Raihana K. Lamalan

♬ Eid is joy.. and the most beautiful joy
Reunites the close and the far away
being happy about it… makes it
A beautiful memory, beyond Eid time ♫

I remember this song playing on our favorite channel, our big, fat TV screen showing it in Arabic while we cleaned the table after eating Iftar. It signaled that Ramadan was nearly over and Eid was within our reach. After mouthing the words I didn’t understand back then, my brother and I raced to the bathroom to perform wudhu. Our salah followed, and then we prepared to go to school.

♫ Eid is joy… and the most beautiful joy

I was merely seven years old the first time I practiced fasting. Growing up, it was never an issue for me to endure temptation during Ramadan. The heat was nothing compared to the discipline of hunger. One of the perks of growing up in a Muslim country was that the odds were always in your favor.

Like when we were in high school, our class started at 7:00 p.m. Isha began around 8:20, and taraweeh followed. During this holy month—whether it fell in early August or late July—we were almost free from schoolwork because we were always excused to practice our belief system. It wasn’t challenging; it was an honor to witness Ramadan again.

Dada said that celebrating Ramadan used to be almost as cheerful as Christmas. He told us that apartments and houses were once covered in lights, even the trees, and the phrase “Ramadan Kareem” was written in English and displayed in lights everywhere. He said it was unfortunate that we never witnessed it ourselves, but he promised me that the real joy of Ramadan was always in being close to Heaven. Our wishes, he said, would be heard by the Almighty God, and they would always come true.

So I prayed for a home. A house with a kitchen and a clean toilet.

But I couldn’t help disagreeing with my father sometimes. Considering that our class started at 7:00 p.m., we were often excused to go to the masjid, allowed to arrive late, and our attendance was loosened enough that class ended at ten thirty, even though dismissal was technically at midnight. Because no, we didn’t go home right away.

Jeddah was awake. The city was alive. People swarmed the streets, and Qur’an recitations could be heard almost everywhere. Our day started at Maghrib. During the daytime in Jeddah, it felt almost like a deserted town. Most establishments were closed, and nighttime was the only time they could sell. Not that the government forbade them—no, they were also observing the fast.

Our practices as Muslims were our priority then.

Our male friends followed behind us and carried our bags while we, the girls, walked ahead of them. Men and women were not allowed to be close to each other unless they were married. Otherwise, a mutawa would call you out, sometimes even making you perform salah in the middle of the street.

But our boys were mostly our brothers, classmates, and childhood best friends. We would go to the malls, grab some ice cream, or eat shawarma from our favorite Pakistani, Egyptian, or Jordanian shops, and then go home at three in the morning to prepare for suhoor.

On Palesteen Street, where we lived near our school, the culture was rich enough that everyone seemed almost identical to one another. We could never quite tell who was Arab and who was Masri, not that you should try to do that, but for us, it was never a big deal.

Those were mostly the highlights of my childhood, and whenever Laylat al-Qadr came, I prayed harder. Dahil simple lang ang gusto ko –bahay.

But maybe that was too much to ask, too ambitious, especially for someone like me, who had no resources. The house came true, but maybe I should have been more specific.

One thing that weighed heavily on us when we returned to the Philippines was that people assumed we would never run out of fortune, that we were bound to sustain them indefinitely. To our shock, we arrived at a house with no kitchen. No windows either. Walang pinto, walang kubeta ‘nung pag-uwi namin, samantalang nagkandakuba sa pagkayod sina Mama para maipatayo ito.

It was painful to watch Mama’s hands tremble from labor, her tears soaking the bare walls. There was no evidence of our hardship abroad. We had been deprived even of receipts to justify the cost of the house we had worked so hard to build. May mga bagay na hindi nagtugma, hindi ko alam kung saan napunta ang ilang bahagi ng pangarap at paghihirap nina Mama.

♫ Reunites the close and the far away

Like the essence of the song I used to hear as a child, we let things slide because we knew what was at stake if we spoke out. May mga salitang hindi mo na kayang bawiin. Kapag bagong salta ka at walang karamay, mas pipiliin mong manahimik kaysa mapagtulungan ng marami.

Unlike abroad, I find people more free-willed here. It surprises me that I’ve encountered some who ditch fasting because they are thirsty or because the hunger is unbearable. I have always treated fasting as an honor. Our parents introduced us to Islam at a young age, and in this religion, one of our pillars is to fast—or as we call it in Maguindanaon, puwasa. I guess it is safe to say that I am more culture-shocked here than I ever was abroad, even among our neighboring cultures in Sarangani.

Nostalgia filled my nostrils when I smell the mixed spices from our neighbors cooking sambuza for their bukā. The aroma is rich; my stomach trembles as I endure the last minutes of fasting. I stare closely at the Lucky Me Beef Labuyo that will break my fast. Mama is at the masjid helping prepare food for the townsfolk. Dada is in Marbel, spending Ramadan with his sisters. My kuya, who could no longer bear the weight of our dearth, is in Davao looking for a third job to support my studies.

I have always imagined myself having a house to call my own. Even when we were still in Saudi Arabia, I would watch vlogs and entertainment about houses in which they create spaces to suit the style the owners dream of. And I feel envious, dahil wala kaming sariling bahay. Walang magagamit tuwing bakasyon. Walang lugar para ipagdiwang ang kahit anong uri ng tagumpay, walang lugar para pagsaluhan ang lungkot, walang mapagpahingahan kapag tagatak ang pawis.

This isn’t how things are supposed to be, but this is how it is.

Kaya simple lang ang pakiusap ko. Ang pag-unawa.

