On the one hand, the conflict in Mindanao is a demand for autonomy and self-determination. On the other hand, it’s an insurrection that steps on the very lines of sovereignity, Constitutionality, and the demand for peace in the Philippines’ center of conflict.

i do not think it is a demand for autonomy or self determination. there exist a framework for that— however broken called, “ARMM”. There is no justifiable “insurrection.” MILF is a bandit group that does not represent all of Mindanao or even a majority of people there. No one is dragging Muslims in chains. No one is subjugating them. They are as free as any man in this country, no matter how imperfect that freedom is.

On March 4, 1885, Abraham Lincoln in his inaugural address said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

maybe we need to go through the crucible— the fighting.