December 12, 2007

A Moro non-government organization (NGO) has lambasted a University of the Philippines political science professor and columnist of the Philippine Star for his anti-peace stance and clear lapses in history. Arsad Solaiman, chairperson of the Mindanao-based Youth for Bangsamoro Genuine Empowerment (YBGE), sent an email to Luwaran reacting bitterly to the column of Prof. Alex Magno in the Philippine Star dated December 11, 2007 entitled “Dangerous First Person”.

He said Alex Magno should review his history subjects, because Datu Masungit has never existed in history, except in the imagination of those who wanted to placate the late Vice President Doy Laurel.

In 1570, there were already many Muslims in Batangas but those were largely the missionary works or efforts of people from Brunei, not of the Sulus, Maguindanaos, or Maranaos. Rajah Solaiman of Manila and Rajah Lakandula of Tondo were of Bruneian origins and in truth were related to the royal families there, the Bolkiahs.

Magno,  who once moonlighted  in the lucrative board of directors of the Development Bank of the Philippines,  questioned the ancestral domain claim of the MILF on the basis of historical antecedent as no longer plausible or logical,  and yet forgetting that the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) passed by Congress anchored on the same very principle.

At one time during forum at the UP, he was booed for making claims that were considered “wild” by those who attended.

Solaiman recalled that during the all-out war against the MILF in 2000 by President Joseph Estrada, Magno in a television interview endorsed the whole war frenzy in Mindanao.

Solaiman also hit Magno for obviously wanting the MILF to accept the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which is a failed arrangement, and opposed the establishment of Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE), which he described as a “dangerous proposition”.

“Is Magno saying that no solution to the Moro Problem is tenable because the Moros are untrustworthy and what does he want for them, to be assimilated completely into the national body politic and abandon their beliefs and practices?” he asked.

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