While being poor is often taken as a punchline nowadays, it becomes easier for barbed jokes to slip out. I often wonder why I cannot relate to my peers. They ask for something simple and receive it right away. I, on the other hand, learned early how to ask for a rain check. Now I can clearly see it, the subtle lines that divide us: the children who have and the children who cannot. The silence. The exchanged looks. The way they talk behind your back, not to backstab you, not even to exclude you, but because you cannot afford to be part of their world.

I am humanized by grace. And if I’m being honest, all I feel is… guilt.

My presence is more tolerated than welcomed. What I bring simply does not seem to belong in their world. This is something we cannot talk about—money. The wall between us becomes impossible to ignore once it enters the conversation. It is the kind of truth everyone recognizes, yet no one dares to say out loud.

Hindi mo nga nabibili, mas lalong hindi mo rin mahahawakan kung hindi ka maglalabas ng pera.

They say they understand you, but they don’t.

But the right people will understand, and it will feel natural.

Scarcity has followed us across continents. We wear our poverty as if it were a debt we owe to everyone else. Hindi mo man pinili ito, pero parang kailangan mong humingi ng tawad sa mundong hindi kayang makisalo sa kakulangan mo.

And still, I cling to the simplest prayer: bahay.

♫ Being happy about it makes it a beautiful memory—beyond Eid time

Ayokong maging komportable sa kakulangan.

Dito, buo at kampante akong magpapahinga. When the sun sets, I want to hear the call to prayer echo across the streets. Jinn will bask in the glow of sunset, but I don’t mind. I know the malaikat will descend from heaven as the clock strikes to signal Maghrib. I hope they will be kind enough to hear prayers, the same way they listen to our pleas.

Dito, hindi ko na kailangang mag-alala kung saan sila Mama magfu-futūr, dahil may nakahanda nang hapagkainan at may pintuang nag-aantay sa kanila—hindi para makaalis, kundi dahil may uuwian na sila.

Anna L. Mamalampac

When I was a small girl, I thought that the moon was following me.

It was a summer night in the quiet, rustic town of Salvador, Lanao del Norte. My family and relatives had gathered at my Ina’s house for a celebration. The occasion has since slipped my mind, but I vividly remember how happy we all were. I was especially thrilled to finally reunite and play with my cousins, whom Ina –our grandmother— equally loved and cherished.

Given the freedom to roam the neighborhood, we became “partners-in-crime,” letting our carefree and mischievous natures run wild. We spent the night playing with the local children, eventually settling on our favorite traditional game: batir lata. Even in the near-darkness, illuminated only by a sliver of the moon, we could just make out the shape of the tin can as we threw our slippers with all our might to knock it down.

We ran around barefoot, with slippers held tight in our hands, taking turns guarding and throwing at the can. Some of us would hide behind the plants of our Ina, and others behind a coconut tree, waiting for the chance to dash out and kick the can without being caught by the ghakowa. And laughter started to echo as we shouted and teased each one of us. There are times we tripped on the ground but never minded the scratches caused by it because the fun was greater.

The thrill of running in the dark, the sound of slippers hitting the can, and the loud cheers when someone finally kicked it made the night more alive. It was as if the whole neighborhood joined in our joy, with the celebration laughter in the distance blending with our voices.

Right after the game, we would rest on the Bermuda grass outside Ina’s house. Lying there, we looked up at the stars and the moon above us. Childhood questions spilled easily from our mouths. What do stars really look like? Do they have their own light? Are they shaped? How big is the moon?

Soon our thoughts turned fully to the moon. It was very bright that night. It was summer, after all. I remember how proud I felt when I told my cousins that the moon followed wherever I went. That night, I learned it was nothing special. We all had the same experience.

Still, I wondered. Perhaps the moon was a person, I told myself. A being who could see us from above, who followed us, guided us, and kept us from danger.

In those moments on the grass, I did not yet know the weight of the world or the passing of time. Everything felt whole and endless. The night, the laughter, the quiet glow above us. I believed in things easily. I believed the moon could follow me, that it watched over us like a gentle guardian. Childhood made space for such thoughts, where wonder was not questioned but simply held, soft and certain, in the heart.

The following afternoon, I approached Ina. She sat outside in her korsi a tam’lang, sipping her coffee. I asked her about the moon, because after our talk the night before, my curiosity about that heavenly body had only grown.

“God created the universe. He created the moon,” my grandmother told me.

Overwhelmed by the thought of God’s power, I can no longer remember the rest of what she said. But that night I shared her words with my cousins and friends. They listened closely. For a moment, our laughter faded, replaced by a seriousness we had never felt before. Her words gave us something larger to think about.

It was a profound realization for us to know that the moon had been created by God Himself. We began to wonder what God looked like and how powerful He must be to create the universe, especially the moon that shone so brightly above us.

Something shifted in us that night. We were filled with awe, and our belief quietly began to change. Through the simple miracle of the moon, we sensed that there was a God. The prayers we heard from our parents no longer seemed like empty words. Perhaps, as children, we had been content simply to play, without thinking about the world beyond us.

Ina, without my fully realizing it then, was the keeper of answers to questions I had not yet learned how to ask. She spoke with a calm that made everything seem true and steady. When she told me about God and the moon, it was not just information she gave, but a way of seeing the world. Looking back now, I understand that she was quietly shaping something in me, a way of believing, searching, and becoming. Perhaps that is how girlhood slowly leans into womanhood, through small moments, through stories passed down, through the voices of those who came before us, teaching us how to look up and find meaning in the light.

Everything changed for me that summer. As I grew older, I began to understand that everything around me is a sign of God’s grace. The little girl who once believed the moon followed her now sees it differently. The moon has become, for me, like the face of God in the dark—beyond my reach, yet always shining, illuminating my path, a quiet light that keeps me moving forward.

