why anyone would not want to eat pork.

In the 60s and 70s, Muslims usually eat at home first before going to parties because we knew that we could not eat anything in those parties where all the viands would have some pork ingredients, not to mention the roasted pork itself (locally known as Lechon) – the usual piece de resistance in parties hosted by Christian Filipinos.

Thankfully, in the 80s and beyond, pork became quite expensive so the viands in these parties now include chicken, fish and vegetables.