Media Bias against Ron Paul

Watched the SC GOP debate. John King was quite subtle in not giving Ron Paul equal time. When he does not ask Paul first (so he won't be able to rebut the others), he leaves him for last. But, instead of letting him answer the same question, he asks him a new question to begin another round of debate. But the audience apparently caught on. On the question of Right to Life, where King instead of asking Paul, was about to start another topic, the audience shouted Paul! Paul! Shame on King! Shame on CNN!

Two weeks ago, when covering Ron Paul's campaign after the New Hampshire primary, Dana Bash said to husband and CNN colleague John King. “I’m sure you talk to Republicans who are worried as well, just like I am, that Ron Paul will continue on long into the spring and summer." 

In a statement, CNN said: “The notion that Dana is anything but objective is preposterous. Dana’s report should be fully reviewed in the context in which she meant it—to reference John’s sources and her sources, not her own opinion. “

Obviously, CNN does not know what OBJECTIVE means.  It was very clear to all and sundry that Bash said, “as I am”. She told the world that she was worried that “Ron Paul will continue on long into the spring and summer." Where is the objectivity in that? And it was very much her own opinion.

Really, I have never seen such Media Bias against any candidate! Too bad I'm not teaching Journalism or Media Studies anymore. The GOP campaign is a great eye-opener for students. 

It’s a pity that Filipino professors could not care less about the US elections. So Journalism or Media Studies students are missing the historic opportunity to observe in “real-time” Media Bias in action and thus confirm Media Studies theories.

CONSTRUCTING A NEW NARRATIVE FOR A VIABLE NATIONS-STATE

CONSTRUCTING A NEW NARRATIVE

FOR A VIABLE NATIONS-STATE

Datu Jamal Ashley Abbas

The Mindanao problem is ultimately a POWER problem – the power of one group over another. It is a problem of colonization. The fact that there was a law called the Legislative Act 4197 or Quirino-Recto Colonization of Mindanao Act, which was enacted on 12 February 1935 is very telling. The Commonwealth considered the Act as a lasting solution to Mindanao colony. The law enabled a massive exodus of settlers from Luzon and Visayas to Mindanao, with complete government support.

Partly in response to the Act, on 18 March 1935, 120 Maranao datus signed a manifesto, known as the Dansalan Declaration, and submitted it to the US President. The datus opposed the annexation of Mindanao to Luzon and Visayas.     


A year and a half later, Commonwealth President Quezon signed into law Commonwealth Act 141 which classified all Moro lands as PUBLIC LANDS, thus making all the Moros squatters in their own homeland.

Today, the social reality constructed by the Filipino leaders since the Commonwealth, supported by the vast resources of the government, has now been fairly entrenched such that the word Colonization or Occupation of Mindanao seems out of place.

The Philippine narrative that is the bedrock of the imagined Philippine nation goes something like this:

The Philippines is one country and until recently, the only Christian nation in Asia. It has minorities, who are also citizens of this nation-state. The citizens are called Filipinos. They belong to one race, one culture, one psychology, one destiny, one history. Those who do not think they should be a part of this nation-state have no choice because there is only one country, the Philippines. The fundamental law of the land is its Constitution.

The media constantly reinforces this narrative. In “Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao"(Q.C.:2000), top journalists Vitug and Gloria says:  “Mindanao was part of the Philippines ever since the Spanish colonizers came and created boundaries in what were formerly trading networks” 

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

History is “the act of selecting, analyzing and writing about the past. It is something that is done, that is constructed.” (Davidson and Lytle 1982) 

The grand historical narrative is this:

The Archipelago is nothing but a bunch of barangays ruled by datus. “Mother Spain” came to the Philippines and gave the natives Christianity and civilization – education, language, the arts, architecture and even cuisine.

For 350 years, the Spanish nurtured the people and protected them from the murderous raids of the Moros – the pirates

THE TERM FILIPINO

Throughout the Spanish rule in the Philippines, the term Filipino was reserved for pureblood Spaniards, differentiated only as peninsulares (those born in the Spanish Peninsula) and insulares (those born in the Islands). The Christianized natives were never called Filipinos. They were referred to as indios or naturales. Even the mestizos (half-breeds) were not called Filipinos.

 In the latter part of the 19^th century, Governor-General Clavecilla ordered all indios (except Manila’s local nobility, i.e., descendants of Rajah Suleiman and Lakandula) to adopt Spanish names in pain of punishment if they refused to do so. Thus, present-day Filipinos bear Spanish names. Having a Spanish name does not make one a Spaniard.