Raihan A. Yusoph

On November 30, 2024, I stood quietly before the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima City. The late-autumn air was cold, and the river flowed gently beneath the bridges, carrying reflections of a city once reduced to ashes. Around me, visitors walked slowly, some in silence, others taking photographs. For them, this is a historical site. For me, it is something else, an encounter between two cities, two memories, and two unfinished stories of war.

I had traveled to Hiroshima as a scholar, but I arrived as a survivor.

In 2024, I was given the rare opportunity to become one of the sixty-three Filipino recipients of the Japanese Government MEXT scholarship. To my knowledge, I was the only Moro and Mranaw among the recipients. It was a moment of pride, but also a quiet burden. I carried not only my academic aspirations as a PhD student in International Peace at Hiroshima University, but also the lived experience of being an internally displaced person from Marawi City, which, like Hiroshima, had experienced destruction, loss, and the arduous work of rebuilding.

From my apartment in Sun Square, Saijo, the train ride to Hiroshima City took about thirty-five minutes. It was a short distance geographically, yet a long journey in reflection. Hiroshima is now a city of prosperity, beauty, and resilience. It is a place where tragedy has been transformed into a global symbol of peace. Yet as I stood before the remains of the Atomic Bomb Dome, I could not help but think of another city, my own city, Marawi.

Hiroshima lost approximately 140,000 lives in a single moment, and many more in the years that followed from radiation exposure. The scale of devastation is almost unimaginable. Marawi, by comparison, did not suffer the same immediate death toll. Yet the violence that unfolded in 2017, marked by urban warfare and aerial bombardment, left its own deep scars. Many civilians were killed, and others remain unaccounted for, their names missing from official records. The destruction was not only human but also spatial. Entire neighborhoods in Barangay Naga and Perez Street were erased. The schools, homes, historic padian, and Bato Mosque, which is unrecognizable today due to changes in its structure and design, along with other mosques and spaces that once held life, were reduced to rubble.

What is lost in war is not only life but also memory. As I gazed at Hiroshima’s preserved ruins, carefully protected and contextualized within a narrative of peace, I thought of the spaces of my childhood in Marawi. I remembered the simple pleasures that gave meaning to everyday life. The ten-peso halo-halo in Banggolo and the kwek-kwek stalls, open from late afternoon until evening, lingered beside the restless hum of traffic, a familiar road traced by the routes of Saduc Public, ISIS (named after the Ibn Siena Integrated School Foundation and carrying locals toward Basak Malutlut to Sarimanok to Prep), Mapandi, and MSU Armak. Along Barrio Paypay, close to towak a bata, rows of smoky grilled chicken filled the streets, mingling with the rich scent of spices and sauce that hung in the air. Osmeña Street awakened to the quiet rhythm of morning jogs, and before the day fully unfolded, we would pause to share apang sa malaig, a simple, generous rice pancake, still warm in the early light. And then there was the Padian, the beating heart of Lanao, where the city gathered, traded, argued, and lived, its pulse steady, its energy unmistakably our own.

Inside the Padian Mall, I remember the karinderya where meals were shared without ceremony and conversations flowed as easily as the rice served on plastic plates. There were stalls selling affordable Levi’s jeans and imitation branded clothing, where commerce blurred the lines between necessity and aspiration. In the Sultan area, one could find delicacies such as dodol, amik, and other Mranaw foods that carried the taste of tradition. In the wet market, I watched my mother negotiate prices with quiet determination, asking for discounts on fish, shrimp, or chicken, not out of stinginess but out of care for a family budget stretched thin. These were not grand monuments. They were ordinary spaces. But they were ours.

Today, many of these places exist only in memory. In Marawi, reconstruction is framed as progress, with roads widened, buildings redesigned, and new structures rising over ruins. Yet beneath this narrative lies a troubling reality: rebuilding has often been imposed from above, with little regard for memory, culture, or the lives once rooted in these spaces. Marawi risks becoming not a restored community but a project. For thousands of internally displaced people, rehabilitation remains unfulfilled. Nearly a decade after the siege, many still live in temporary shelters, facing daily uncertainty, limited water, unreliable electricity, and fragile livelihoods. The promise of return has become a prolonged wait. The younger generation now inherits a city without memory. In Hiroshima, memory is preserved. Ruins are protected, history is taught, and loss is acknowledged. Marawi is still searching for its story. Reconstruction must go beyond rebuilding; it must restore dignity, memory, and justice.

Gutierrez Mangansakan II

Pillars and beams shifting with the weight of time and weather, my body feels like a house of years gone by. I rise from sleep and sense its quiet transactions with pain and stiffness. My right knee and ankles, familiar hinges of a bipedal locomotion marked by wide and energetic strides, now audibly protest as though the rust has finally reached their cores. These aches, once occasional visitors, have now taken up residence like squatters claiming space that does not belong to them. I no longer move as one continuous gesture but in calculated increments, like a child relearning the rituals of motion. When I stand, I instinctively reach for the kamagong stick that steadies me, a prop once wielded by Perry Dizon in my film Salome, now claimed by the body that directed it.

What an absurd and sobering state of affairs. I made films to capture the fragility of others, but years later, those same films ended up giving me the tools I needed to get by. The weight of the stick in my hand reminds me of the stories I have told, the ones I carry, and now, the story of this body, which insists on being listened to with closer attention.

For most of my life, I have regarded my body with distant affection, the way one might regard an ancestral home whose foundations are assumed to hold forever simply because they have always been there. I did not imagine its inevitable decline. Towering at six foot two, I reached for the skies, mistook youth for immortality, believing in the reckless magic of invincibility. I fed my body with little thought. The fatty cuts of meat shared with friends and family. The sweet desserts that provided the instant sugar rush. The bottles of Red Horse emptied in the name of celebration, escape, or simply habit. My body absorbed everything, without any sign that it might crack under the weight of my choices. A vessel that bent without breaking, a house whose walls and columns did not echo with the sorrow or exhaustion I piled upon it.

