South meets north

Last week, I went on a six-hour trip northward bringing together four young girls to befriend each other. Two of them came from the deep south while two were from the far north. The minute the greetings were over with a kiss for Mayla and Aileen Buaquen’s mother from Indah and Biege Loong, the walls that initially separated these tribes melted. Perfect strangers had become instant friends and I asked myself, why can peace be hard to achieve?

We enjoyed the sumptuous feast in a thanksgiving celebration called Kanyaw in the Ifugao provinces. In the Moro provinces, the same celebration is called Kanduri. Geographically, we were on the outskirts of Baguio City. The two Buaquen’s would be called Igorot as the others are called, coming from the landlocked provinces of Benguet, Ifugao, Bontoc, and Kalinga. They are all natives of similar stock separated by rugged terrains and mountains of Cordillera and the Sierra Madre. On the other hand, Indah and Biege Loong are Tausug from Sulu, their homeland. The Sulu Archipelago, surrounded by waters, consists of chains of islands that extend about 220 miles southwest from Basilan Strait to Alice Channel, off the northeast of Borneo. In customs and traditions these four girls would greatly differ. Yet together, they enjoyed eating boiled beef with salt, steamed lapu-lapu and lots of boiled vegetables… okra and kangkong, which were grown around the Buaquen’s shining wood, bamboo and nipa house. Everything was simply boiled, for hours. Boiled pig was aplenty, laid on the table, accepted by the Loong sisters as customary in the Cordilleras but untouchable for believers of Islam.

The great-great-great grandparents of both Indah and Biege, and my newly graduate cadets of the Philippine National Police Academy, Inspector-sisters Aileen and Mayla, never accepted Spanish domination. Historical records make it clear that their forefathers fought for their independence deliberately and continuously.

In the Cordillera, Aileen’s grandpa’s efforts were largely successful because at the end of the Spanish regime, the Cordillera Central had been carved up into a dozen military districts that the last Spanish census listed one-third of the estimated mountain population as completely independent. Buaquen’s ancestors had won plots of lands for their homes and vegetables, pechay and baguio beans. Centuries after, their father would be a Philippine Constabulary officer from Abuklan, Bokod, Benguet, who became a policeman in 1989 through the Police Basic Course during the Philippine Constabulary/Integrated National Police days.

The same resistance occurred in the south by Indah and Biege’s forefathers and their father! The Muslims resisted colonial rule ferociously to pursue their Islamic way of life and religion including their freedom to roam the Sulu Sea. The Moros, when entrenched in their cotas/forts of earth, rock and bamboo, exacted a heavy toll of Spanish casualties. Historical records again show that when the situation demanded, the Tausug readily killed their own fellowmen as in the “Balangingi Island attack” rather than be demeaned and debased in the hands of the white colonizers.

Now for their father, Habib Tupay Loong. He was a member of the Moro National Liberation Front’s Magic 8 who consented to return to the fold of the law during the Marcos regime. Tupay plus seven were offered and accepted mayoralships. From being a Mayor, Tupay became the governor of Sulu and at present he represents the first district of Sulu as congressman.

These four women have been undoubtedly raised and prepared for bravery and enjoin physical fights if need be to continue their forefather’s struggle. But Indah, Biege, Mayla and Aileen have chosen peace over battles.

Was I briefly in a sort of odd situation being a Christian in a group whose forefathers held a negative image about my Christian ancestors? To them, Christians were cheaters, bullies, and land-grabbers who were out to destroy Islam and the tradition of human sacrifice. These misconceptions continue until now. Christians against Muslims, Igorots versus Christians… preconceived notions have become obstacles to the achievement of peace, in the southern seas of Mindanao and the Cordilleras. But face-to-face, the heart opens up with one theme, brotherhood among all. To get to the Buaquen residence, we passed a pathway going by the riverside that overflows during the rainy season, to a home where aunts, uncles, relatives from the Cordillera danced round and round in circles to the sound of gongs held by relatives and a nose flute player. The men pranced around with their arms outstretched. For the women, arms were held over their breasts with hands daintily upwards. Mayla and Aileen’s mother, with a blush on her white cheeks, wore a red, black and white dress of woven fabric with traditional stripes. I joined the dancing of course and also took half a glass of tuba. For the muscle-legged men, it was more drinks of rice wine fermented over two years.

Down south the dancing would be the Pangalay involving left to right foot work, head high, movements seemingly snobbish to the beat of hanging gongs on a stand or a kulintang. Arms and hands upwards the Tausug women display glistening long silver nails called Jangjay. As their shoulders go up and down and hips move to and fro and tempting fingers lure you, the Pangalay is a sexier dance than the hopping about of the Ifugao’s. On the other hand, the Tausug women wear a tight blouse with loose sleeves until the cuffs. A malong over the shoulder completes their outfit over pants called sawal.

Whether the Thomasite professional teachers and the American soldiers made the northern inhabitants Protestants or that Islam was brought to the archipelago by Sharif Makdum (not a proper name but a title), who disembarked in Sulu in 1380 together with traders from the Malay Peninsula and Borneo.

I became a Catholic through my Spanish parentage. I learned of Catholicism from priests who arrived in the Philippines in 1521 and soldiers who disposed the King of Tondo, Lakandula. We were three of different historical backgrounds sitting at a table to eat “in peace.” The girls were thrilled to meet fellow Filipinos they just read about.

Differences mark our respective identities. Differences do not make one culture superior and the other inferior. Cultures are like colors. One cannot insist that the color orange is better or more beautiful than red, or that yellow is better than green, for there is no color better than the other. One color is only different from another. One culture is only different but not better or more beautiful than another. In fact, more beauty is created when one culture is combined in harmony with another, just like when you combine various colors. Peace is better achieved if we learn to recognize and respect our differences, after all there is beauty in variety.