When the Aguinaldo government appropriated the term Filipino for the indios, the identification with the Spanish masters became complete. In one semantic stroke, the history of the Philippines became the history of the indios (the present-day Christian Filipinos) and not of the Spaniards (the original Filipinos).

This is a grave malady. By appropriating the name Filipino, the present-day Filipinos think that the Filipinos referred to in history indicate them and not the Spaniards. This makes them identify with the Spanish, forgetting that under Spain, their forefathers were virtual slaves – mandated to do forced labor and were considered eternal minors.

Leon Ma. Guerrero, one of the elites who constructed the “imaginary nation” called Filipino nation, had a hard time translating Rizal’s novel, Noli Me Tangere. In the novel, Rizal used the word Filipino to mean Spaniards in the Philippines which was incomprehensible to most readers in the 1950s who were brought up to believe that the term Filipino meant them, i.e. Christianized natives. Benedict Anderson (1994) wrote : 

“…young Filipinos would at once see, in any straight translation from the Spanish, that they do not exist within the novel’s pages. Filipinas, of course appear, but they are exactly what today’s Filipinas are not: ‘pure-blood’ Spanish Creoles.” 

Guerrero, in his attempt to fit the Noli into the elites’ “nation-state project”, effectively revised history. The Filipinos in Guerrero’s translation considered both Spain and Philippines as homes, worshiped European-looking deities, spoke foreign languages, alluded to Greco-Roman classical mythology and fell in love with Caucasian ladies. References to colonial abuse were rendered bland and ineffective. And since the modern-day Filipinos believe that they (or their forefathers) were the ones referred to in the book, it is but natural for them to imbibe the thoughts and beliefs of the Noli’s characters. In effect, Guerrero re-wrote the Noli. Jose Rizal must have turned in his grave when the translation was published and made required reading for Filipino students.

And so the confusion of the modern-day Filipinos’ identity continues. The historical narrative continues as such:

In 1896, Bonifacio and the Katipunan revolted against the Spanish. In 1898, with the assistance of Commodore Dewey, Aguinaldo defeated the Spaniards and proclaimed Independence. Soon after, the Philippine-American War erupted and by 1902, it was officially over. Philippines became an American territory.

New Filipino leaders – Quezon, Osmena, Roxas, etc. – emerged. America bestowed democracy to the Philippines. America pacified Mindanao. Quezon et al worked for Independence. America declared a Commonwealth and gave Filipinos self-government. World War II came and Filipinos fought side by side with Americans against Japanese. After WWII, America granted Philippine Independence. And the Philippines is now a democratic republican nation with a homogeneous people and culture, thanks to Mother America

In short, the Moros and Christian Filipinos were colonized by the Spaniards and Americans and they share the same colonial history. The only difference is that the Moros were mostly bandits and so had to be punished (Spanish “punitive expeditions”) every so often, as the grand narrative goes.

And since Philippine history books recounting events from 1521- 1886 were about the Spaniards in the Philippines including Philippine literature like Noli Me Tangere, the Filipinos identify with the Spaniards. 

The Christianized Filipinos' (or Indios') historical experience with the Moros was fret with horrors. Caught between the Moros and the Spaniards, the Indios suffered terribly from both parties. Forced to side with the Spaniards, they bore the brunt of Moro retaliatory raids in their communities. And to ensure their cooperation against the Moros, the Spaniards demonized the Moros in their literature, church sermons and stage plays like the moro-moro where the Muslim is always the villain.

When America gave Moroland to the Filipinos in 1946, the Indios (now called Filipinos) found themselves, at least theoretically, masters of the Islands. The Colonization of Mindanao was pursued vigorously with slogans like "Mindanao, Land of Promise" to entice the Indios to settle in Mindanao. Finally, the Indios became colonizers.

Filipino leaders promoted the slogan, "Go South, Young Man!" imitating the slogan "Go West, Young Man" which the Americans used to promote the colonization of the Western United States which belonged to the American Indians. And to make the analogy even stonger, the Indios referred to the Moros as Tribes just like the Navajo or the Iroquois.

In constructing the “Filipino nation”, the Grand Narrative of the Christian Filipinos and the government is embodied in the “One-Nation Theory.”

One-Nation One-History Syndrome

The Sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao were established ca. 1400’s. According to “official” Philippine history, the Philippines (Luzon, Visayas, Palawan and Mindanao) was discovered by Fernando Magallanes in 1521. However, historical accounts say that Mindanao and Palawan were already known to the rest of the world way before that time. 

