Mindanao

I was born and raised in an island that Magellan, General Mc Arthur and General Yamashita didn’t like or dared to land their ships and set their foot for conquest. That Island is the home of the rarest and wildest animals on earth. It is also the home of the bravest people that American soldiers ever encountered leading to the creation of a .45 caliber pistols. That Island is coined as “the land of promise”, the land of Mindanao.

Mindanao as a place is still a strange to most Filipinos living in Visayas and Luzon specially the middle and upper class level. Most Filipinos who haven’t set foot in Mindanao know it only as a chaotic place. All they’ve seen and hear are the killings, kidnappings and other horror stories most journalists, local or international, loved to write or plug in TV. In fact, most of the upper class Filipinos in Metro Manila knows more about the shopping and tourist spots in the cities of Hongkong, Malaysia and Singapore than any city in Mindanao combined.

For more than 400 years of Philippine history, Mindanao is rarely mentioned except in the famous “Luzon-Visayas-Mindanao” phrase. Other than that, Mindanao almost did not share any glory, fame and importance in the aspect of heroism, leadership and historical event in the Philippines. Mindanao is nothing but a source of food, raw materials, human resource and large number of votes for national candidates who aspires to juicy and powerful positions.

In the history of national leadership in the Philippines, Mindanao had less or almost zero participation. Among the past presidents of the Philippines, those from Southern Luzon were among the best. The three past Philippine Presidents from Visayas islands like Ilo-ilo, Cebu and Bohol were among the most admirable in terms of delicadeza and ethics. That recent Presidential bet from Bicol would have been a good one had he won or did not die recently.

Mindanao, with its big land area, rich natural resources and huge population, is still about to contribute a Mindanawon Philippine President. This may or may not happen, but if it does, that Mindanawon President might offset all the bad economic, political, and social havoc that Ilocano past President have done to this country. But this is unlikely to happen if Mindanawons have no culture of unity and pride of its home island.

Maybe, just maybe... a Mindanawon Philippine president will be elected someday and bring back peace, prosperity and unity to this country so that Filipinos won't need to go and be slaved for work abroad just to live decntly.