Most often, I hear the khutba on Friday prayers discuss the duality of our existence, how we are both badan and nyawa. The body is fleeting, tied to the world and its hungers, while the soul endures beyond the limits of life. In these sermons, the nyawa is always the priority. Charity, piety, and good deeds are urged so we might earn a place in the Afterlife. The badan, by contrast, needs only to be kept clean and healthy. Vanity is frowned upon because, in the end, everybody returns to the Maker when their appointed time arrives.

Whenever my cousins hear that I’m on a diet, they never miss the chance to tease me. Kan kan ka den mun, ka matay tanu a di tanu den makakan. We only get this one lifetime to eat. Once we die, there’s no more eating.

But three years ago, when surgeons removed my gall bladder, an organ that had quietly performed its function for nearly five decades, something shifted in the way I saw myself. I remember waking up after the procedure, skin taped, incisions mildly aching, and still feeling disoriented. It was not simply the loss of a body part. Something bigger clicked into place: the idea that certainty is just an illusion. Lying there, I realized what I’d missed for years. The body is not simply a place we inhabit, but a place where the map is constantly being redrawn by circumstances beyond our control.

Despite an appendectomy more than twenty years earlier, the gall bladder operation was the first time I saw the body as something with limits. Not a permanent home for all my wild hopes, but as a fragile estate with boundaries, vulnerabilities, and an expiration written into its very nature. Like a filmmaker who has always known how to orchestrate a scene, I suddenly found myself in a narrative I could not direct.

And yet, the body goes on, even when the mind falters. Mine does that sometimes, not in huge, dramatic ways, but in quiet, unsettling ones. My bipolar disorder, diagnosed fifteen years ago, sometimes lures me into these foggy places where memory beats to its own strange tune. Memory, for me, has always been both compass and anchor. It holds my grandmother’s stories, the landscapes of Pagalungan, the faces of my cats buried in clay pots whose roots intertwine with my grief. It holds the dialogues of characters I have written, the shades of my mother’s lipsticks, and the picture of a boy trying to figure himself out in the tiny apartment on Don Abelardo Street.

Memory shapes who I am, building the walls and hallways inside me. Lately, though, I feel some of those rooms going quiet, like someone’s packing up and leaving without asking. Not the core memories, not yet, but enough to throw me off. I’ll be talking and suddenly lose my place, like a door that’s always been open just slams shut.

So what am I supposed to do with a body that’s starting to turn on me? How do you keep moving in a world that expects you to be sharp and tireless, when the body you live in keeps changing the rules?

Virginia Woolf teaches us that the body shapes the very texture of consciousness, its illnesses and injuries capable of reframing our most intimate truths. I get that. Sometimes I feel like the old gas lamp from my childhood, glowing with borrowed wisdom, but always flickering with my own confusion. Maybe that’s what aging is. You learn, slowly, to live in a body that keeps rearranging itself. You start to see its hallways not as traps, but as rooms that change shape. Pain isn’t just some enemy to fight. It teaches you things. And limits don’t always mean you’ve lost. Sometimes they just mean it’s time to look in a new direction.

I think of the weight I carry now, literally, the pounds I’ve gained in the last five years, and figuratively, the burdens of a midlife crisis that arrived not as a storm but as a gradual dimming of certain stars. During the COVID-19 lockdown, anxiety became a second appetite. While the world contracted, my body expanded, absorbing every fear, every doubt, every question I was too ashamed to say aloud. Have I done enough with my life? What have my choices amounted to? What becomes of a filmmaker who can no longer trust his own eyes?

Because my eyes, too, have begun retreating from me. The letters blur, the world softens at the edges. A filmmaker losing his vision is like a storyteller losing the thread of a narrative mid-sentence. It brings a consternation I had not prepared for. Every time I reach for my glasses, a small grief stirs. It is one so mundane that it almost feels embarrassing to confess, yet so profound that it tugs at the heart with each passing day.

I realize now that my entire life has been about gazing, framing, witnessing. Cinema, for me, has never been merely an art but a way of being. To lose clarity in my sight is to confront the possibility that the world may one day recede into a haze, the way memories sometimes do. And so I hold onto the light with the desperation of someone who knows how easily it can be extinguished.

Still, I am here. Still, I walk.

I walk with the kamagong stick, which steadies my faltering body. Each step is fragile, but also stubborn. I refuse to surrender to decline. The body may weaken, but the desire to move and continue remains.

There is a kind of gentleness in the way I move now, almost like a quiet dance. I’ve started tuning in to my joints, listening to them creak and pop, just like listening to an old house settle after dark. Each crack is a reminder that something is shifting, each ache is an invitation to pay attention.

Melissa Febos reminds me that healing is not the absence of hurt but the integration of it into the self. My pains, then, are not signs of failure but carvings that make the architecture of my body uniquely mine.

The irony is not lost on me. As the body falters, the mind often achieves a sharper clarity. It’s more like an old house that’s sheltered me through every chapter, every messy, beautiful moment. It’s the same body that lugged me through all-nighters, festivals, film screenings, and wild trips to the ends of the earth. The arms that scooped up my cats, and the heart that soaked in every loss and every burst of joy. It has carried me through so many worlds, both real and imagined, always sticking by me. Now, as it tires, it just wants a little kindness, a bit of patience.

Pain, in its strange way, has brought me back to myself. Mortality used to feel like gossip, something whispered in another room. I do not fear it as much as I once did. Now, I have come to terms with it. It sits beside me, quiet and steady. I feel it in the stiffness of my limbs, in the absence of an organ, in the blurring of text, but I also feel life more acutely because of it.

