There are Moros who are against the BARMM Government until today, and actively wish to undo the gains of the peace process. They see the contradictions between the government we have and the government they believe we should have, and they are not wrong to recognize those contradictions.
As a child, I already knew that Muslims in the Philippines were treated poorly in some parts of the Philippines. We didn’t have social media back then, but I had heard countless stories of Muslims who were stuck in poverty because they could not get a job for wearing hijab or growing their beards. Muslim children my age were discriminated against in schools only because they were Muslims. For a long time, I thought living in a Muslim-dominated area, was already a privilege.
Muslims in areas like ours endured corruption and repression, but at least we could pray, fast, and practice our faith openly. I thought that was the best thing we could ever get as a minority in a Catholic country.
Years later, I learned that we actually fought for a total independence at first. From 1960s onwards, different Moro movements fought for our rights, some even tried to separate the Bangsamoro homeland from the Philippines. But over time, it turned into a fight for autonomy.
Because I thought it’s a no-brainer for the Philippines to keep Mindanao since, as I had heard from my elders, Mindanao is very rich in natural resources. However, its the government’s negligence, oppression and suppression of the people in Mindanao are what the Moros refuse to accept.
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So some of them actively fought in the fields, while some sat across from the government representatives at the negotiation table to make them acknowledge that we, Muslims, are just harmless, ordinary people like them who want a normal and peaceful life, who just happen to have different laws and different God.
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It was a long and bloody struggle. Then, on September 2, 1996, the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) signed the Final Peace Agreement, the pact on how to implement the Tripoli Agreement they also signed in 1976.
The Agreement was a failed attempt for a lasting peace, but it was a good start. It meant our leaders had finally made the Philippine government understand that we, Moros, are different and that we have the right to be different.
The BARMM that we have now is actually closer to the Shari’ah than well think.
We can actually use democracy as a tool to design the public life we want as Muslims. When the BARMM was established in 2019, we saw that as long as we were still ruled by people who feared Allah, being in a democratic government was not that bad.
I see democracy as a government of ideas, and our representatives debate and kill each other’s arguments so that the best idea can win, regardless of who proposed it. And as long as these MPs do not command what Allah has forbidden and do not forbid what He has commanded, we’ve already something to build on. Because those ideas will become laws that will later govern how we live publicly and privately.
Today, if a Muslim has a question about an Islamic ruling, there is the Bangsamoro Darul-Ifta’ to turn to. Madrasah teachers, or ustadh, can receive training, and Islamic schools have a regional government that can address their educational needs. Muslim children can wear their hijab to school, and in some public schools, they can also learn Arabic and Islamic values alongside their regular subjects. And when it comes to certain personal and family matters, Muslims have a justice system that recognizes Shari’ah.
It still disheartens me whenever I read news about our Muslim sisters in France being stabbed only for wearing the hijab. Just this year, Muslim women in Sri Lanka could not go to work or take exams unless they removed their hijab first. There are countless stories of harassment and hate crimes against Muslims around the world. And sometimes, I wonder if I should feel guilty for being grateful that here in BARMM, we don’t have to hide our faith.
BARMM is not perfect, and neither are its leaders.
Like other parts of the Philippines, there are public concerns about corruption, gaps in infrastructure, and other public services.
But when it comes to our faith as Muslims, which is actually one of the main reasons for our struggle, it is our best alternative to giving up more lives in an attempt to establish a type of government that is impossible to attain under the current circumstances.
Muslims were so commanded to migrate to lands that is ruled by the law of Allah Shari’ah. But if we cannot migrate to Islamic countries yet, at least we should make the most of what we have today.
