Still Wednesday, Feb 17th, 2010 and it is now 646 PM here in Brooklyn, NY, USA.
OK, so on my last trip to Mindanao we had a meeting about the paramilitary unit I mentioned a long time ago.
The Philippines as a whole is a collection of fifedoms ruled by warl-rds. The southern Philippines, of which Mindanao is the epicenter, is entirely ruled in this fashion.
Family ties, then ethnicity, and then regionalism are what ties these groups into incredibly cohesive groups. There are 2 kinds of official pro-govt. paramilitaries. CVO (Civilian Volunteer Organisations) are entities created within the last 4 years to better train and equip Barangay Tunods. "Barangay" is a word that originally meant "outrigger," as in the boats polynesians use. The traditional tale is that the Bisaya(Visayans), Rizza is a Bisaya, rode these boats from their home island of Borneo far to the south about 900 years ago (I have told most of this long ago ao anyone reading that recalls it, please bear with me).
Today the word signifies "village," and is a basic form of municipal structure. In the southern Philippines, a rural person lives in a "Sitio" (site). A sitio is a collection of homes, usually huts. Different sitios form a "Purok," or "Barangay." A Westerner can equivocate them with "neighbourhoods." A collection of barangays and puroks make up a "town" or "city" (the English is used in this sense). Urbanised communities begin at a Barangay level.
In the southern Philippines, during the Martial Law era of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos each Baranagay was tasked with creating "community watch" type organisations called "Tunods." Unlike Western community watch groups, these were used as bulwarks against secessionist and revolutionary groups.
In 2006 current President Gloria M. Arroyo legalised Tunods as "Force Multipliers." Force Multiplication is a basic principle in Anti-Insurgency. It increase "Friendly Forces" and their potential by inegrating community based elements.
Tunods obviously lent themselves well to this. Thus CVOs took the place in many areas, though there ARE still more innocuous Tunods which continue to function as community policing organisations.
In many areas, if there is a bad domestic dispute a Tunod will be called on. Police generally will not deal with such things.
The second type of orgnisation, the one I am involved with, is the CAFGU-SS. There are actually 2 types of CAFGU, CAFGU per se and the CAFGU-SS.
CAFGU (Civilian Auxiliary Force Geographical Units) are the oparamilitary orgnisations created by the late President Corazon Aquino. When she took power she sough to remake Philippine society, and shake loose the vestiges of the Martial Law era. Marcos had created a paramilitary organisation called the CP (Constalbury Pilipinas), a rehashing of the US created "Philippine Constalbury." CP was created especially to battle the communist insurgency (NPA/NDF i.e. New Peoples' Army, a Maoist group, and their political aparattus, the umbrella organisation National Democratic Front).
The CP however was associated too closely with the Marcos regime. In addition, it was stocked with ex-convicts and had a very unsavouryreputation. Basically, they simply changed the name of CP to CAFGU and voila.
CAFGU-SS is more recent innovation. Where as CAFGU is entirely controlled by the govt, the SS is funded and created by private citizens, land-owners and businessmen such as myself. You make a financial commitment, you recruit your soldiers, and it is up to you how to arm them. You still cooridinate Operations with the AFP, the Ph. Military, which in my case is the 4th Infantry Division out of Camp Evangelista in Cagayan del Oro on Mindanao. The 4th, under General Mario Chan is a decent enough group,but enough of that.
On my last trip we had another meeting at Evangelista, and I saw a "friend" of mine again. Let us call her "Jackie." She is a Lumad-Bisaya, what is known in Bisaya as "Netibo."
Netibo are mixed Bisaya and Lumad. Lumad is a genric term for Mindanao Hill Tribe. Her father is a Hinganao-an. The tribe, animist, once nomadic has pretty much settled in isolated hamlets across the mountains from Esperanza in my province of Agusan del Sur, to their main centre in Claveria, Misamis Oriental. Indeed, her dad is from Claveria.
Sadly, as in all warzones it is the indigenous who suffer the most. Claveria now is being torn apart over illegal logging but that is neither here nor there. Many Lumad, like her dad, are recruited in their young teens as govt. or anti-govt. soldiers. In this tribe's case, they are avowedly pro-govt.
She was born in Evangelista, went to school on base, and all 3 brothers are in the military. The eldest was a Marine, on Jolo, and was killed in an ambush by Abu Sayyaf (Islamic Insurgents) in 2000.