And so I walk, slowly but with intention. Stick in hand, breath steady, eyes searching not for what is fading, but for what remains. The architecture may crack, but the light still leaks through.

Jo T. 

Ang akon pamilya halin pa sa Midsayap. Didto kami tanan nagdalako, sa Barangay Lagumbingan, kasikbit sang Gayonga, tupad sang Libungan Torreta, nga Pahamuddin na subong kag parte na sang North Kabuntalan kag sakop na sang Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. Nagbalhin kami sa Magpet sa nahaunang bahin sang 1980s. Ang magulang ko nga baye nga nabuhi sa panguma nakabakal sang luna diri, isa ka pudyot sang kalupaan nga gipanag-iyahan sang mga nitibo nga mga Manobo.

Didto sa Midsayap wala kami sang amon gid nga luna. Saop lang ang akon tatay, nalup-og na lang sa sige ka arado sa lao, pero wala gid asenso. Napatay siya sa kanser sa tul-an, tungod sa mga kemikales nga, mahibal-an nakon sa kadugayan, ginabawal na gali kag ginapanghaboy na sang mga manggaranon nga mga nasod kag ginapun-ok sa mga pobre nga mga nasod parehas sang Pilipinas. Indi ko gid malipatan ang itsura sadtong mga hilo sa peste nga natumpok sa idalom sang amon balay: Endrin, DDT, Fudaran. Paglubong niya, nagbalhin kami diri sa Magpet.

Linaw gawa diri sa Magpet kumpara sa Midsayap, bisan pa ang mga madamol nga kakahuyan kag mga matin-aw nga mga suba sini paranaguan sang mga naga-aratras nga mga Ilaga kag mga Barracuda. Sadtong 1970s, nakalambot diri ang mga Blackshirts, magpahuway kag magpaayo sang ila mga samad sa amon mga bungyod kag mga kasubaan. Ang mga nitibo nga mga Manuvu kag mga Ilonggo andam pirmi mag-abli sa ilang mga payag sa bisan sin-o nga mag-alagi kag mangayo pagkaon kag ilimnon. Sadtong 1980s, tuluganan man ang amon banwa sang mga rebelde kag mga sondalo.

Nagasararakot lang man ang mga tribu diri sa Magpet. Luwas sa mga tumandok nga mga Manobo, may mga Ilonggo, may mga Antiqueno, may mga Ilokano. May ara man mga Cebuano, mga Boholano, kag may mga Maguindanawon. Ang kadamuan diri mga Ilonggo nga mga oldtimer. Subong, nagadamo na man ang mga Cebuano, amo nga subong ang kumon nga hinambalan diri Bisaya (Cebuano). Ang iloy kag amay ko, mga Karay-a, halin pa gid sa Igbaras, Iloilo. Ako iya sa Oton pa ginbata kag nuebe anyos na sang magsalyo kami sa Midsayap. Sa Midsayap, ang kadamuan sa mga setler mga nauna nga mga benepisaryo sang mga Land Act nga ang pinakauna nag-alabot sadto pang 1902. Ang amay kag iloy ko nakabalhin diri tuig 1963, sa panghagad sang mga paryente nga nauna sa amon.

Napatay nga saop ang akon amay, kag amon ginbiyaan ang lupa nga iya ginauma sa kapin beinte ka tuig, anum ka ektarya nga humayan. Ang magulang ko nga baye nga amo ang mapisan mag-arado, nagtinda-tinda, nagpatindog batsoyan kag nanabas kag nanahi sang mga uniporme sang mga estudyante, ang kita niya halin sa sini nga mga panginabuhian ginbakal niya sang luna diri nga amon na subong ginaestaran. Gin-uma niya ini kag ginpatindugan sang payag. Sa pagdamo sang tawo, ang palibot nga katubuhan kag kakahuyan nahimo na subong kabalayan. Ginburuligan namon mag-utod ang pagpatigayon sang amon pagpanginabuhi diri, magharalin kon kis-a para mag-eskuwela o mangita obra, dason magbaralik para magbakasyon ukon magretiro.

Ang paghandum ko sang Midsayap, tapik gid pirmi sa panahon sa gera. Madumduman ko nga sa kainit sang irinaway sang Ilaga kontra Barracuda sadtong mga unang panuigon sang Martial Law, kaduha kami magbakwet, tuig 1972 kag tuig 1974. Halin sang 1960s hasta sa tunga-tunga sang 1970s ang Barrio Lagumbinga agihanan gid sang mga sondalo kag mga BSDU (Barrio Self-Defense Units). Nahimo nga CHDF (Civilian Home Defense Forces) ang BSDU sadtong 1977, kag sadtong 1987 sa idalom sang gobyerno ni Cory Aquino hasta sa kasamtangan nahimo na ini nga CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit). Sa tiempo sang Martial Law ang mga miembro sang BSDU ginhimo nga espesyal nga militia ginatawag nga Ilaga kag ginpanguluhan ni Feliciano Luces, ang bantog nga lider-lider nila. Nabansag siya sa ngalan nga Tutpik, sinaligan sang mga gamhanan nga mga pulitiko diri sa Kutabato, kag siling pa, indi kuno siya madutlan sang bala.

Sa Midsayap, sa San Isidro Primary School ako nag-eskuwela. Adlaw-adlaw lakton  namon ang sobra duha ka kilometro nga distansiya halin sa balay paeskuwelahon kag pauli. Gamay-gamay ang amon eskuwelahan kay gamay lang man ang estudyante. Ginaimpon ang Greyd Tri kag Greyd Por sa isa ka klase, ang Greyd Wan kag Greyd Tu sa lain nga klase. Duha lang ang titser nga mag-asawa ang nagatudlo, kag duha lang ang klasrum sa bilog nga eskuwelahan. Sa mga beinte ka estudyante sa isa ka klasrum, may duha ka Muslim ako nga klasmeyt, pareho nga baye kag mga miga ko. Pagkatapos sang ikaduha nga pagbakwet namon, wala ko na nakita liwat ang duha ko ka klasmeyt nga ini.

