Still Monday, still June 21st, 2010 and it is now 1257PM. Same locale of course.
Continuation...
To be brief. On the west coast you have non-native tribes re-settled and this was done in the most ignorant ways. America is entirely at fault for the wars here.
Briefly, in 1899 the US came in and steamrolled an independant nation (it having legally declared independance after Spain hauled ass). Its raison d'etre was that Spain ruled it, America whipped Spain's ass, and since Spain had just left without ceding independance, America believed it "owned" the country.
Within 5 years the US defeated Filipino nationalists but the Moros continued making war until 1913 (the last group). After 1913 the US sought to assimilate the Moros and if this would not work, to commit cultural genocide by Ethnically Cleansing them via attrition.
It opened up a governmental bureau tasked with attracting voluntary settler families to come to Mindanao. Interestingly, the only settled them in the Moro lands. Then they passed laws limiting the amount of land private citizens could buy, but gave Moros a maximum equal to half the land any single non-Moro could buy. If this wasn't atrocious enough, they sold off tribal lands belonging to the Moro tribes.
Then, in the early 1950s Ramon Magasaysay, as Secretary of Defense [sic], and under direction from his American handler Edward Landsdale (of CIA in Viet Nam fame) began shipping Huk guerillas south and to add insult to injury, didn't disperse them. He settled them in ready made villages so that could sit and stew while concentrating on that same radical ideology.
On the eastern half of the island, where I live, it was much different. Entirely Lumad (Hilltribe) except for 2 coastal towns with a tiny mixed population of Christians and Lumads. People like Rizza's late grandfather ventured deep into the interior by travelling up rivers and staking out homesteads. He came at the turn of the 19th/20th Centuries but theese men were incredibly rare. Today they are the warl-rds of Eastern Mindanao.
We have 0 Muslims in Agusan del Sur, as far as official residents and we are the only province to have that, but all other eastern provinces have a bare minimum.
Getting back to Laddie...Laddie was an officer in the PC (Philippines Constalbury), an anti-insurgency paramilitary created by the US in 1913 that originally only used American officers and native troops. By Laddie's day, under the late dictator Marcos, it was entirely native.
He was deployed in West Central Mindanao, Cotabato Province which in those days included what is now 5 provinces. In 1969, just as he came, Christians and Moros began slaughtering each other on the West side of the island, with Moros doing most of the killing.
In the village of Upi, a Teduray Lumad village, an Ilonggo villager had his family slaughtered by Moros. He led a band of Teduray, who had long been victimised by Moros and formed the "Ilaga." Ilaga is Bisaya for "rat."
Under the nom de guerre "Kumander Toothpick" he and his men engaged in some rough fighting. Within 2 years his group had spread all over West Central and part of the northern coast as well. It also became infamous with several atrocities, going tit for tat with nascent Moro paramilitaries.
Under the law the PC was supposed to protect all Filipinos but in reality it supported and then colluded with the Ilaga. Toothpick dropped out, apparently unable to stomach the murder of babies and carving foetuses out of pregnant women. He was succeeded by "Kumander Bucay," whose real name is Norberto Manero Junior, a man I have talked about here in the past.
By 1972 the Maoist insurgency was up and kicking as well, with the NPA (New Peoples Army) and so the PC began trying to stomp out 2 quickly spreading fires instead of 1.
Laddie used Manero to neutralise NPA influence in that region, as well as Moro paramilitaries. It was as an anti-communist though, in the mid-1980s that Manero gained fame.
In his hometown of Tuluan, North Cotabato Province the Catholic Church had come under the sway of Libertation Theology, leftist ideology that led many adherants into the communist movement.
One such priest, a young Italian was the 2nd in charge in Tuluan. Manero and friends staked out the hut of a farmer known for having links to progressive movements, having heard that the priest in charge of the parish was en route to "protect" the faremer.
When he didn't show, but the 2nd priest did, they decided to pressure him to try and scare him. The priest didn't move away but instead talked back to them and entered the farmer's hut.
Manero and the others then his his motorcycle, maybe just bored, maybe antagonising him. The priest came out and asked for his motorcycle angrily. It was then that they shot the prest did. It was what Manero did next that made him famous. Taking a knife he butterflied the priest's chest, ripped out his heart and took a large bite, as did others.
Around that time Laddie was sent to the Visayan Island of "Samar," to battle the NPA. It was here that Laddie first said hello to the world. Lining up women and elderly villages against a wall, after failing to gain NPA Intel, the villagers were machine gunned.