1 brother is Infantry, and the other is a Ranger (Ph apes the US in structure). The only real difference between the 2 in Ph is in their prinmary piece. All carry used M16A1s. Rangers have suppressors and am M79 launcher, end of story.
She was 16 when the eldest bro was killed and took her first trip outside the province to a ceremony in Manila, to honour the fallen. The family was given a military escort on the ferry and one of the soldiers was a Moro (Muslim). This man, 33, a Tausug, hit on her.
The Tausug are a tribe I despise (yeah I said it). The are the main tribe on Jolo (ironic is it not that the guy was probably related to the men who blew her brother up). 60% of Tausug marriages originate in kidnapping/rapes which are acceptable forms of marriage in that "wonderful" culture. Polygamous, they forbid females from education, mutilate their female's genitals, and 70% of Tausug men have less than a 3rd grade education.
To make a long story, she ran away with the guy, and as she turned 17 was married in an Islamic marriage officiated by his uncle. His parents told her, "You are now Muslim" and she believed it meant she had converted without knowing.
Her family disowned her...and then she had her first child in 2005, a girl. The family decided to accept her, her child and her "husband" and try to mend things. They arranged to get the 3 of them base housing adjacent to her family's home. In 2007, pregnant for the 2nd time, she got a wake up call when she inadvertantrly found a text on her husbands cell phone from a Bisaya girl saying she was pregnant!
Without saying a word to him, she went and met the girl, and confronted her. Returning to their home she confronted him. She told him to leave, he refused, she grabbed his 45 and away he went.
In 2008 I met her, as I attended my 2nd meeting at Evangelista. She was about to give birth, and I was married, nothing was said and if I felt anything I was not aware of it though she likes to think otherwise.
I did not have contact with her though I did see her a couple of times after that. Before I left to come to the US to get my Hepatitis treatment she and I agreed to keep in touch solely as friends.
We emailed, and when she finally bought a PC we began IMing a couple of times a week but only as friends. Of course it was at that time that Rizza went off the reservation, but I was careful not to fall into that "Rebound Trap," and to be honest, her baggage was a bit too much for me to consider.
I will have to continue in a subsequent post because of the character count...
OK, so on my last trip to Mindanao we had a meeting about the paramilitary unit I mentioned a long time ago.
The Philippines as a whole is a collection of fifedoms ruled by warl-rds. The southern Philippines, of which Mindanao is the epicenter, is entirely ruled in this fashion.
Family ties, then ethnicity, and then regionalism are what ties these groups into incredibly cohesive groups. There are 2 kinds of official pro-govt. paramilitaries. CVO (Civilian Volunteer Organisations) are entities created within the last 4 years to better train and equip Barangay Tunods. "Barangay" is a word that originally meant "outrigger," as in the boats polynesians use. The traditional tale is that the Bisaya(Visayans), Rizza is a Bisaya, rode these boats from their home island of Borneo far to the south about 900 years ago (I have told most of this long ago ao anyone reading that recalls it, please bear with me).
Today the word signifies "village," and is a basic form of municipal structure. In the southern Philippines, a rural person lives in a "Sitio" (site). A sitio is a collection of homes, usually huts. Different sitios form a "Purok," or "Barangay." A Westerner can equivocate them with "neighbourhoods." A collection of barangays and puroks make up a "town" or "city" (the English is used in this sense). Urbanised communities begin at a Barangay level.
In the southern Philippines, during the Martial Law era of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos each Baranagay was tasked with creating "community watch" type organisations called "Tunods." Unlike Western community watch groups, these were used as bulwarks against secessionist and revolutionary groups.
In 2006 current President Gloria M. Arroyo legalised Tunods as "Force Multipliers." Force Multiplication is a basic principle in Anti-Insurgency. It increase "Friendly Forces" and their potential by inegrating community based elements.
Tunods obviously lent themselves well to this. Thus CVOs took the place in many areas, though there ARE still more innocuous Tunods which continue to function as community policing organisations.
In many areas, if there is a bad domestic dispute a Tunod will be called on. Police generally will not deal with such things.
The second type of orgnisation, the one I am involved with, is the CAFGU-SS. There are actually 2 types of CAFGU, CAFGU per se and the CAFGU-SS.
