A Case of Mistaken Identity: Mindanao as ‘Muslim’

I was born in Dumaguete, the City of Gentle People, where every month a Feast of a particular Saint was most anticipated and the majority is devoted to celebrate the Holy Eucharist. Needless to say, most of the people there are either Catholics, if not part of a Christian denomination. Only a tiny area in ‘Bag-ong Dalan”, or San Jose Extension, stood a Mosque where a few Muslim residents pray. In the same area, vendors retail fireworks from a store where Malongs were also sold, and during Christmas, most people would go there to buy, while poking common jokes like “Palit ta sa Abudah Abudah”. Everyone had the compulsion to laugh at the line carrying the connotation of the etymology of the city’s name which was from the word ‘daggit’, meaning a history of Muslim attacks and ‘dumaguet', denoting the power of the natives to captivate the ‘new comers.’

From Dumaguete, transferring to Cagayan de Oro was an immediate culture shock, especially with the existence of different kinds of culture that were not present in my original hometown. In Mindanao, or at least in Cagayan de Oro and Davao City, people with different religions coexist harmoniously without being over sensitive about throwing a harmful comment during casual conversations. By instinct, people did not throw words that were detrimental to any religion or indigenous tribe. The same atmosphere extends to Davao and other areas in Mindanao where I have came to reside in. That category of peace among religions was customarily a delicate topic, before I came to Mindanao.

I do not blame the people of Dumaguete City for being surprised to see a woman, dressed in all black, covered with cloth from head to toe, only revealing those indifferent and radiant eyes. There were only a number of Muslims in my hometown, when I was a kid. So, while buying grocery in Lee Plaza, my aunty once said, “Nihawa mana sila sa Mindanao kay daghan kaayu Abu Sayyaf! (They retreated from Mindanao because of the Abu Sayyaf)” pointing to the lady in black, beside was her husband who was wearing a red Taqiyah in a mall where most men wore baseball caps.

Influenced by television, my Aunt mechanically pulled me to the side, away from those two, as if they were one of the known ‘bandits’ and ‘insurgents’ of the country. I squirm of the thought of writing this, but it is true how people in some places of the Philippines associate Muslims with bandits and bombers, and also how Mindanao seem to exist as a single unit without different cities, for them. I was lucky that my mother was not like my Aunt, for she was always rather proud of having Muslim friends during her days as a Councilor, to the point that she even randomly tosses out an attempt of one Arabic line no matter how embarrassingly out of tone it was with the intricate accent of the language.

When my family transferred in Cagayan de Oro, my father’s hometown, I eventually made several Muslim friends of my own, as a fourth year high school student in Xavier University Ateneo de Cagayan. Our class beadle became a close friend of mine, my first connection to the world remote from my genes of pure Christian family. Since fasting used to be an eccentric practice for me, I constantly asked her how hard it was to control herself from swallowing her saliva during the Ramadan. Forgiving my ignorance, Johairah used to explain the importance of discipline in their religion. Escorting the liberation of my awareness in life, I soon recognized the essence of fasting as well as that chant from the Imam I hear during 4:15 in the morning which I used to think was just a habitual singing from the neighbors, before the Church Bell rang.

Finally, I knew a Princess, a Sittie, who explained how she was not suppose to assume the label given that her mother was already the original Princess in her direct family. She became another close friend in my first year college days. Other than topics about her name and my observation of her reverberating words of prayer before accomplishing every chief obligation like eating, Sittie and I would chat about other topics away from the differences of our religious practices.

Boys were one topic we never miss out, as all teenage girls would. Without fear of rubbing a judgment, we used to confront even about wrong decisions. As first year college students, getting fooled by older boys, and possibly landing on the obviously difficult life of teenage pregnancy was a mutual fear for both of us. The level of effects in our individual family was not even the main point of the conversations. While we opened ourselves to new ideas, constantly smashed by philosophies that not only contest our practices but also dispute our beliefs, we maintained our respect, never using the dissimilarities of our faith to ruin our friendship.

When I graduated in college and landed a job, I gained more friends in Davao, through a project called Duyog Mindanao, where I met more Muslim brothers and sister who were victims of the war between the MILF-GRP. Muchtar, a boy whose heart breaking story in Mindanao unfailingly appealed to the audience, helped me mobilize more supporters to the campaign for a peaceful resolution to the problems in Mindanao.  He and other people in the network constantly text and contact up until now.

But realistically, friendship with a Muslim was not always pure cheerful. A former colleague and I ended up ‘un-friending’ each other in Facebook because of her annoyance toward anyone who sympathizes with her. Hearing that she was overworked and underpaid, I appealed to the situation so that her boss would understand how much she needs a raise. Instead of backing me up, she posted a hate status about me, thus lead to the un-friending. That clearly showed how trivial reasons can get two friends into a fight without the bearing of any influence from religion.

My past endeavors might be the root as to how I am always infuriated with people who discriminate Muslims, or other marginalized individuals, for that matter. Taking into consideration the Maguindanao Massacre, that caused both the lives of the almost 60 people in the actual incident and the expected prejudice against all Muslims in the Philippines, I tried to practice my self-control against biased jokes especially if they were uttered by someone from Manila or other parts of the country. I strived to convince myself that they have not fully learned the proper exercise to not generalize Muslims because they did not live with them for a long time.

But when under the situation where discrimination was full frontal, it was hard to compose myself. In Manila, LRT1, a pregnant Muslim woman, along with her two kids, entered the area where women and children were supposed to be the main priority for the chairs. The train was almost full, so I and my twin had to stand just next to a rope that separated that special area from the rest of the crowd. As the woman entered in Gil Puyat Station, the guard instructed her to move fast on to the direction where I was standing. Seating on the chair were women who were obviously not pregnant, at all. But they never gave way to the pregnant woman, whose veil might have instantly placed her in a specific category, more than the fact that she was carrying a child.

I thought that they would eventually give way. The guard stayed inside the train, he was smirking as he looked at the woman who was putting all efforts to balance along with the rest of the passengers packed in the area, where pushing and thrusting are almost deadly. After noticing that she was still not given the right to sit comfortably on the proper section, I talked to her as loud as I can so that the others would also hear. My confidence crawled from neck down to my backbone as I said, ‘Ate, dun kayo oh. Buntis kayo eh at may bata pa! Upo kayo! (Elder sister, go ahead and seat on those chairs because you are pregnant and you have two kids with you)”. Some women finally gave way, so she proceeded to the chair without looking at me.

I remembered hearing ‘Marami paring ganyan sa kanila (people who discriminate Muslims) dito sa Manila, Pearl’ from my friend who was working for a development organization handling Peace in Mindanao. I told her how the incident pissed me off more than it did when a Human Resource person, for a company I applied for, asked me if I was a Muslim after he learned that I resided lengthily in Mindanao. When I told that staff that I was not, he suddenly blurted at how relieved he was because he did not want to be caught up with the practices and the controversy of hiring a ‘killer’. I told him sarcastically, for I always am during these situations, “Dahil siguru taga Mindanao ako no?”, and he replied with a nod.

Successfully holding my rage, I went home that day somehow hopeful that there are other people, here in Manila, far more educated than those ones who’ve even annoyed me with questions like:  “how did it feel working with those ‘rebel MILFs?’ While I may have come off saying ‘Mas nakakatakot kapang kasama kaysa kanila! (I’m more scared being with you than with them)”, I eventually learned to stay calm, stirring up the optimism that, with the right action taken regarding the Mindanao Peace Talks, people all over the country would eventually learn to seize the prejudice and maintain the peace starting with their personal views, just like how it successfully worked for the people I know who are residing in Mindanao.