26 July 2016•Update: 26 July 2016
By Roy Ramos
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Leaders of the Philippines’ conflict-ridden south have expressed hope for peace and bright economic prospects for the long neglected region under the government of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has appointed officials from Mindanao island to top national posts.
Duterte, who served 22 years as the mayor of southern Davao City before becoming the country’s first leader from Mindanao, has proposed to amend the constitution to grant regions -- and their indigenous peoples -- more federal autonomy.
He has also made overtures toward several armed Muslim groups and a communist insurgency operating in Mindanao, a mineral-rich but impoverished region where indigenous peoples -- including the Muslim Moro -- have long felt oppressed by what they see as Imperial Manila.
The governor of majority Muslim Maguindanao, Esmael Mangudadatu, said Tuesday that he and mayors in the province were elated when Duterte referred to Mindanao’s Moro territory as “Moro country” in his first state of the nation address Monday.
“That was a strong acknowledgement of our centuries-old identity as a people, distinct in cultural groupings, but one in dream --- peace and prosperity,” he stressed in a statement.
He expressed optimism of “peaceful days” to come due to the appointment of several Mindanaoans to various cabinet posts -- including Emmanuel Pinol, Ismael Sueno and Paulyn Ubial as the secretaries of agriculture, interior and local government, and health, respectively, and Jesus Dureza as presidential peace adviser.
“How can we not see a `white dove’ at the end of the tunnel? Three of these four officials, Secretaries Pinol, Sueno and Ubial, are from Central Mindanao? They grew up with Moro friends,” he said.
Dureza also hails from Davao City to the island’s east, and is known to be friendly with political and rebel leaders in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), where the government is engaged in an ongoing peace process with the country’s largest Muslim revolutionary group.
“All of them also understand deeply the decades-old Moro issue and the importance of the ongoing bilateral peace initiatives of Malacanang [presidential palace] and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,” Mangudadatu underlined.
“What is there to worry about? There is an assurance from a national chief executive who is from Davao City in Mindanao and who has a mix of Lumad and Maranaw bloods,” he said.
The indigenous Lumad generally practice Christianity and Animism, while the Maranaw are among the Moro tribes.
Congressman Celso Lobregat of the predominantly Christian city of Zamboanga told Anadolu Agency that he was also optimistic after Duterte's address that the region’s development would finally be prioritized after decades of neglect under leaders from the Philippines’ north.
"I am elated and bullish on what Mindanao would have in the next six years under President Duterte, Speaker Alvarez and Senator Pimentel, all from Mindanao," said Lobregat, referring to House of Representatives speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Senate President Koko Pimentel.
Lobregat, who was picked by Alvarez to lead the Zamboanga Peninsula in Congress' Mindanao bloc, said he has already filed a House bill aimed at creating a Mindanao railway system that, if approved, would connect key cities.
"This is a prosperous time for Mindanao... We congressmen from this region under the Mindanao bloc understand and agree that it's high time to unite for Mindanao's progress," he stressed.
