SINK TOGETHER OR SAIL TOGETHER?

Dianne Katherine E. San Pedro

4th year BA Speech Communication

University of the Philippines Diliman 

           The year 2013 has been a rough year for us Filipinos. Just recently, Typhoon Yolanda struck the Philippines, and literally destroyed Tacloban. A month before that, Bohol experienced a magnitude 7.2 earthquake which left hundreds of people dead and thousands of structures destroyed. With all these current natural calamities that had happened, it seemed that people have forgotten about what happened in September, the Zamboanga seige which also left hundreds of people dead and thousands, homeless.

            Last December 11, 2013, A symposium on the Zamboanga City Crisis was organized by the Graduate Studies Department of the College of Mass Communication. It was entitled the Zamboanga City Crisis: Reconciling A Divided Community. The president of the Philippine Center for Islam and Democracy, Ms. Armina T. Rasul-Bernado was the guest speaker of the event.  The lecture started with a bacground on the History of Islam in the Philippines, how the conflict in Zamboanga came to be and what the solution to this problem could be. A lot can be learned from the symposium - not only about the Zamboanga crisis, but also about Islam as a religion and culture.  I believe its a better way to explain the on-going crisis. The audience get to have a background and understand the problem better. Personally, as a person with not much knowledge on Islam, I’ve learned about the originating struggle of the Bangsamoro – consisting of the Sulltanate of Sulu, Lanao and Maguindanao – on their loss of land and sovereignty. The downfall of the Bangsamoro people, actually the whole of their population, started during the Marcos’ regime. From then on, not only was sovereignty taken from them but also the convinient way of living they once had. They were slowly taken away of access to piped water and electricity. Thus, making a downfall to the bottom ten (poorest) provinces in the country. With all these struggle, hopelessness, poor infrastructures and government was the rise of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) - driven to have a better life. From the surface, people may see them as some war-freak men just wanting to gain control and power. What most people do not see is that they have this long running struggle.

ACCEPTANCE and UNITY – Ms. Rasul – Bernardo higlighted that this is the best way to rebuild the conflict affected area like Zamboanga. Beyond the rehabilitation, there must be efforts in unifying the community – reducing discrimination and diffusing tensions. There maybe a lot of challenges like the Muslims’ weak voice in the community, poverty, unfamiliar history, and even the refugees’ reintegration to a traumatized area. But surely, this is better than any paper of peace agreement. And as a part of the youth, we can help out in rebuilding the community. In this Age of New Media, we can make use of the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to educate people, connect with them and exposed them to the on-going dilemma. This being our common ground, we can make a difference. It all starts with acceptance.

Even though we have our divisions and unsettled differences, we cannot escape the fact that we are still one nation – we are still on the same boat. So it’s up to you to make a choice, do you want to sink together or sail together?