If one were to visit the Malacañang Museum, a guide would point out a 16th century map that he/she would describe as the oldest map that shows the Philippines. A closer look at it would reveal that the map indicates only Mindanao and Palawan. Luzon and Visayas were not yet “discovered”.

The official historical view claims that 350 years of Spanish rule in the Philippines included Moroland. Spanish attacks against the Moros were called “punitive expeditions against rebellions.” Moro victories over the Spanish were denied or ignored. Moro raids on the Christian natives were called pirate attacks.

This is what can be called “the one-nation one-history syndrome”. This syndrome propagates the myth that the present-day Philippines has always been one nation sharing one history. It is alleged that the only difference between the Moros and the Christianized natives (indios) was that the Moros continually resisted while the indios resisted only intermittently (Dagohoy Rebellion, Diego Silang rebellion, etc.)

There is a preponderance of evidence against this myth. While the Indios were under Spanish colonial rule, the Moro sultanates thrived. The Moros were considered sovereigns by European powers, including Spain, as proven by treaties between them. Even the US signed the Bates Treaty with Sulu thus proving that the Treaty of Paris was not sufficient or even valid in the case of Sulu. Primary sources abound in the archives not only in Manila but also in Madrid, London, and Amsterdam.

BANGSA MORO (Moro Nation)

In the late 1960s, the Moro Young Turks led by Abbas, Jr., Misuari et al, supported by their elders proposed another narrative: the Bangsa Moro nation as distinct from the Filipino nation.

This Bangsa Moro nation concept is steeped in history, with the Moros unconquered by colonizers and as great defenders of Islam.

Graeme Turner (1993) says that “implicit in every culture is a ‘theory of reality’ which motivates its ordering of that reality into good and bad, right and wrong, them and us, and so on.”(p.133) The belief system produced by this ‘theory of reality’ is called ideology. 

Ideology and history are both social constructs. Turner says, “Ideology works to obscure the process of history so that it appears natural, a process we cannot control and which it seems churlish to question.” (Turner, Graeme (1993) Film as Social Practice London: Routledge)

A nation’s collective memory is complex and in continuous flux. “It is basically made up of stories: the myriad stories which people tell each other; and, more significantly, the mass mediated narratives of a nation's 'official' history, told in books and other cultural artifacts like television and feature films.” (Ituralde 1995)

TWO SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS / NARRATIVES

In the Mindanao Conflict – two constructs are fighting – the “Filipino nation” construct as created by successive Philippine governments and the Bangsa Moro construct exemplified by the MNLF and MILF.

On the one hand, there is the “one-nation narrative” that asserts the indivisibility of the “Filipino nation”, proud of its Christian religion and Western heritage and identifies with the Spaniards of historical texts. This group believes in “democracy” defined as rule of the majority.

On the other hand is the Bangsa Moro narrative that gives prime importance to the Islamic religion and Moros’ historical fight against Westerners. Believers in this narrative hope to get back their former territory and freedom.

With two diverging social constructs, it would be very difficult to find a middle ground. A million dialogues will not accomplish anything if the premises of both groups are clearly divergent.

With number and over-all resources on its side, the Christian Filipino would not easily give in to any demands of the other party. The logical thing to do would be to convince the other party of the soundness of the “one-nation” principle and debunk the Bangsa Moro or Moro nation theory by emphasizing on the divisions of the Moro nation.

Appdurai (1996) says: “Through ‘print capitalism’ (Benedict Anderson 1991) and ‘electronic capitalism’ such as films and TV (Warner 1992, Lee 1993), citizens imagine themselves to belong to a national society. The modern nation-state in this view grows less out of natural facts – such as language, blood, soil and race – and more out of a quintessential cultural product, a product of the collective imagination.” With all resources at its command, the government can simply reinvigorate its construction of the reality of “One Filipino nation”.

The dominant group will insure that the received reality prevents an examination of the non-viability of present situation (one-nation principle).

The Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the MILF was junked and the latest MILF-GPH talks were stalled because the dominant group refuses to consider that the status quo is not viable. In the Filipino grand narrative, there is only One Constitution for ALL citizens just as there is one “national language, one national anthem, one national dress, etc.” There is only one government, one security force, etc.

While the “Filipino nation” has been continually constructed since the Commonwealth, the “Moro Nation” concept came up only in the late 1960s. And because of lack of mass media and other resources, such concept has not yet taken root as much as the Filipino nation.

Also, for centuries, the Moro groups have been keenly aware of their own history individually – Sultanates of Sulu, Maguindanao and Buayan and the Pat a Pangampong ko Ranao. These were virtual nation-states and acted independently of fellow Moro states.Thus, many Moros are still not comfortable with the notion of one Moro nation.

