The birthplace of tough-nut Manny Pacquiao and home to pirates, warlords, drug trafficking and a deadly guerilla warfare, the island of Mindanao in the Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world. I decided it was a great holiday destination.
At some point between her threatening to hack the hands off some trick-or-treaters and my Dad hiding the kitchen knives in the sofa cushions out of sheer terror, I knew my Mum was as hard as nails. She comes from Mindanao, Philippines; the southern most island that is on one hand sleepy tropics homing farmers, fishermen and some of the friendliest and generous people you could ever meet. On the other, one of the most monstrously violent and lawless places in the world. Pirates, bandits, warlords, drug trafficking and centre of the bloodiest guerilla conflict the country has seen- I decided it was an excellent place to go on holiday.
Up until 2009 the only Philippine experience I had in my adult life was getting hustled away from the chicken wing buffet so there was room for a Mariah karaoke sing-along. I always grimace politely when people say they went travelling round Asia and ‘found themselves’, presumably while drinking out of a bucket on a beach while small brown women gave them head massages. The idea of trekking round a third world country to gawp at the impoverished then return to the safety of a hotel has always seemed a little contrived to me. Maybe this is part of my own guilt, I always knew my mum had had a poor upbringing but she rarely spoke about it apart from the times I refused to finish my tea and she’d go batshit crazy, chase me with the ‘hitting slipper’ and remind me how lucky I was to have food.
Blacklisted for travel by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo seems to dip the island in and out of a state of emergency with much of the south of Mindanao being under an almost perpetual rule of martial law. Philippines is unique in its latin temperament and being the only country in Asia to embrace Catholicism under Spanish colonisation. Mindanao however is home to the small population of indigenous Muslims, with the increasing neglect of Muslim regions escalating into an insurgence of several Islamic groups, including the unfortunately abbreviated ‘MILF’- Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf. While it has given no signs of slowing since 1969, Mindanao is not exactly new to guerilla rebels, with the conflict blending into the ultra-sadistic communist New People’s Army war against US occupation that preceded it. The island is plagued. The Philippines already has devastating typhoons and earthquakes, throw in terrorism and it doesn’t exactly make for a hive of tourism. Nobody wants to go on holiday with that many things threatening to kill them.
We stay in Makati, the business district, the area where Imelda had filled her luxury condo with shoes and Versace sofas while down the road people ate out of bins in the slums.
Still, after hammering home the warning that I may be tourist-napped and sold off for meat our trip goes ahead, starting in the capital Manila. Mum knows what delicate flowers my sister and I are so we stay in Makati, the business district, the area where Imelda had filled her luxury condo with shoes and Versace sofas while down the road people ate out of bins in the slums. The proximity of the fancy hotels to the streets filled with rotting trash and corrugated iron shanties is fascinating as it is shocking. As predicted I’m gawping at the poor from an air-conditioned taxi. What I naïvely hadn’t expected was the sheer volume of armed police officers and metal detectors. The gloss of Makati is occasionally blemished with remnants of terrorist attacks. A hanging tarpaulin emblazoned with a cheery ‘Mabuhay!’ still hides the damage of the 2005 Valentine’s Day passenger bus bomb, which the Islamic ‘Abu Sayyaf’ group charmingly claimed was a “Valentine’s gift for (President) Gloria”.
Gently broken in by Manila we fly to my Mum’s hometown in the north of Mindanao. Bancasi Airport is plonked in the middle of mountains and acres upon acres of coconut palms. Our plane swings round mid landing to accommodate what is essentially a large plain of concrete for a runway with a glorified portacabin for a terminal. It’s not like walking out on to the set of Platoon like my Mum had made out but greeting us by the luggage claim is a large poster with twenty or so mug shots of the most wanted men in the area, various bounties on their head for crimes never straying from the extremes of kidnapping, bomb attacks and multiple murders. This is the safer end of the island.
The Philippines troubles remain sparsely reported, perhaps because it’s not sitting on oil or perhaps videos of prisoners doing a choreographed dance to ‘Thriller’ is more newsworthy.
