Mindanao, The Land of Promise!
Mindanao is the second largest, and the Southernmost island in the Philippines, located just north of Indonesia/Malaysia. Mindanao is a strong agricultural area, supplying a large portion of the food supply for the entire country.
While Mindanao is widely known as a sort of “wild west”, it is actually a quite peaceful place, unless you venture into isolated pockets of the island
where there are active insurgent groups, primarily Muslim. However, for the most part Mindanao is a peaceful place that is still close to nature,
somewhat unexplored, and many parts are sparsely inhabited.
I originally obtained the domain name “Mindanao.com” back in 1996 when the web was still fairly young and domain names were easy to come by. At the time I wasn’t fully certain of what I wanted to do with the domain, but I wanted to somehow promote Mindanao. You see, although I am an American, my wife is Filipino, and from the island of Mindanao, so I had some connection to the place.
At the time, I was running a mailing list on the Internet called Mindanao-L. We had several hundred members from all over the world, and we talked about anything to do with Mindanao. Sometimes the discussions got a little heated, and when that happened, we usually reverted back to talking about fruit, or some kind of recipes from Mindanao. After things calmed down, we usually ventured back to talking politics, specifically Mindanao politics. At that time, the Peace Treaty with the MNLF was a big thing, with Nur Misuari trying to iron out an agreement with the Philippine Government, and it was indeed a hot issue. Of course, a lot of water has passed under the bridge from those days, and events in Mindanao are different today. But, you know what they say, the more things change the more they stay the same. Today’s issues seem to be centered around the MILF instead of the MNLF. The hot topics are about the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist groups and how they use Mindanao as one of their base camps.
When I first obtained the domain, I lived in the States. Today I actually live in Mindanao, and am able to watch the events here occur day in and day out. It is an interesting place to live, no doubt there. If you are planning to visit Mindanao, please e-mail me, I would enjoy getting together for coffee with any of my readers while you are here.
What will happen on the island of Mindanao? None of us know the answer, but if you follow along with my magazine about Mindanao, I promise to keep you up to date as best I can. Please feel free to leave your comments, a two way discussion is always more interesting!
Greeting Bob! I’m from Zamboanga City and I’m currently taking up AB-POLITICAL SCIENCE. I was wondering if there are any good reference books or any other article out here which specifies the main issue of the “MIGRATION OF MUSLIM GROUPS TO ALL PARTS OF THE PHL COUNTRY” cause I’m currently researching for a good topic or issue here in Mindanao in which I find the massive Migrations of Muslim groups quite interesting. The main problem is that I can’t find any good solid article which would pin point the real happenings to why these groups migrated in the first place. Al i know it began with the Marcos regime and the rebel groups?
I am sorry, I just don’t know of any books on the topic.
Ok… sorry for the late reply Mr. Bob. Really busy. Thanks for the info with your amazing webpage.
Hello, Imran911. I’m a law student and a former college teacher here in MSU-IIT. Try searching the net for the Mindanao State University archives on that topic. Yesterday I read a book on ‘rido’ in the Lanao communities as one of the reasons for Meranao migrations to other parts of the Philippines. It was a book written by an MSU professor funded by USAid. You can also try searching on the archives of Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao; if you have the chance of visiting Iligan you can go to Elena Tower Inn which houses the Bishops-Ulama Conference. They also have a wide array of books on various ‘Mindanaoan’ topic. For basics, you can read Cesar Adib Majul’s book on ‘Muslims in the Philippines’. Hope I was able to help. Salam.
Hello Imran911. Pax Christi! Try the book of Dr. Eric Casino entitled “Mindanao Statecraft and Ecology: Moros, Lumads and Settlers Across the Lowland-Highland Continuum”. The book was published by Notre Dame University-Cotabato City in the year 2000. This book may be a good source for your literature. If you are from Zamboanga, you can find the book at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University library. Or if you can also visit Notre Dame University, Cotabato City, you can find a wide array of Mindanao/Muslim collections including the book of Majul which was mention by Mr. JR Gonzales. Good luck.
Phoenix Fire
Actually it started before the 1890s. I recently read a book…(it is at home and I’m not) that my daughter found for me written by a scientist who toured the Phils looking for distinct animals and talking about the people he met. There were good sized populations of Muslims in western Mindanao when he wrote the book in the 1890s. When I get home I will give you the title and authors name and date of publication. It is an extremely interesting book.
Take care all,
Phil