Peace!

After many weeks of encouragement from Joe Torres, I finally succumb to the invitation and a temptation to begin a Blog that will help stimulate the discussion and debate of important issues confronting Mindanao.

People of Mindanao have always felt that they are peripheral concerns in the overall national agenda. In fact, it is a popular belief in Mindanao that the Republic is actually the “NCR” and not the 7,000 or so islands that constitute the Philippine Archipelago. While the national leadership and NCR pay lips service to Mindanao and its waters, their real worth is counted only in terms of “captive votes” during national election and strategic minerals. This sentiment, in fact, is so pervasive that there is a lingering desire and hope to adopt a politic of separatism, at the maximum, or a politic of federalism and autonomy, at the minimum.

This sentiment rises or falls akin to the fluctuation of the peso – dollar exchange. Budgetary allocation and participation in national governance are key factors that shape the rise and fall of separatist sentiment.

A clear example that is often cited shows Mindanao as constituting almost a third of the national population. Yet, in terms of budgetary allocations, both in terms of departments and regions, Mindanao’s share is less than 20% of the national budget. This anomaly is further exacerbated by the fact that mineral resources including strategic resources are found in Mindanao and its territorial waters.

Budgetary allocation directly impacts the shape of human development indicators in Mindanao. We need not stretch our imagination to understand why in the 20 poorest provinces in the Philippines, 14 provinces are found in Mindanao. The stark enumeration of development indices like lowest level of literacy rate, high level of mortality, poorest access to health services, etc. are eye openers to the co-relation between budget and reality on the ground.

The grief does not end in Mindanao’s economic near abandonment and budgetary neglect. The political exclusion of Mindanao is worse. Of the 24 senators, there are only two from Mindanao. The presence of Mindanawans in the President’s Cabinet is the epitome of “tokenism”. Appointments of Magistrates both in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals are consistent to this “unofficial” policy of “tokenism”. The same can be said to top officials both in the AFP and the PNP.

I still remember in one of the round table discussions sponsored by Kusog Mindanaw, former Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin made a very candid and beautiful presentation of budgetary allocations per regions. With no great surprise at all, the two regions with lowest budgetary allocation are the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). After the presentation, we need not surmise why in the said two areas the “politic of separatism” has taken roots.

At the level of Kusog Mindanao, the forum of Mindanao leaders regardless of politics, religions, ideologies and parties, we have agreed to make a strong lobby and advocacy at the national government – Executive, legislative and Judiciary – for EQUITY and PARTICIPATION. The “battle cry” is 30, 30 and 30! Concretely these three 30’s stand for 30% percent of the population; 30% of the national budget; and 30% of position in all organs of national governance, judiciary, constitutional commissions and government owned and/or controlled corporations and institutions.

National Government comes and goes, but to Mindanawans, the real measure of caring and good government is, in the final analysis, a government that remembers us not during times of election and national crisis but a government that lives the true meaning of “politic of inclusion” in governance, equity in budgetary allocation and recognition and respect for our diversities and rights to govern ourselves and communities in our local affairs.

And when we speak of participation, equity and governance, we do not mean “tokenism”. “Tokenism” is good simply for photo “ops”. It is like salt rubbing the wound that continues to pester the relations between Mindanao and the “NCR-centered” Republic of the Philippines. The latter will never guarantee a “Strong Republic” neither would it be a source of strength for the National Capital Region.

If this Republic believes that it cannot move forward without Mindanao, then it should begin by acting so… and the formula is 30 – 30 – 30!