REMEDY:

Both sides must examine their theories, assumptions, axioms, etc

History is a construct. History is used as the “memory” of another socially and culturally constructed concept, the nation. But what is constructed can be re-constructed. For the Filipino nation to find its Identity and be at peace with the Moros, it is high time that it’s “memory” be re-investigated. Philippine history does not need re-construction. It merely needs re-discovery.

Using new approaches like microhistory, forgetting the grand narratives and keeping an open mind, Moros and Indios might find that they have many commonalities and that in many ways, they do have a shared history and be better off with a shared future, where power is equitably distributed and shared.

We don’t have to belong to One Nation. But we can belong to One State. There can be MANY NATIONS in ONE STATE. There can be many nations in a Bangsa Moro (Moro Nation) and many more in the Filipino nation just as there are many nations in a British or German nation and much more in a European Nation.

The dissolution of the USSR, Yugoslavia and other nation-states born after WWII as well as the many problems experienced by many other nation-states like Thailand, Myanmar, Iraq, Philippines, the Middle Eastern countries, etc. means that the “nation-state” project of the Western world has failed. A new system may be the way of the future: nations-state like the European Union - many nations in one state.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE YOUNG MOROS / INDIOS:

-        Study history – Moro, Filipino, Islamic, World history

-      Practice critical thinking – do not believe books or teachers unless their arguments are backed by proofs – documents and logic.

-         Look for points of convergence, commonalities

-    Disseminate what you have learned or concluded through whatever media – the internet (blogs, websites, social media network), printed materials like magazines, papers, journals, TV, radio, speaking engagements, etc.

-    Look for alternatives to the grand narratives and help create a new one that would embrace all.

The Bangsa Moro Problem through Krippendorf’s emancipatory theory

:

March 2002

by ©Datu Jamal Ashley Yahya Abbas

In 1989, Klaus Krippendorf wrote his The Power Of Communication And The Communication Of Power: Toward An Ethical Theory Of Communication. In this theory, he proposes, “to examine a pathology of communication of which the social use of the notion of power is an illustrative example. He discusses ethical issues of communication practices which would lead to an outline of the elements of an emancipatory communication theory.

Krippendorf defines Ethics as any system of thought and action that a] prevents social pathologies from arising, b] helps to overcome social pathologies that may have arisen elsewhere and c] does not constitute a pathology by itself.

Note that the definition is a] negative and not normative and self-referenced; i.e., an ethic be ethical by its own criteria.

Krippendorf defines PATHOLOGY as a deviation from something collectively desirable. Pathology becomes social when others are seen as co-determinants of the entrapment. A social pathology becomes one of communication when it is constituted in language, in the interactive use of discourse.

Is the Moro Problem a communication pathology? Let us analyze it through Krippendorf’s conditions for a TRAP:

1.CLOSED SYSTEM of reality constructions…

The prevailing ideas in the Philippines, as perpetuated by Mass Media and all State apparatuses, are:

The Philippines is one country, the only Christian nation in Asia. It has minorities, who are also citizens of this nation-state. The citizens are called Filipinos. They belong to one race, one culture, one psychology, one destiny one history. Those who do not think they should be a part of this nation-state have no choice because there is only one country, the Philippines. 

The Moros are impoverished because they are mostly illiterate, uneducated, “uncivilized”. They are mostly terrorists and bandits. Their leaders enriched themselves at the expense of the ordinary Moros. 


Mindanao, the “Land of Promise”, needs Christian Filipino industriousness and general know-how to bring out its full potential.

2. The closed system is, or at least some of its constituents are demonstrably non-viable, incorrect, invalid, untenable, the source of stress and pain, etc.

Without doubt, the Bangsa Moro people are marginalized, impoverished. Their provinces are the least developed and the poorest in terms of revenues, per capita income, literacy rate, etc. In the early 1970’s, they waged a war that resulted in at least 50,000 deaths, millions of casualties, 500,000 refugees in Sabah, and at its height, cost the Marcos government 1 million dollars a day.

While the Tripoli Agreement in 1976 reduced the fighting, the state of rebellion continued to exist. Today, the Philippine government even called on the American Armed Forces to help defeat some of these Moros. Premise No. 2 is therefore demonstrably valid.

3. Certain of its constituents prevent examination of the system’s non-viability.

The Philippine government, while supporting the independence of East Timor, a nation that cannot even show an independent history as the Bangsa Moro, declares that the sovereignty of the Philippine nation-state and its Constitution, which has been changed several times, remains supreme. The Filipino majority would not allow the “desecration” of the “Filipino nation”. 

