An evening with Rodil family and guests ...

I spent the evening last Monday at the home (a.k.a. resource center) of Rodil family along with top military officials and three guests from Germany.
In that cozy sala, we sat together as persons of variegated experiences, goals, languages, descent and perspectives although we might have unspoken intertwined dreams.
We had dinner together and great in-depth conversations over prospects of peace in Mindanao in the next twenty years.
Yes, twenty years. Is there anyone raising a nerve?
Is it achievable?
Our accommodating hosts said that “it could be, if done with so much focus just like how Americans targeted that within the span of twenty years all Filipinos become English speaking persons (and God knows… with copy-cat twang too.)”
And so we are. Even those who revile the US government in the name of nationalism are eloquent speakers and writers using English as a medium of communication. In twenty years… and it seems to me that it will go beyond with the proliferation of call centers in our country whose employees are taught to speak with American and Australian accents.
(Reminds me how Brian asked during his training period in a Canadian-owned call center: “Am I pronouncing it well?” To which I replied, “yeah, because I can’t understand it anymore.”)
Shifting back to where we are that night, we all listened how Kuya Ompong (local historian and professor Rudy Rodil) detailed about the history of Mindanao conflict while showing all the political maps from American period up to the recent times where MILF proposed their politically delineated ancestral domain as their Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) under that unsigned Memorandum of Agreement of Ancestral Domain.
Kuya Ompong also talked about the Lumads, the Moro people and with some expressed discomfort on ‘migrant settlers and their descendants.’
He shared this discomfort because many of these so called migrant settlers are no longer actual migrants from Luzon and Visayas (decades ago) but are already children who are born in Mindanao; have live in Mindanao; think and feel as Mindanawons; and have shared part in constructing its history as people of Mindanao for peace and developments.
It made me reflect too how could I, from a Spanish descent, dissociate myself from Mindanao when I was actually born in Davao city; grow up in urban areas of Mindanao; loved that lifestyle my grandparents (mother side) enjoyed at their farms in Davao del Sur; become a scholar in a Muslim-dominated university in Marawi city for eight years; almost got killed at Camp Bushra during the all-out war of the government versus the MILF (without my parents knowing); likes Zamboanga shores so much; become so immersed in Mindanao issues; and finally enjoying this life in this industrial center of Mindanao.
I was in my teen age when my father brought me to Leyte to meet his family and join them in tracing our roots. One of my aunt is in Davao and my other auntie Mary settled in Hawaii now with her family (whose children shared a Canadian descent from uncle Danny Cobile).
I laughed at that realization that my great-great-great grandparents (father’s side) are actually among those who docked at Limasawa Island and among those who came to the Philippines as conquistadores.
I do not know if I am proud of my ancestry but fact is, I came from such genealogy.
I listened to the stories of my grandparents about the lifestyles of Gloria clan with dramatic twists and turns.
Truth is… I did not grow up with them (Gloria's side), except with my father whose only evidence of Spanish descent was his nose, something I miserably failed to genetically copy.
I am not so much concern about who I am and where I came from until I met some persons whose first questions of defense is “who are you? what is your tribe? where do you came from?” as if I am an alien from Pluto.
I am not even aware on the question about migrant settlers until I become aware about land conflict and the need for political negotiated settlements.
My life isn’t so complicated to understand then, so long as I had better relations with my neighbors and friends. I enjoyed my peanuts as I sat at the base of a monument at Magsaysay park while I listened to amateur singing contestants every Sunday night with my father. Like anyone, I wasn’t as bothered as those people living in southern and western Mindanao until I reached the age of twenties.
Of course, I am not this quite naïve on historical confusion.
My first political awareness streamed while I was a child who’d tag along with my father to watch rallyists in Davao city chant against martial rule, facism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism besides the main street, few meters away from Magsaysay park.
I had lollipop in my mouth while I’d receive copies of leaflets from those who are marching. I read those with less understanding although I enjoyed its caricatures and comic drawings in their statements.
I heard my father’s opinions on some issues but he isn’t as much as politically motivated to participate on social actions like others. He trained me to listen to radio reports (Davao city) every morning and he made some occasional remarks about it. I listened too to Ruben Canoy whose punch lines remain relevant up to this time: “Ang lungsod nga nasayud, mauy makahatag ug kusog sa atong demokrasya. Apan ang lungsod nga mapasagaron, maoy maka-pukan sa atong kagawasan. (Mga higala kumusta?)”
My first violent experience was the bomb which exploded at a plaza in San Pedro while there was that political rally. I saw how people rolled on the grass and how my parents panic. I was just four years old then.
I am now in my thirties. I became a direct participant on educating people about that improvised explosive devises (IEDs) after I watched Najma Basher, a Muslim student battled her life at an emergency hospital of the city because she was severely hit in a bomb explosion at Jerry Shopping mart last December 2008.
And still, I am a descendant of migrant settlers. No ifs and no buts. I am a Mindanawon too, whose heart bleeds as much as you do.
As I shifted my seat while so buried with my past, I tried to taste the chocolate cake Ma’am Bebot prepared as our sweets yesternight. I tasted the liquor on it. Its bitterness simply exemplified the bitter part of our lives… but it was contrasted with Ma’am Bebot’s smiles across the sala… so pregnant with thoughts.
Well, in that night, there were more meaningful merged politic-personal conversations without negation to objectivity on each point. For some reasons, I prefer to write those in my heart.
Heading back home, onboard a vehicle of Sir Benny, my thought reverberates to what Kuya Ompong just said “hear each other out; feel each other out.”
And betwixt our laughters inside the car I managed to reckon how Ompong asked Bebot, “see the last (powerpoint) slide, is this okey?(apparently referring to simplified recommendations)”
Bebot meaningfully smiled.