Makasiling ako nga sa akon isip-bata sadtong nuebe anyos pa ako, wala ako sang kahanggaw nga mabatyagan sa mga Muslim. Pero kon magbungat ang mga tigulang sang pulong nga “Moros” daw kulbaan ako. Daw ang ila ginaistoryahan kahaladlukan. Paglupok sang gera sa Libungan Torreta, nag-umpisa ako makabatyag sang kahadlok. Daw kalisud hunahunaon nga ang akon mga pakaisa sa CHDF o sa Army mangpatay ukon mapatay sang Moros. Kon mga sibilyan lang nga mga Muslim nga masugata ko sa dalan ukon sa eskuwelahan, ginatan-aw ko sila nga indi lain sa amon, parehas lang sila sa amon pamilya nga mga tawo man, mga mag-uuma.

Ang daan nga lugar nga gintawag nga Libungan Torreta kag ginbunyagan liwat sang ngalan nga Pahamuddin, kon akon dumdumon, daw may asik gid pirmi sang dugo sa mapa sang akon alimpatakan. Didto gid abi ang perte nga pinatyanay. Halin sa Libungan Torreta lusot sa kasigpit nga mga barangay sang Bulucawon, Cabpangi (Kampangi kon amon tawgon sang-una), Malagakit kag Simsiman nga sakop sang Pigcawayan, wala gid untat ang irinaway. Kasapaan ini nga mga lugar, kay diri matipon ang ilig sang tubig nga halin pa sa Pulangi kag Liguasan, amo nga dalaganan kag paranaguan sang mga nagapang-atake kag nagaparalagyo nga mga armado. Ginatago sang tubig ang agi sang ila mga lapa-lapa, amo nga indi dayon matultulan o makit-an. Kon ano kadamo ang napatay nga mga Barracuda kag Bama(Bangsamoro Army), amo man kadamo ang ginpanghakwat nga mga bangkay sang sondalo. Sadto nga mga panuig, nagaandam gid kami pirmi sang amon mga binagtong. Daw kada semana may belasyon, kag ang akon mga pakaisa nga mga soltero kag dalaga, kon diin-diin nga belasyonan maagahan.

Madamo sa akon mga paryente kag mga pakaisa nga laki, kon indi CHDF, mga miembro sang Ilaga. Kon Kristiyano ka abi kag tagadidto, daw automatic nga kon indi makaentra sa PC ukon sa Army imo bata nga laki, sa CHDF siya. Sadtong hayskul ko nakabulig pa ako sa mga RVM Sisters pamutos sang mga balon sang mga CHDF. Wala pa ko kahimatngon sadto nga sa amo to nga buluhaton nagadapig ako sa mga kontra-Muslim nga mga puwersa.

Nakahuman ko hayskul  sa Notre Dame of Midsayap for Girls. Pagkolehiyo ko, sa Notre Dame of Midsayap College gihapon ako naggradweyt. Ang una nakon nga gin-obrahan, ang Notre Dame University Community Extension Office sa Kutabato. Sa lapit isa ka dosena nga istap sang upisina, laban ang Muslim sa Kristiyano, amo nga didto gid napadalum ang akon pakig-abyan sa mga kaigsoonan nga mga Muslim kag didto man napataas ang akon kahimatngon kabahin sa ginatawag nga jihad, ang pakigbisog sa Bangsamoro.

Sa paglakat-lakat namon sa mga komunidad sang mga Muslim sa Maguindanao kag Cotabato City, nakasiling ako nga ang ila kahimtang, daw parehas lang man gihapon sa mga pinakaubos sa amon nga mga Kristiyano. Problema sa kapobrehon ang pirmi ginaatubang: panginahanglanon sa pagkaon, pagpameste, pagpaeskwela, wala ospital, wala doktor. Ang sabat sang amon upisina: family planning, nutrisyon, infant and child care, livelihood projects. Daw kagamay kon imo itandi sa perte kadako nga suliran pangkinatibuk-an. Daw band aid sa dako na kaayo nga hubag.

Sa pangimbita sang akon mga nakaupod sa trabaho, nagsalmot ako sa gimbuhatong simbahan. Didto nakon nasulagma ang mga dalagko nga mga pangutana kabahin sa gubat sa Mindanao kag sa kahimtang sang mga Muslim. Sa wala nagdugay nag-upod-upod na ako sa mga kumperensiya kag mga kalihukan nga pangkatawhan: interfaith dialogue, bugas indi bala, lupa para sa nagtikad, lupang kabilin para sa Lumad sa Mindanao, otonomiya para sa Muslim Mindanao. Malawig ini nga pagsalmot kag sa kon diin-diin nga bungtod kag kaislahan ako nakalambot: Dabaw, Agusan, Zamboanga, Sarangani, Zamboanga Peninsula.

Sang natukod na ang Bangsamoro Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao, nalipay ako. Ang kalinaw nga dugay na ginapangayo sang mga taga-Mindanao ara na gid. Pamatyag ko, sa pagkambyo sang mapa, ang may asik sang dugo sa lugar nga akon ginhalinan, naislan man. Ang Libungan Torreta, gera, kapit-os. Ang Pahamuddin, damgo sang kalinaw nga nahatagan sang katumanan. Ang mantsa sa mapa, naanas man.