According to Krippendorf, political alienation, racial prejudice, powerlessness and all kinds of addictions are social pathologies according to the three requirements.

Let us examine the Problem through Krippendorf’s other criteria:

POSITION

INSIDER POSITION:

“Mindanao was part of the Philippines ever since the Spanish colonizers came and created boundaries in what were formerly trading networks” 

--Vitug and Gloria “Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao" (Q.C.:2000, 327 pp.)

The above statement correctly summarizes the official position of the government and practically all Christian Filipinos.

OUTSIDER OPINION: (cultural and historical “outsiders”)

“If (territorial) claims were based on raiding villages, then the Maguindanaons (the Sultanate of Maguindanao) had much more territory to claim than the Spaniards. The Muslims have the Spanish settlements burning and blazing every year and take some 500 captives per raid, while the Spaniards got only one Maguindanao(n) last year."

--Simon Cos, Dutch Governor of Moluccas May 16, 1658

"Her Majesty's government has never regarded the Sultan of Sulu as a pirate; they never admitted the claim of Spain to sovereignty over the archipelago; and in the interests of British trade, they never have been disposed to regard with favor any extension of Spanish authority or influence in the Sulu waters..." 

-- the British Earl of Denby's instruction to Consul Palgrave on Aug. 25, 1877

"From this time...these Moros have not ceased to infest our colonies. Innumerable are the Indios they have captured, the ranches they have destroyed and the vessels they have taken. It seems as if God has preserved them for vengeance on the Spanish that they have not been able to subject them in 200 years in spite of the expeditions sent against them, the armaments spent every year to pursue them. In a very little while, we conquered the islands of the Philippines, but the little islands of Sulu, parts of Mindanao and other islands nearby, we have not been able to subjugate to this very day." 

– Spanish Captain-General Marquma to the King of Spain in the late 18th century

“The close of the unsuccessful Spanish conquest of Moroland marked the beginning of the end of one of the most remarkable resistance in the annals of military history. The Moslems has staged a bitter and uninterrupted warfare against the might of Spain for a period of 377 years. It is doubtful if this record has been equaled in the whole bloody history of military aggression. The Dons, accustomed to the easy conquests of Peru and Mexico, met their match and more in the jungles of Mindanao.”

   – Vic Hurley, “Swish of the Kris: The Story of the Moros”

Muslims are geographically concentrated in the south of the country, and are distinguished from Christian Filipinos not only by their profession of Islam but also by their evasion of 300 years of Spanish colonial domination.” 

-- THOMAS M. MCKENNA Associate Professor of Anthropology, Department of 

Anthropology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA. March 17, 1999

And of course, the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) recognizes the Bangsa Moro Cause and has given the MNLF observer status.

Clearly, there is quite a divergence of opinion from the outside (non-Filipinos throughout history) and inside (present-day Filipino dominant opinion.)

OPPRESSION

Oppression is usually an explanation of someone’s disablement or burden in terms of political rule (traditionally), of social class (since Marx) and recently, of ethnicity, gender and age.

Oppressed people acknowledge their pain and misery but they deny themselves the ability to change. They blame others, technology, political structures or unethical values. In other words, scapegoating.

Many Moros believe the propaganda that they are themselves to blame, esp. their leaders.

THE COMMUNICATION AND METAPHOR OF POWER

Krippendorf is one of the theorists who believe that the ordinary use of language can entrap people or even societies. He cites Stoltzenberg, who says:

Entrapment…consists, first, in being taken in a] by certain uses of language that have the appearance, but only that, of being meaningful; and] by certain modes of reasoning that have the appearance, but only that, of being self-evidently correct;….

Last week, when I questioned the validity of a “Filipino” psychology, the response of the Communication 240 class of the UP CMC Graduate School was almost unanimous. They all affirmed: “We are all Filipinos.” “We are in the same geographical area” “We have one psychology.” “Until the Moros become independent, we are all Filipinos”!

Even some Moros believe that they are Filipinos, sharing the same culture, psychology and even history as the Christian majority.

Yet when did the word “Filipino” belonged to the present-day Filipino? Before 1898, the term Filipino is reserved for the Spaniards in the Philippines, both peninsulares and insulares. The grandfathers and great-grandfathers of present-day Christian Filipinos were called Indios or Naturales.That was why Leon Ma. Guerrero, one of the elites who constructed the “imaginary nation” called Filipinos, had a hard time translating Rizal’s novel, Noli Me Tangere.