CAFGU (Civilian Auxiliary Force Geographical Units) are the oparamilitary orgnisations created by the late President Corazon Aquino. When she took power she sough to remake Philippine society, and shake loose the vestiges of the Martial Law era. Marcos had created a paramilitary organisation called the CP (Constalbury Pilipinas), a rehashing of the US created "Philippine Constalbury." CP was created especially to battle the communist insurgency (NPA/NDF i.e. New Peoples' Army, a Maoist group, and their political aparattus, the umbrella organisation National Democratic Front).
The CP however was associated too closely with the Marcos regime. In addition, it was stocked with ex-convicts and had a very unsavouryreputation. Basically, they simply changed the name of CP to CAFGU and voila.
CAFGU-SS is more recent innovation. Where as CAFGU is entirely controlled by the govt, the SS is funded and created by private citizens, land-owners and businessmen such as myself. You make a financial commitment, you recruit your soldiers, and it is up to you how to arm them. You still cooridinate Operations with the AFP, the Ph. Military, which in my case is the 4th Infantry Division out of Camp Evangelista in Cagayan del Oro on Mindanao. The 4th, under General Mario Chan is a decent enough group,but enough of that.
On my last trip we had another meeting at Evangelista, and I saw a "friend" of mine again. Let us call her "Jackie." She is a Lumad-Bisaya, what is known in Bisaya as "Netibo."
Netibo are mixed Bisaya and Lumad. Lumad is a genric term for Mindanao Hill Tribe. Her father is a Hinganao-an. The tribe, animist, once nomadic has pretty much settled in isolated hamlets across the mountains from Esperanza in my province of Agusan del Sur, to their main centre in Claveria, Misamis Oriental. Indeed, her dad is from Claveria.
Sadly, as in all warzones it is the indigenous who suffer the most. Claveria now is being torn apart over illegal logging but that is neither here nor there. Many Lumad, like her dad, are recruited in their young teens as govt. or anti-govt. soldiers. In this tribe's case, they are avowedly pro-govt.
She was born in Evangelista, went to school on base, and all 3 brothers are in the military. The eldest was a Marine, on Jolo, and was killed in an ambush by Abu Sayyaf (Islamic Insurgents) in 2000.
1 brother is Infantry, and the other is a Ranger (Ph apes the US in structure). The only real difference between the 2 in Ph is in their prinmary piece. All carry used M16A1s. Rangers have suppressors and am M79 launcher, end of story.
She was 16 when the eldest bro was killed and took her first trip outside the province to a ceremony in Manila, to honour the fallen. The family was given a military escort on the ferry and one of the soldiers was a Moro (Muslim). This man, 33, a Tausug, hit on her.
The Tausug are a tribe I despise (yeah I said it). The are the main tribe on Jolo (ironic is it not that the guy was probably related to the men who blew her brother up). 60% of Tausug marriages originate in kidnapping/rapes which are acceptable forms of marriage in that "wonderful" culture. Polygamous, they forbid females from education, mutilate their female's genitals, and 70% of Tausug men have less than a 3rd grade education.
To make a long story, she ran away with the guy, and as she turned 17 was married in an Islamic marriage officiated by his uncle. His parents told her, "You are now Muslim" and she believed it meant she had converted without knowing.
Her family disowned her...and then she had her first child in 2005, a girl. The family decided to accept her, her child and her "husband" and try to mend things. They arranged to get the 3 of them base housing adjacent to her family's home. In 2007, pregnant for the 2nd time, she got a wake up call when she inadvertantrly found a text on her husbands cell phone from a Bisaya girl saying she was pregnant!
Without saying a word to him, she went and met the girl, and confronted her. Returning to their home she confronted him. She told him to leave, he refused, she grabbed his 45 and away he went.
In 2008 I met her, as I attended my 2nd meeting at Evangelista. She was about to give birth, and I was married, nothing was said and if I felt anything I was not aware of it though she likes to think otherwise.
I did not have contact with her though I did see her a couple of times after that. Before I left to come to the US to get my Hepatitis treatment she and I agreed to keep in touch solely as friends.
We emailed, and when she finally bought a PC we began IMing a couple of times a week but only as friends. Of course it was at that time that Rizza went off the reservation, but I was careful not to fall into that "Rebound Trap," and to be honest, her baggage was a bit too much for me to consider.
I will have to continue in a subsequent post because of the character count...