When job, health care, education, food and water, and physical security are wanting people are shut off from their choices. The hapless marginalized people become vulnerable and exposed to exploitation aggravated by government’s impotence to guarantee human security.

BY ATTY. ALGAMAR A. LATIPH
Contributed to Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 18, June 10-16, 2007

Once again we witnessed the nasty politics of violence and the flood of allegations of vote rigging in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. What has been largely ignored is the region’s prevailing poverty, political and socio-economic inequalities where electoral fraud and violence are rooted. United Nations’ official Topfler Klaus said that “when people are denied access to clean water and air to meet their basic human needs, we see rise of poverty, ill-health and a sense of hopelessness. Desperate people can resort to desperate solutions.”

Being consistently listed in the “Bottom 10 (2003)” of the Philippine Human Development Report 2005 confirmed the sorry state of inequalities and ebbing human development in the five provinces of ARMM. These provinces occupy PHDR’s “Bottom 10” in its category of the: Most Poor Provinces; Human Development Index (where Basilan, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi are in the lowest ranking); Per Capita Income (except Lanao del Sur); Basic Enrollment (except Tawi-Tawi), and; Gender Development Index (except Lanao del Sur).

With regards life expectancy, they placed at the lowest with Tawi-Tawi at 51.2 years (PHDR 2005). The National Anti-Poverty Commission’s Summaries of the 40 Poorest of the Poor Municipalities disclosed that 65 percent of these municipalities are from the ARMM of which three are among the 13 municipalities where election failed on May 14, 2007. The NAPC’s database, likewise, revealed that region’s 351,230 households have no access to water, this is equivalent to one-third of its registered voters.

These inequalities result to 1.8 million migrants all over the country in search of opportunities. Beyond the region’s boundaries, discrimination and exclusion confront Muslims thereby narrowing their choices. In job hiring, school admission, house leasing among others are just a few instances when Muslims are discriminated. Out of the 663 inmates in Camp Karingal’s Women Jail Dormitory Facility, 94 inmates come from ARMM (2005 data from the Muslim Legal Assistant Foundation). This is 14 percent of the jail’s population which is sharply disproportionate with the Muslims’ less than two percent population in the National Capital Region. None of the inmates finished secondary school; they found themselves living in slum areas and all are unemployed.

The perception of the 47 percent of Filipinos is that Muslims are terrorist/extremists according to the Pulse Asia Ulat ng Bayan March 2005. It also found that 55 percent believed that Muslims are prone to run “amok” and about 33 to 44 percent have anti-Muslim bias. It is surprising however that only 14 percent of the respondents had experience interacting with Muslims while 58 percent based their judgment from media. It shows how media’s negative portrayal of Muslims unduly affects stereotyping. The candidates’ theatrics in the media highlighted their stereotyping, and derision of the region’s people as cheaters with a culture of violence.

The region has experienced centuries of violent and painful history in defending their freedom from foreign domination. The 20th century was highlighted by exhaustion from struggle from the systematic policy of driving them out of their fertile ancestral land in which they are now a minority. The densely militarized region is host to 1.38 million internally displaced persons brought about by armed conflict from 2000 to 2004. Since 1971, the armed conflict claimed 120,000 lives.

As a body politic, ARMM meets the profile of a failed region where it did not only breed electoral violence but, to an extreme, a terrorist group—Abu Sayyaf Group. The current political violence is a sad reality of Moro versus Moro. It is a violence devoid of any political ideology or personal animosity. Owing to the absence of choices within the region, politicians are not motivated by power and prestige but a control of the limited wealth in the local units or districts—the Internal Revenue Allotment or Pork Barrel Fund. A victory in the elections will secure a three-year uninterrupted flow of millions of money. Politicians spend millions to buy votes since return-of-investment is assured. The scenario in the region’s politics is that the cost of violence is worth an investment. That is the reason that politicians’ drive to ensure victory and the sense of losing the election increase political tensions and, at times, result to bloodshed.

Political dynasties

In abstract, a ballot is more than a piece of paper; it is a paper where the highest expression of people’s supremacy in governance is cast. But this exists only in law books. Rather the ballot is a material object treated as property which can be sold to the highest bidder or can be used as leverage in accessing basic human subsistence. In ARMM the ballot has yet to serve its constitutional utility of building a “just and humane society.” Though it lost its altruistic value, the ballot is not a meaningless paper but a commodity that can yield money worth more than the expected delivery of public goods and services.

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