In the novel, the word Filipino as understood in the 1950s was not used. Benedict Anderson wrote:

“…young Filipinos would at once see, in any straight translation from the Spanish, that they do not exist within the novel’s pages. Filipinas, of course appear, but they are exactly what today’s Filipinas are not: ‘pure-blood’ Spanish Creoles.” (Pertierra and Ugarte 1994 p. 108)

- Two different histories. The Moro and Indio peoples have two very different histories. 

-The Lease of Sabah to British East India Co. in 1878 is one proof that the Sultan of Sulu was not part of the Philippines under the Spanish.

-The Filipino Revolution of Bonifacio and Aguinaldo did NOT include the Moros. Aguinaldo sent letters urging the Moros to fight the Spanish. The Moro datus answered that they had been doing that all the time and now it was the time for the Indios to do the same. 

-Bates Treaty proved that America did not consider Treaty of Paris sufficient to claim Mindanao and Sulu

-During the American Period, the word Filipino referred to Christian Filipinos.

-The Moro Province and later Department of non-Christian tribes were administered by the Americans separately.

-The Quezon-Osmena political fight for Philippine independence were opposed by the Moros

-1922 Wood-Forbes Commission concluded that the Moros, including “pagans and non-Christians” in Mindanao, did not want to be with the rest of the Philippines in case of independence from the US

- The Bacon Bill of 1926 (US Congress) demanded the separation of Mindanao and Sulu from the Philippines

- US Sec. of War Patrick Hurley’s visit to the Philippines in 1931 resulted in “a great quantity of petitions from Moros asking for American sovereignty in one form or another” 

- Pres. Hoover vetoed the Philippine Independence Act of 1933 in response to Moro protests.

And now, Pres. GMA declared that “if you are not in favor of the presence of American forces to fight the ABU SAYYAF, THEN YOU ARE NOT A FILIPINO.” She added, “If you are not a Filipino, then who are you? A protector of TERRORISTS, a cohort of murderers, an Abu Sayyaf lover.”

In a non-Moro Filipino mind, what usually accompanies the word "terrorists"? Moros or Muslims. Abu Sayyaf is a Moro group. Semiotically, psychoanalytically, GMA was saying “If you are not a Filipino, then you are a Moro/Muslim lover.”

Metaphor, according to Krippendorf, is “a pattern, an explanatory structure, tied to a word or expression that is successful in a familiar domain of experiences and carried from there into another familiar domain whose experiences and actions it thereby organizes and coordinates in its own way.” Ex.:Pilipinas, ang Inang Bayan.

POWER OF COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE

Kurt Black (1989) states that language has two functions: transmission and influence. Hence, effective communication becomes the powerful communication of power.

After WWII, the leaders of the new nation-states like Egypt, India, Indonesia and the Philippines spent most of their rhetorical energies convincing their fellow citizens to give up their primordial loyalties – family, caste, religion, ethnic group, nation, history, etc. – in the interest of a new abstraction called the “nation-state”.

Suddenly, there is this abstraction called “India” (Nehru’s India was not like the “British” India or the Mughal India), Indonesia (Sukarno’s Indonesia vs. the Dutch East Indies), the Philippines (the Roxas’s Republic of the Philippines vs. the Philippine Commonwealth or the Spanish Filipinas or Aguinaldo’s Republica or the Katipunan’s Katagalugan)

It was only at this time that the Moros participated fully in the construction of a “Filipino nation.” – A new batch of leaders – educated by Americans and graduates of Manila universities – were part of the elites who constructed the notion that the Moros were Filipinos. Amilbangsa, Abbas, Sr., Domocao Alonto, Pendatun, and the Sinsuat brothers cemented the triumph of the Moro "Filipinistas" over the Moro "Americanistas”. In fact, Sen. Alonto filed a bill that prohibited the use of the word Moros and called for the use of term Muslim Filipinos instead. Sen. Pendatun was one of the primary sponsors of the creation of PMA (Phil. Military Academy). Abbas penned the judicial ruling that a Muslim Filipino who got married in civil rites lost his right to divorce and other marital practices under Moro customary law (most of them based on the Shar’iah).

In the early 60s, the Moros realized that they got a very small slice of the national pie. There were no Moros in the Cabinet except for Datu Duma Sinsuat, a classmate of Macapagal. There were no generals except for Pendatun who was a Reservist. There were no judges in the CFI and higher except for Abbas, who got his post as the quid pro quo for his campaign efforts for Magsaysay in the presidential elections.

