PHOTO FROM PHILIPPINE INFORMATION AGENCY-ICCC
Growing in a Christian part of the country, I heard a lot of horror stories not because of Halloween, but to scare us children and make us behave. The stories included tales of Muslim bandits snatching little misbehaving kids and taking them to Mindanao to make them slaves or do something horrible to them. It was an extreme, unkind racial slur against Filipino brothers from the south.
But the tales persisted as the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos waged a bloody war against Muslim rebels who aspired for self-determination in the early 1970s. Soldiers back then were told: “A good Muslim is a dead Muslim.”
These biases continue to this day, making it difficult for Filipinos divided by race, creed and religious beliefs to live together in peace and harmony. Suspicion even grew as pro-Islamist militants were blamed for bombings, kidnappings and other criminal activities in the country.
Two weeks ago, in a forum sponsored by the Australian embassy and the Ateneo de Manila University at Mindanao State University (MSU) in Marawi City, the ground zero of a five-month conflict two years ago that saw death, destruction and damage estimated to reach nearly P100 billion, it appeared the Muslim communities had a parallel tale to scare their own children – the “Macabebes.”
Dr. Elin Guro of MSU said she had heard of these tales when she was a child. She said people from the north known as “Macabebes” raid Muslim villages and take children, putting them in sacks and carrying them home, never to be seen again.
The origins of these tales are murky. Probably, Filipino historians would have an intelligent explanation on why the Christian raiders were called “Macabebes,” a particular group of people in Pampanga province.
Perhaps, the people of Pampanga were the most loyal to Spain, which colonized the country for 333 years, and much later to the Americans, who were colonial masters for 50 years but continue to influence the country’s policies until today. Remember that the leader of the first Philippine Republic in 1898, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, was captured by the Americans in Palanan, Isabela through the help of the Macabebe soldiers.
Filipino Muslims are proud of their own heritage, their own cultural practices and religious beliefs. They boast that Muslim Mindanao was never subjugated by any foreign power, and believe that Mindanao, Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and Palawan were never part of the Philippines but an independent state that paid tribute to Spain and the United States.
These two powers only held parts of the Muslim areas and their influence was limited within fortified garrisons and nearby areas. There were historical documents during the American colonial period when Washington recognized Muslim areas as distinct from the Westernized part of the country.
But past Filipino leaders from Manuel Quezon, Ramon Magsaysay to Marcos encouraged Christian settlers to move into the “Land of Promise.” As the settlers’ population grew, the Lumad and the Muslims, who were the natives on the island, were driven away from their lands. This is one of the root causes of the Muslim rebellion that Manila is struggling to resolve to this day.
During the Spanish colonial period, the Muslim-Christian conflict was classic. It could have been imported from the Iberian peninsula when Christians battled Muslims for supremacy, and the legend of “El Cid” spread throughout the Christian world. In the Philippines, Catholic church bells were tolled during those periods to warn of approaching Muslim raiders from the sea.
Francisco Baltazar, a famous local poet and writer, immortalized the religious and ethnic conflict in his reknowned literary work, “Florante at Laura,” a required reading in high school.
Distrust and suspicion among Muslims and Christians remain today although the conflicts are no longer along religious and ethnic lines. Tensions are caused by political, economic and social inequalities, neglect, and uneven distribution of government resources. Discrimination and bias remain high and more likely have fueled the spread of disinformation in Muslim communities,
Thus, the “Macabebe” tales live on. A young Maranao student spoke about it during the “Democracy and Disinformation” forum at MSU, shaking in disbelief why many gullible Maranaos still believe in and spread the rumors about it on social media.
Drieza Abato Lininding of the Moro Consensus Group was bewildered and disappointed because the “false information” and propaganda in social media were spread by more educated members of the Muslim community, like engineers, doctors and other professionals, by liking, sharing and commenting on an issue without really reading and thinking carefully about it.
Disinformation could trigger conflict, dislocate people and help the cause of extremists and those who oppose the peace settlement in the south. Disinformation could put additional pressure on peace advocates in government, non-government organizations and within the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, making peace-building, peace-making and negotiating a final political settlement of the decades-old conflict more challenging.
It is very important for the academe and the media to join hands to educate, not just the students, but the community as well on the dangers of disinformation, how to detect and avoid false information and malicious propaganda through a strengthened and improved media and information literary programs in schools and through forums organized to dispel and counter disinformation.
But the media has a bigger role to play in stopping the spread of false news. Fact-checking is a very tedious work. Even when the media have succeeded in debunking false information spread through the internet via social media platforms, the purveyors of “fake news” had already won the day. It may even be harder to take down a deceptive, malicious post on social media than to create falsehoods, which can spread easily given the human nature to share gossip.
More often than not, journalists working for the mainstream or legacy media help spread lies, legitimizing false information when they pick up the disinformation hidden in various posts from social media without first verifying and validating the authenticity of information. This is the problem when journalists and news agencies compete with each other, doing things in the rush and throwing away the basic journalism principles that set them apart from ordinary bloggers – accuracy, fairness, impartiality, accountability and responsibility.
Journalists must return to the basic journalism skills and principles. In doing so, scary tales about the “Macabebes” will no longer persist and exist.