Subong, bisan ang Magpet nagalain man. Nagadamo na ang mga salakyan nga nagalupadlupad sa sang-una hilway nga mga dalan. Sementado na ang tanan nga dalan bisan pa sa sang-una wala sing dalan. Wala na sang mga karbaw ukon kabayo nga nagapatunga sa dalan. Ang ila lugar sa pagpanginabuhi sang tawo napulihan na sang mga nagabaragrong nga mga de motor nga salakyan kag mga dalagko nga mga trak nga buta pirmi sang mga karton-karton sang durian, lansones, marang, mangosteen, rambutan, saging, kamatis.

Kon magguwa ko sa Kidapawan kag magbiyahe sa iban nga parte sang Mindanao, pa-Maguindanao man o pa-Sultan Kudarat, mas damo nga mga pagbag-o ang maagyan sa pihak kag pihak sang dalan. Ang mga malapalasyo nga mga balay nagadamo man, pati mga moske kag mga simbahan nagaulusbong bisan diin, pero may mga lugar nga imbis mag-uswag, nagatusmaw kag nagsalum tapat sa mahigko nga tubig. Ang mga barangay kag mga panimalay sa higad sang mga suba nga sang-una mala, nagadanaw na pirmi sa lutak. Sa mga lugar sa hilit-hilit nga barangay, ang kawat, ang hold-ap, ang pagpang-agaw sang motor, ang patay, ang paglapta sang droga, daw amo lang gihapon.

Sa mga banwa nga ginatawag nga Kamusliman, ang mga dalagko nga balay mansig patas-anay, nagatilindog nga nagatanawanay lang. Pero ang mga kabalayan sa ibabaw sang Buluan Lake, sa pampang sang Pulangi kag Rio Grande de Mindanao, pati na sa higad-higad sang Liguasan Marsh, nagakatin-katin pirmi sa ibabaw sang tubig, ang mga atup kag mga dingding daw panglupadon sang mag-agi nga pinakagamay nga hangin, ang ila mga tiil nahuluman sa lauhon nga tubig. Amo gihapon nga mga suliran nga nakit-an ko na sang-una. Kag makabati na naman ako sang pagduhaduha.

Kag mamangkot ako: amo bala ini ang kahilway, ang kabag-ohan nga kanhing gipaningkamotan sang tanan? Huo, wala na sang dalagko nga gera parehas sang nasaksihan ko sang-una, wala na sang Muslim kontra Kristiyan nga dumtanay, kag ang mga bakwetanan sa higad sang dalan ginpangrumpag na. Wala na sang ambus sa Pigcalagan, sa Parang, kag sa Malabang,. Wala na sang Ilaga kag Barracuda, bisan kuno Abu Sayyaf sa Basilan, BAMA kag ISIS sa Lanao naghilipos na.

Pero ang dako nga pamangkot, nag-asenso na bala ang kahimtang sang kinadamoan? Kita nga nag-jihad, malapit na bala kita sa gusto naton lab-uton nga kahilwayan kag kalamboan?

Old Questions

My family is from Midsayap. We all grew up there, in Barrio Lagumbingan, beside Gayonga, and adjacent to Libungan Torreta, renamed Pahamuddin and now part of North Kabuntalan within the political jurisdiction of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. We migrated to Magpet in the early 1980s. My older sister, who farmed all her life, bought a small plot of land here, a tiny portion of a property that once belonged to the Manuvu natives.

In Midsayap, we did not have a land of our own. My father was a tenant, crippled after two decades of wet farming and no prospects for a better life for us. He died from cancer of the bones, thanks to his daily exposure to toxic chemicals which, I would find out later, were banned in rich countries and were being dumped in poor countries like the Philippines. I cannot forget those bottles of pesticides piling up under our house: Endrin, DDT, Fudaran. After his burial, we all moved to Magpet.

Magpet is a peaceful town compared to Midsayap, even though its lush mountains and crystal-clear rivers made for a perfect hiding place for withdrawing Ilaga and Barracuda forces. In the 1970s, Blackshirts would find their way here, to take a respite and recuperate from their wounds. Manuvu natives and Ilonggos always opened their houses to wayfarers, ready to share food and provide shelter. In the 1980s, our quiet town also protected both soldiers and rebels.

All sorts of people come to settle in Magpet. Apart from the Manuvus who are native to the place, there are Ilonggos, Antiquenos, and Ilocanos. There are also Cebuanos, Boholanos, and Maguindanaons. Most of the Ilonggos here are oldtimers. Today, Cebuanos are growing in number, which is why the most widely spoken language here is Bisaya. My father and mother were Karay-a people who hailed from Igbaras, Iloilo. I myself was born in Oton and was nine when we left Iloilo for Mindanao. In Midsayap, most of the settler population were beneficiaries of Land Acts that had been implemented as early as 1903. My father and mother were able to migrate in 1963, on the invitation of relatives who came to Mindanao earlier.

My father died a tenant, and we left the land he had been tilling for twenty years, a six-hectare rice field. My older sister, who was a hardworking farmer, set a tiny store and a soup place that sold batchoy (pork and noodle soup), then took on a sewing job, mostly school uniforms, from which she was able to buy a small piece of land where we now live. She farmed it and built a thatch house here. As the town’s population grew, all the surrounding sugar fields and forest areas became residential units. I and my siblings built our lives here, leaving the place for work or study, and returning here for short vacations or to retire.

My memory of Midsayap is always associated with the war years. I can remember that during Martial Law when the fights between the Ilagas and the Barracudas were raging, we had to evacuate twice: in 1972 and in 1974. From the late 1960s until the middle of the 1970s, soldiers and BSDU (Barrio Self-Defense Units) would be passing by our place all the time. The BSDU would be renamed CHDF (Civilian Home Defense Forces) in 1977, and in 1987 under the Cory Aquino government, it was reorganized into CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit). During Martial Law, BSDU members became Ilaga fighters. The Ilaga was a militia group led by Feliciano Luces, their famous leader. He was known as Tutpik, a trusted soldier allied to powerful politicians in Cotabato.