By the late 60s/early 70s, the Moros realized that the Moro experiment with Filipino nationhood was a failure. Moro ‘Young Turks’ – Abbas, Jr., Misuari, Salamat, etc. – led the movement for “Moro nationalism” which produced the MNLF, MILF, BMLO, etc. and called themselves Moros. It must be noted though that their elders, who had also realized that the “Philippine nation-state” project was a failure, supported these young Turks.

Thus, it was only from 1946-1969 (the formation of MNLF and MIM), a period of 23 years did the Moros agree to be called “Filipinos”

Wilson and Dissanayake (p.3) says: “The nation-state, in effect, have been shaped into an ‘imagined community’ of coherent modern identity through warfare, religion, blood, patriotic symbology and language…”

“Modern nationalism involve communities of citizens in the territorially-defined nation-state, who share the collective experience, not of face –to – face contact or common subordination to a royal person, but of reading books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps and other modern texts together (Habermas 1989, Calhoun 1992). (Appadurai, p.159)

Philippine history books portray the Philippines as one nation, one people since the coming of Magellan.

Philippine history books glorify the event of Cebu’s Rajah Humabon’s and his wife’s conversion to Christianity. But they conveniently leave out what happened next. After Magellan’s death, Humabon invited the Spaniards to a feast and massacred all of them except one who was permitted to go back to his shipmates to ask for ransom.

Philippine history books chronicle only the activities of Spaniards up to ca.1896. It should be properly called not Filipino history but Spanish history in Las Filipinas (Philippine Islands) and the Spanish response to the various sporadic indio revolts as well as the Spanish-Moro wars. These same texts see Moro history as similar to indio revolts, albeit sustained and long-term. 

The fact is that Moros and Indios never had any contact (except during wars where the Indios fought for the Filipinos (Spanish) during the Spanish era. The Moros and the Indios came together officially only during the Commonwealth era.

Appadurai (1996) goes on to say: “Through ‘print capitalism’ (Benedict Anderson 1991) and ‘electronic capitalism’ such as films and TV (Warner 1992, Lee 1993), citizens imagine themselves to belong to a national society. The modern nation-state in this view grows less out of natural facts – such as language, blood, soil and race – and more out of a quintessential cultural product, a product of the collective imagination.”

ENTRAPMENT OF POWER

According to this theory, indications for entrapment of power are:

1.Obviously true from within. Nearly every change can be explained as a consequence of where the power to cause it resides. 

CHRISTIANS HAVE FULL CONTROL OF THE GOVERNMENT. MOROS ARE NOT PROPORTIONALLY REPRESENTED IN ALL ASPECTS OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY –EXECUTIVE, JUDICIARY, LEGISLATIVE, PRIVATE SECTOR, BUSINESS, PRESS, ETC.

2.While convincing, it is also painful, debilitating and depressing to those who do not see themselves as having the power to control their lives. 

THE MOROS ARE THE MOST IMPOVERISHED PEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY ACCDG TO OFFICIAL STATISTICS

To remedy the pathology requires one:

1. To create alternative constructions that are both incompatible with the dominant power notions and potentially viable.

IN THE CASE OF THE BANGSA MORO, IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TRIPOLI AGREEMENT, A REAL AUTONOMOUS OR FEDERAL STATE OR EVEN INDEPENDENCE. ALLOW THE BANGSA MORO THEIR INHERENT RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION

2. To show that the received reality prevents an examination of its non-viability; 

The Government, Media and the Christian majority refuse to recognize the Bangsa Moro’s right to self-determination while insisting on the sanctity of the Philippine constitution which insists on referenda, i.e., on the say-so of the Christian majority.

3. To show how language is implicated in this entrapment.


Example: The sacredness of the Philippine Constitution. The indivisibility of the Philippine Republic. The shared historical heritage of the Moros and Filipinos. “All are Filipinos.” One nation, One culture, One psychology

Power resides in social relationships. In society, it is not the power of the powerful that forces the powerless into compliance, but it is compliance that invites power to emerge. (The imbecility of men -- such as the corruption of Moro politicians-- invites the impudence of power.)

In 1946, because of WWII, the Moros were overtaken by events and woke up one day to find themselves “Filipinos”. Moro leaders underestimated the Filipinos. They thought that there would be equality in the new Republic. Some leaders also found it more convenient to ally themselves with the Indios.

Krippendorf reiterates that “Power does not reside in objective conditions outside social relationships but in the reality constructions invented, talked about, held on to and complied with those involved.”

Ultimately, the Moros hold the power to choose their destiny.

