“The attacks on the Dutertes are part of a US strategic political plan to continue its control of the Philippines through the traditional political elite it has co-opted”
Mindanao has long been yearning for independence from the tentacles of Luzon politics.
The sentiment we have been hearing recently from the likes of former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, followed in the most earth-shaking fashion by former President Rodrigo R. Duterte, for a separation of Mindanao from Luzon, had been as strong in the 1980s then voiced by the trio of the late and former Senator Aquino “Nene” Pimentel, former assemblymen Reuben Canoy and Homobono Adaza.
The Mindanao trip called their campaign the Mindanao Independence Movement and it resounded amongst many Mindanaoans.
It was a later evolution of the Muslim Independence Movement of Datu Udtog Matalam of Cotabato and anti-Japanese guerilla leader who launched his secessionist movement partly in reaction to the mass migration of Luzonians into Mindanao.
It had the Jabidah massacre as the lighting of the fuse for the movement.
Canoy, Pimentel and Adaza used the name Mindanao for their independence movement to embrace the non-Muslim constituencies of Mindanao and.
It had a better ring to it that attracted even more Mindanaoan Filipinos to the idea of establishing their own republic away from what by that time had become known as “Imperial Manila” dictating on the budgets of Mindanao, de-prioritizing petitions from Mindanao to favor northern Luzon development and projects.
Then President Ferdinand E. Marcos defused the MIM by recruiting Canoy and Adaza from their local media and political roles into mainstream Luzon politics, appointing Canoy as undersecretary of public information, and Adaza was allowed in to the legislative assembly, then known as Batasang Pambansa.
Pimentel took the opposition course and joined Corazon C. Aquino, but behind the opposition was the US role in supporting some of these upcoming politicians.
Fast-forwarding to today, the issues that have driven the infinitely graver call for the exploration of the Mindanao Independence is the direct physical threat, with the insidious flirtation of the Marcos Jr. administration, as regards the arrest of former president Rodrigo R. Duterte by the US-controlled International Criminal Court and the subsequent inclusion of Vice President Sara Duterte in the charge of Human Rights violations in connection with the “anti-drug war.”
(Editor’s Note: The Hague-based ICC seeks to investigate and prosecute those responsible for grave offenses such as genocide and war crimes. There are 123 member countries, but dozens of governments are not ICC parties, including China, Russia, India and the United States.)
Although Bongbong Marcos did finally, after really too much dilly-dallying, declare the ICC had no jurisdiction in the Philippines as the country had withdrawn from the ICC’s Rome Statute in March 2018, he expressed a politically insensitive “they are welcome” to the ICC visitors threatening the most popular Philippine ex-president in living memory.
That really seethed among the Dutertes and the huge following all over the country of the much-missed tough anti-drug president.
The attacks on the Dutertes are part of a US strategic political plan to continue its control of the Philippines through the traditional political elite it has co-opted and the independent-minded Dutertes are definitely prime targets whom the US is determined to eliminate from the future politics of the country.
It is the same as the US elimination of Marcos Sr. from Philippine politics which the progeny has clearly parlayed away with.
The broader implication of the re-colonization of the Philippines is the systematic dismantling of any national economic development plan and one of the earliest victims to this is the extremely vital 10-Phase, 1,544 kilometer-long Mindanao Circumferential Railway (initially called Trans-Mindanao High Speed Railway) to be funded by a multi-billion Dollars ODA from China.
During Duterte’s term, China funded the Samal-Davao Bridge and the Bucana Bridge project which recently commenced construction.
The Mindanao Independence Movement sentiment is not just about the Dutertes.
It is about the entire development strategy of the nation which the US continues to block as they tried their darndest during the time of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, and succeeded in sabotaging his “Eleven Industrial Projects” just before they finally ousted him with a controlled puppet – Corazon C. Aquino, and the rest is a 30-year history of dismantling of the Philippines’ independent economy and its privatization.
For six years under the Philippines saw a revival of Marcos Sr.’s independence in foreign policy and the revival of the national, physical economy development of public and industrial infrastructure development and building spree.
But US Imperialism has been restored and Manila’s diktats now follow that strategy of oppression, suppression and deconstruction of development initiatives and projects.
The US divides and rules once again. Who is to stop it?