In Midsayap, I spent grade school at San Isidro Primary School. Every day, we would walk the more than two-kilometer distance from our house to school and back. Our school was very small and the student population was also small. Grade Three and Grade Four students were combined in one class, and Grade One and Grade Two students in another class. There were only two teachers, a married couple, as there were only two classrooms in the entire school. Out of the twenty students in one class, I had two Muslim classmates, both girls and both were friends to me. After the second evacuation, I did not see these two friends again.

I can say that as a child of nine, I did not fear the Muslims. But when adults spoke and said the word “Moros” I would be frightened. It was as if they were talking about monsters. When the fighting near our place erupted, I began to feel afraid. And it troubled me that my cousins in the CHDF or in the Army would be killing or be killed by Moros. As far as Muslim civilians I met at school and on the streets was concerned, I always considered them as no different from us, humans like us, and farmers just like my family.

The old place called Libungan Torreta and rebaptized Pahamuddin, I will always remember as a blood-splattered spot in the map of my mind. Intense fightings took place there. From Libungan Torreta to the adjacent barangays of Bulucawon, Cabpangi (which we always mispronounced as Kampangi), Malagakit and Simsiman in the municipality of Pigcawayan (and are now part of the special geographic areas of BARMM), ceaseless battles took place. Being marshy areas, the waters from Pulangi River and Liguasan Marsh collect in these places, and those pursued or in pursuit of enemy forces hid here. The waters and the thick vegetation could leave no trace, so it was never an easy chase. Casualties were therefore high on both sides: there were as many Barracuda and Bama (Bangsamoro Army) forces as government soldiers that got killed during encounters. In those years, we were always ready with our bundles, ever ready to evacuate. There were days when we felt the killings would never end and my cousins would be at one vigil or another until dawn of the next day.

Many of my male relatives were in one of the civilian militias, if not with the CHDF, with the Ilaga. If you were an Ilonggo from those parts, it was almost automatic that you should have sons in Philippine Constabulary or in the Philippine Army, or else in the CHDF. In high school I helped the RVM Sisters in our school to pack lunches and canned goods for the war-bound CHDF men. I was not conscious then that I was siding with the anti-Muslim forces.

I graduated from high school at Notre Dame of Midsayap for Girls. When I got to college, I also finished a course in Notre Dame of Midsayap College. After graduating I returned to Midsayap and my first job was at the Notre Dame University Community Extension Office in Cotabato. Of the close to a dozen staff in our office, majority were Muslims, which is how I was able to deepen my friendship with the Muslim brethren and it was also there that I came to appreciate what people meant by jihad, by Bangsamoro struggle.

From our daily immersion in Muslim communities in Maguindanao and Cotabato City, I came to understand that the situation of the Moro people was not different from the situation of the poorest of us Christians. Problems related to poverty confront them on a daily basis: lack of food, clothing, shelter, lack of access to education, no hospital, no doctor. Our office’s response at the time: family planning, nutrition program, infant and child care, livelihood projects. Too little beside the big structural problems. Like Bandaid to a long-festering infection.

Due to the invitation of friends I met at NDU Community Extension Service, I finally became active in lay work. It was there that I encountered the big issues related to the Muslim situation and the conflict in Mindanao. Soon, I was joining conferences and seminars and was involved in mass work: interfaith dialogue, food not bullets, land for the landless, ancestral domain for Mindanao’s indigenous peoples, autonomy for Muslims. It was a long involvement that brought me to mountain parts and island provinces: Davao, Agusan, Sarangani, Zamboanga Peninsula.

When the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao was finally set up, I felt glad. The peace that everyone in Mindanao long aspired for was finally there. It seemed to me that with the changes in the map, the once blood-splattered ground in the vicinity of my hometown has also changed. Libungan Torreta was war, poverty. Pahamuddin is a promise of peace fulfilled. At long last, the stain on the map has been removed.

Today, even Magpet is changing. Cars are proliferating, speedrunning on once quiet streets. All the roads are cemented, even in places where once there was no road. Horses and carabaos can be hardly seen on the street. Their place in the life of man has been taken over by roaring motorcycles and big trucks filled with crates of durian, lanzones, marang, mangosteen, rambutan, bananas, tomatoes.

When I go out to Kidapawan and travel to other parts of Mindanao, to Maguindanao or Sultan Kudarat, I would be greeted with more changes taking place on both sides of the road. Palace-like houses are also multiplying, even mosques and churches kept growing in number, but there are places that instead of prospering, have sunk down inches deeper in murky waters. There are upriver barangays and communities that used to stand on dry land, but are now permanently mired in silt. In interior barangays away from town centers, thefts, holdups, seizures of vehicles, homicides go on as before.

In the Muslim provinces, big houses are rising and standing eye to eye across each other. But the houses in the lakeside communities in Buluan, those along the banks of Pulangi River and Rio Grande de Mindanao, and those in the vicinity of Liguasan Marsh, sit low with roofs and walls about to be blown away by the slightest passing wind, their feet mired in muddy water. Same problems I used to see. And once again, I have my doubts.

And I ask myself: Is this the peace, is this the change we had been aspiring for? Yes, there are no more big wars like what I used to witness, no more Muslim versus Christian animosity, ang the roadside evacuation sites had been dismantled. No more ambuscades in Pigcalagan, in Parang, ang Malabang. No more Ilagas and Barracudas, and even the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan, the BAMA and ISIS in Lanao had been quieted.

But the big question is, have the conditions of the majority have really improved? Those of us who engaged in a jihad, are we any nearer our much-aspired dream of peace and prosperity?