Reasons for Inability to recognize entrapments:

1. Belief in reality consisting of tangible objects that can be characterized as possessing or acquiring certain properties with time. Ex. Green parrots, red apples, powerful people, the powerless “masa”, the dominant elite, Muslim terrorists, Moro bandits.

2. Reliance on linear causal constructions of reality. This comes from the S-V-O sentence construction. A causes B but who caused B? 

MOROS WERE PART OF THE PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC IN 1946 SO THEY STAY THAT WAY. Moros are uneducated and poor and cannot govern themselves. Moro provinces are poor because Moro leaders are corrupt. And so on and so forth.

3. Embedded in the causal construction are the abstract nature of power and the systematic confusion of explanatory constructs with experiences. Power turns out to be such a “powerful” notion because its abstract nature defies disconfirmation by observation. It is presupposed in the way experience is framed and accepted as such in discourse.

THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT IS POWERFUL BECAUSE IT IS BACKED BY THE US of A.

4. Concept of language as a system of representations or symbols according to which talk is always ABOUT something, about a world outside the speaker, as if language is not part of the world it describes.

WE ARE ALL FILIPINOS. MOROS ARE FILIPINOS. MUSLIM AND CHRISTIAN FILIPINOS HAVE BEEN TOGETHER SINCE MAGELLAN.(GOOD)

MOROS ARE VIOLENT. MOROS ARE ‘UNCIVILIZED’.

MOROS ARE UNEDUCATED, DUMB, TEMPERAMENTAL, TERRORISTS, BANDITS, AND HAVE MANY WIVES

In this theory, language is constitutive of reality. Words are deeds (Wittgenstein 1953). John Austin’s (1962) performatives are cases in point. Ex.: Priest says: “I pronounce thee Husband and Wife.” Therapeutic interventions, political agenda-setting, self-fulfilling prophesies, blaming someone a criminal before trial are examples of how assertion of something can make it real for those who use that language.

For a linguistic assertion to do something, someone must let it participate meaningfully within his or her reality construction wherein it preserves its coherence while intervening in or working itself through it.

In the Maranao language, the word Filipino DENOTES non-Muslim or Christian Filipinos. It has several negative CONNOTATIONS. A Maranao might describe himself as “Filipino” when speaking English or Tagalog to non-Moros, but he will NEVER use the word “Filipino” to describe himself when conversing in Maranao with fellow Maranaos. 

This proves the importance of Krippendorf’s assertion that we must study LANGUAGING, the very process language is used by the speakers themselves. It is incongruous for a Maranao to talk of a “Filipino” psychology if he will not use the very word “Filipino” to describe himself in the vernacular to his fellow Maranaos.

Objective descriptions of social relationships in terms of power, from Marx to Foucault, only breeds power, empowers the powerful (by reifying the power they already possess) and continue to disable the powerless whoever they may be.

Krippendorf argues that “scholars of human communication have an ethical responsibility to develop reality constructions and support the emancipation from pathological reality constructions wherever they arise and whenever they can be recognized as such.”

According to Krippendorf, there are elements of an ethical theory of communication. Ethical theory must be general, but cannot be predictive for this would precipitate the very class distinction that denies its generality. Hence, an ethical theory must be applicable in principle, suggestive perhaps but demonstrably viable in discourse practice. It should evidence the human concern it espouses in its very proposition.

Seeing others in more or less painful pathological conditions, without apparent hope to escape from them, entails an ethical responsibility for communication.

Also, ethical discourse is emancipatory at its core. The film “Bagong Buwan”, for example, portrayed some of the woes of the Moros. But there is also the other side of the coin, the death and suffering of Christian Filipinos. 

CONCLUSION

Krippendorf’s theory is not just hermeneutic or critical it is also ethical. He maintains that it is incumbent upon everyone to acknowledge a pathology and seek its cure. The Bangsa Moro situation in the country is a pathology and is in need of a cure. The cost in terms of dollars and lives it has already exacted is already considerable. The health of the country as a whole will never achieve its full potential if this pathology continues. The presence of the Abu Sayyaf Group and the US Armed Forces in Mindanao is symptomatic of the gravity of this pathology.

The country can pretend through languaging that the situation is “isolated” and easily solved. Marcos waged an all-out war against the Moros. Erap waged an all-out war against MILF. Erap proclaimed that the Abu Sayyaf had been wiped out. Now GMA called on the US military machine to “wipe out terrorism” in the Philippines.

The way of the gun has been tried many times over. Perhaps it is better to try an honest-to-goodness dialogue, with thorough analysis of the socio-cultural and historical situation and be prepared to accept the truth -- see the disease as it actually is, and implement the necessary cure, however painful.