A member of the Moro observer-delegation to the aborted signing ceremony in Kuala Lumpur took to task Adel Tamano, spokesman for the United Nationalist Opposition (UNO), for having joined the boisterous chorus of Filipino politicians vehemently opposing the MILF-GRP Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD). The MOA-AD has generated so much opposition among Filipino politicians and vested-interest power blocs in Mindanao that the Philippine Supreme Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to stop the signing ceremony hosted by the Malaysian Government on the strength of a petition by Cotabato Vice-Governor Emmanuel Piñol.

The TRO came out on the eve of the August 5 signing ceremony thereby cancelling at the last minute what could have been a very historic event signaling the beginning of the resolution of the conflict in Mindanao.

The Moro observer, who requested that his name be withheld, told Luwaran that Tamano is doing a great disservice to the Bangsamoro people and to his late father, Senator Mamintal Tamano of Ranao, for having lent his voice to those whose vicious enmity for Moros and Muslims has reached a hysterical level when the GRP went public with the MOA-AD. The late Senator Tamano, during the early years of his political career, was identified with the dictator Ferdinand Marcos but later on distanced himself from the latter when martial law was instituted and war was imposed on the Bangsamoro people in the 70s.

The observer said that the young Tamano is ignorant of the issues and processes involved in the peace negotiation between the MILF and the GRP as he is preoccupied with Philippine partisan politics. He is also out of touch with the present condition and real aspiration of the Bangsamoro people, having been born in and being a permanent resident of Manila who rarely, if ever, sets foot on the soil of his native homeland in Mindanao. As such, he has never identified himself with the Bangsamoro, even disdain being called one, nor has he ever spoken in their behalf. The younger Tamano, the observer revealed, is married to a Filipino Christian who never became a Muslim; their children have also become Christians.

It is very unfortunate, the observer further said, that Tamano’s desire to please his Filipino mentors in the Opposition coupled with his political ambition have prompted him to issue public statements that parrot those being churned out by anti-Moro and anti-Muslim politicians and their paid media hacks. This has placed Tamano, claimed the Moro observer, at odds with the greater interest of the Bangsamoro people.  

Meanwhile, when sought to comment on this matter, Maulana Marohombsar Alonto, himself from Ranao and a member of the 5-man MILF Negotiating Panel, told Luwaran that “this should not come as a surprise.” According to Alonto, “the histories of colonized peoples and nations have invariably shown that from the ranks of the native elites, the colonizers have ‘created’ in their image people who think like them, talk like them, act like them, and even look like them. The case of the Bangsamoro is not an exception. You can find Moros who even outdo the colonizers in opposing the Bangsamoro people’s struggle for freedom and the right of self-determination. This is one of the debilitating effects of colonialism.”

Alonto, however, added that “as Muslims we should not close our doors on them. They are also our brothers in blood and in faith however weak their faith may be. They have been misguided and corrupted because of colonial assimilation. Our struggle has as its immediate objective the decolonization of our captive Moro nation and the restoration to our oppressed people what is left of their ancestral domain, which is their national homeland. Along with this is the decolonization of the minds and hearts of many of our Moro brethren who continue to delude themselves with the false notion that they are better off in the hands of our colonialist oppressors. It is our bounden duty as well as the moral responsibility of our liberation movement, as the MILF leadership believes, to guide them back into the folds of our struggle and thus into the arms of our Moro nation. Perhaps they will see the light someday, Insha’Allah”.

source: luwaran

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