The stares we’re met with could burn holes and I suddenly feel very White and tall and wearing too much Topshop. Coming straight from the painfully overcrowded Manila the sparseness of Mindanao and how basic everything is, is hard to take in. My first thoughts were pangs of guilt, which I’m ashamed to say, were immediately followed by “fuck, I wonder what the toilets are like?” It is strange to think that the woman who I’d slammed doors and sulked at for not buying me new school shoes had grown up here. We wandered past the breezeblock house she once lived in, the river she’d beaten her laundry clean and the supermarket, which was actually a row of wooden huts. I thought she’d been taking the piss. The initial culture shock stayed with me for a good few days alongside becoming acutely aware of the army presence, which is more than noticeable. Otherwise deserted roads are dotted with armed jeeps making random stop and searches. It was also the first and probably last time I’ll watch a primary school drama production of kids hula dancing be rigorously guarded with hoards of soldiers carrying assault rifles. But having got used to the soldiers milling around I wonder if there is a need for such a heavy handed presence in the first place.
While the Islamic insurgence’s terrorist crusade is largely the cause for martial law it has also provided a healthy distraction for the warlords of Mindanao. The Ampatuan family, whose barbaric private militia and election rigging has monopolised much of the south have, depressingly, been credited for securing Arroyo’s presidential win. Arroyo was criticised for turning a blind eye, but the ‘Maguinadao Massacre’, which took place shortly after we left, was so extreme it couldn’t be swept under the carpet. In the run up to a local election this was the Ampatuan’s novel approach to dealing with the emergence of opposing candidate Esmael Mangudadatu. Mangudadatu’s family was amongst 58 people murdered and dumped in a shallow grave, two of whom were pregnant. The female dead raped and sexually mutilated, the rest maimed beyond recognition. Passing motorists that had been caught up as witnesses had been dragged from their cars and slaughtered. Andal Ampatuan JR insisted Islamic separatists were responsible but was eventually charged with murder not without a slew of bribes, further homicides of key witnesses and evidence contamination.
The Ampatuan clan are by no means unique, with crime families wielding an increasing amount of political power stretching farther and farther. As both Muslim and Christian warlords rule over the island with an iron fist, the notion of pumping aid into Mindanao has more or less become pissing money away into a blackhole. Donors can work through official channels but with local governments merely puppets, the masses of credible money has just enabled clans like the Ampatuans to create an air of respectability. Like similar conflicts in other countries, the violence is vehemently opposed but public condemnation has not stopped the Philippines quietly maintaining Mindanao’s impunity, in exchange for both financial and political support across the country. I know corruption in a developing country is a kind of a “no shit Sherlock” moment but the most chilling aspect is the acceptance by local people, frustrated with the chronic poverty, of the false economy from drugs and firearms that has been allowed to masquerade itself as foreign aid. Right under the rest of the world’s nose it feels as though the Philippines has been forgotten and left to fester with Mindanao becoming its own micro-continent of lawless psychopathy. The cheeky scamp of a mongrel nation, Americanised and largely co-operative has quietly been advancing its standing in Asia’s criminal underworld to a frightening level.
For whatever reason the Philippines troubles remain sparsely reported, perhaps because it’s not sitting on oil or perhaps videos of prisoners doing a choreographed dance to ‘Thriller’ is more newsworthy. I was surprised at how much of an effect the trip had on me. It’s odd to sit staring into water so serene and crystal clear where, unlike seaside trips to Margate, I can still see straight to the bottom even as the sun sets and there’s not one used condom floating by. The island is completely unspoiled; there is not a sandals-n-socks sex tourist or gap year student in sight. But at what cost- from its lush jungles housing waterfalls and hot springs to the white sand beaches it is a surreally beautiful corner of the world and yet is so breathtakingly brutal. I wonder what the future of Mindanao holds. It’s probably not an Expedia hotel and flight package deal.
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