I will conclude this in my next entry.
Continuation...
To be brief. On the west coast you have non-native tribes re-settled and this was done in the most ignorant ways. America is entirely at fault for the wars here.
Briefly, in 1899 the US came in and steamrolled an independant nation (it having legally declared independance after Spain hauled ass). Its raison d'etre was that Spain ruled it, America whipped Spain's ass, and since Spain had just left without ceding independance, America believed it "owned" the country.
Within 5 years the US defeated Filipino nationalists but the Moros continued making war until 1913 (the last group). After 1913 the US sought to assimilate the Moros and if this would not work, to commit cultural genocide by Ethnically Cleansing them via attrition.
It opened up a governmental bureau tasked with attracting voluntary settler families to come to Mindanao. Interestingly, the only settled them in the Moro lands. Then they passed laws limiting the amount of land private citizens could buy, but gave Moros a maximum equal to half the land any single non-Moro could buy. If this wasn't atrocious enough, they sold off tribal lands belonging to the Moro tribes.
Then, in the early 1950s Ramon Magasaysay, as Secretary of Defense [sic], and under direction from his American handler Edward Landsdale (of CIA in Viet Nam fame) began shipping Huk guerillas south and to add insult to injury, didn't disperse them. He settled them in ready made villages so that could sit and stew while concentrating on that same radical ideology.
On the eastern half of the island, where I live, it was much different. Entirely Lumad (Hilltribe) except for 2 coastal towns with a tiny mixed population of Christians and Lumads. People like Rizza's late grandfather ventured deep into the interior by travelling up rivers and staking out homesteads. He came at the turn of the 19th/20th Centuries but theese men were incredibly rare. Today they are the warl-rds of Eastern Mindanao.
We have 0 Muslims in Agusan del Sur, as far as official residents and we are the only province to have that, but all other eastern provinces have a bare minimum.
Getting back to Laddie...Laddie was an officer in the PC (Philippines Constalbury), an anti-insurgency paramilitary created by the US in 1913 that originally only used American officers and native troops. By Laddie's day, under the late dictator Marcos, it was entirely native.
He was deployed in West Central Mindanao, Cotabato Province which in those days included what is now 5 provinces. In 1969, just as he came, Christians and Moros began slaughtering each other on the West side of the island, with Moros doing most of the killing.
In the village of Upi, a Teduray Lumad village, an Ilonggo villager had his family slaughtered by Moros. He led a band of Teduray, who had long been victimised by Moros and formed the "Ilaga." Ilaga is Bisaya for "rat."
Under the nom de guerre "Kumander Toothpick" he and his men engaged in some rough fighting. Within 2 years his group had spread all over West Central and part of the northern coast as well. It also became infamous with several atrocities, going tit for tat with nascent Moro paramilitaries.
Under the law the PC was supposed to protect all Filipinos but in reality it supported and then colluded with the Ilaga. Toothpick dropped out, apparently unable to stomach the murder of babies and carving foetuses out of pregnant women. He was succeeded by "Kumander Bucay," whose real name is Norberto Manero Junior, a man I have talked about here in the past.
By 1972 the Maoist insurgency was up and kicking as well, with the NPA (New Peoples Army) and so the PC began trying to stomp out 2 quickly spreading fires instead of 1.
Laddie used Manero to neutralise NPA influence in that region, as well as Moro paramilitaries. It was as an anti-communist though, in the mid-1980s that Manero gained fame.
In his hometown of Tuluan, North Cotabato Province the Catholic Church had come under the sway of Libertation Theology, leftist ideology that led many adherants into the communist movement.
One such priest, a young Italian was the 2nd in charge in Tuluan. Manero and friends staked out the hut of a farmer known for having links to progressive movements, having heard that the priest in charge of the parish was en route to "protect" the faremer.
When he didn't show, but the 2nd priest did, they decided to pressure him to try and scare him. The priest didn't move away but instead talked back to them and entered the farmer's hut.
Manero and the others then his his motorcycle, maybe just bored, maybe antagonising him. The priest came out and asked for his motorcycle angrily. It was then that they shot the prest did. It was what Manero did next that made him famous. Taking a knife he butterflied the priest's chest, ripped out his heart and took a large bite, as did others.
Around that time Laddie was sent to the Visayan Island of "Samar," to battle the NPA. It was here that Laddie first said hello to the world. Lining up women and elderly villages against a wall, after failing to gain NPA Intel, the villagers were machine gunned.
I will conclude this in my next entry.