COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Absolute belief in “bagih†is what makes Moro people more resilient with tragedies that they can easily pick up the pieces and rise again the next day spiritually stronger.
The word "bagih" means destiny in the Maguindanaon vernacular, something they believe in strongly, as “determined only by Allah,†who, for them is the sole authority that charts one’s fate every day while here on earth and even in the afterlife.
Although grieving, relatives of Muslims that died in the roadside bombing here, which left eight people dead and injured more than 30 others, were quick to regain their senses and dismiss their loss as bagih, which is for them something that a faithful cannot run away from.
“Questioning the wisdom of one’s bagih is `disbelief’ in Allah,†a 75-year-old ethnic Maguindanaon, Kadir, said in the local vernacular.
Kadir is a close friend of a carpenter named Sangkala Satol, one of the fatalities in the bombing.
Satol was a carpenter at the office of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman.
Satol was waiting for his wife, who was buying milk at a grocery store for their 10-month-old son, at one side of the busy Sinsuat Avenue, just across the spot where the bombers had parked a car bomb they set off on Monday afternoon just as a convoy carrying City Administrator Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi was passing by.
Satol died on the spot along with three others, two of them motorcycle-riding security escorts of Sayadi, a younger sister of Cotabato City Mayor Japal Guiani Jr.
Satol, who had served the ARMM government since its inception in the early 1990s, is survived by his Maguindanaon wife and three children, all in pre-school.
“All he had wanted was to buy some bread for his `iftar’ dinner that day and to take home a box of milk for his infant-son. The grocery store was full of customers so he let his wife buy them instead while he waited outside and died right on the spot where he stood,†said Myrna Jocelyn Henry, a senior member of the ARMM’s Regional Communications Group.
Amihilda Sangcopan, Hataman’s chief-of-staff, said they are contemplating on providing Satol’s widow an employment at the Office of the Regional Governor (ORG).
Satol was known at the ORG as a respectful, courteous and hardworking employee. He was a devout Muslim who prayed five times a day facing the direction of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in a prayer room at the ground floor of the ARMM’s executive building, according to co-workers.
'Allah is great'
Relatives in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat town of the youngest fatality in the bombing, nine-year-old Jaedin Menak, have also easily accepted his demise as Allah’s will.
Menak’s five-year-old sister, Janice, and their parents, Sahibudin and Sarah, who were also injured, are still confined at the Cotabato Regional Medical Center, also located along Sinsuat Avenue, less than a hundred meters away from where the car bomb went off.
The Menaks, who are also ethnic Maguindanaons, were only vacationing here, from the United Kingdom. The spouses Sahibudin and Sarah are both employed in London. Their children, in fact, were already more conversant in English, in British accent, than in Filipino.
Hospital personnel that attended to Menak have stories of how they conversed with the nine-year-boy in English and cracked jokes about the kindergarten “pussy cat†rhyme --- which tells of a wayward cat telling of having gone to London to “visit the queen -- to keep him calm while being treated of his blast injuries.
Hospital personnel had quoted Menak as telling them in English that he was thirsty and asked for drinking water, which they declined for medical reasons.
Menak gradually passed away mumbling he was thirsty, uttering her sister’s name before repeatedly whispering "Allahu akbar," Arabic for Allah is great, according to relatives.
The Menaks were on board a white Mitsubishi pick-up that was right beside the parked car that the bombers exploded via remote control, while a convoy carrying Cotabato City Administrator Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi trailed behind.
“Lubog na, duguan pa,†was how Nikki Lintongan, a disk jockey of the city’s Catholic FM radio station dxOL, described the sad predicament of the city’s fear-stricken folks on her Facebook timeline. Lintongan lost an uncle in the attack, the city's worst in recent years.
The bloody incident rocked the city even before floodwaters inundating more than 20 barangays in the city, spawned by incessant rain a week priors, could recede.Thousands of city residents dislocated by the floods are still confined in houses of relatives on higher grounds and in makeshift evacuations sites.
Lintongan, who also belongs to a Moro clan, said that the bombing, which left eight people dead and caused injuries to 30 others, will forever “scar†the image of Cotabato City and will be chronicled as another bloody chapter in the area’s blood-stained history.
A popular peace advocate here, Oblate priest Eliseo Mercado, Jr., said people in Cotabato City have been grappling with terrorism and “insecurity†as if its a part of their day-to-day life.
“They have learned to bury their dead, grieve for them and pick up the pieces once more and move ahead,†lamented Mercado, director of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance, which has various peace-building projects in Southern Mindanao.