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The Abu Sayyaf: Ghosts from the Past

M. L. Tan

I am glad that many television and radio broadcasters refer to Abu Sayyaf as bandidos rather than as Muslim rebels. The Abu Sayyaf is neither Islamic nor a group with a political cause.

Nevertheless, calling the Abu Sayyaf bandits may also be too simplistic. The Abu Sayyaf actually represents the past haunting us. I refer here to the system of chiefdoms dating back to precolonial times. Understanding how that system works may help us to deal with groups like the Abu Sayyaf and, even more importantly, to understand ourselves as a people. This old system of chiefdoms, which remains with us today, creates many more problems than hostage-taking.

Many of my insights are drawn from reading Laura Lee Junker’s "Raiding, Trading and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms", published last year by the Ateneo de Manila University Press. An anthropologist, Junker draws extensively from historical texts, archaeological reports and ethnographies to reconstruct our precolonial political system.

Junker supports other researchers who describe local chiefdoms as "segmentary", which means they were mainly loose and constantly shifting alliances. When the Spaniards arrived in the Philippines there were already many chiefdoms – from Tondo here in Manila down to the sultanates in Mindanao. In the central Visayas, Magellan chose to ally himself with Humabon, a datu who controlled Cebu, a move that did not sit well with Lapulapu, whose territory included most of Mactan. That move was to prove fatal, with Magellan dying in a battle with Lapulapu.

Rulers commanded allegiance through personal charisma as well as from a never-ending series of alliance-building activities. Alliance-building activities included marriages, gift exchanges and, as the title of Junker’s book suggests, raiding, trading and feasting. Raids were especially important, used to extend territories, acquire booty and capture slaves and wives. Victorious raids were occasions for feasting, during which the leaders could boast of their prowess and legitimize their positions of authority. Rajah laut – rajah of the sea – they were called in the south, warriors whose battles were commemorated in epic tales, myths and songs.

The Abu Sayyaf are descendants of these rajah laut, their raids bearing many similarities to the precolonial chiefs’ military forays. Intoxicated by their successes last year, the Abu Sayyaf raids are oriented toward gathering more ransom money. But more importantly, the Abu Sayyaf uses the raids to prove their mettle as warriors and leaders. Capturing "whites" and raiding a resort in Palawan, quite a distance from their home base, are all parts of this grand show of force.

These raids, I should emphasize, have nothing to do with Islam. In fact, Islam may have tamed the early chiefdoms several centuries ago. Even in times of war, Islam is very clear about sparing the sick, the old, and the children. Islam tamed the warrior, rechannelling militarist energies into trading – we still see those networks in the many Muslim-dominated tiangge (bazaars) in the country. The Abu Sayyaf, unfortunately, represents the unreconstructed warrior, still clinging on to a tribal ethos of warfare, of endless rounds of offensives and counter-offensives.

The president is therefore playing a very dangerous game when she threatens the Abu Sayyaf with that huling bala, the last bullet. I agree that the government has to be firm with these bandidos but worry, too, that the president’s threats may backfire, further goading the Abu Sayyaf into a more brutal display of tribal machismo.

Will the government be able to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf? Not in the near future. The likes of the Abu Sayyaf survive because they do have support from people. That should not seem strange when you think about Philippine society. The Abu Sayyaf is a mirror to the Philippines, still a fragile and fragmented conglomeration of chiefdoms, ruled by numerous warlords who spend much of their time building up alliances. It is a primitive system, one where autocracy and ruthlessness become desirable qualities. We do not need to look to the Abu Sayyaf for proof –Miriam Defensor Santiago garnered more than 9 million votes in her bid for the Senate. That wasn’t enough for her to win, but the numbers – that’s one out of every three voters -- should still get you wondering about friends, relatives and neighbors.

The precolonial chiefdoms went through cycles of expansion and contraction but could never really grow into large systems. The problem with these chiefdoms – precolonial or contemporary -- is that they become too expensive to maintain. They consume so much resources and yet produce so little for people since the benefits accrue mainly to the warlords. The warlords, in turn, no longer have villages to raid; instead, they concentrate on the public treasury. Facing finite resources, they have to keep subdividing provinces and cities so they can each have their own fiefdoms and cut of the public’s money.

As long as our politics is built on personalities rather than issues, on allegiances to warlords rather than to the nation, we will stay mired in tribal feuds and politics-as-prestige (pagpopogi, as the slang term goes). The difference between the Abu Sayyaf and our politicians, between the precolonial chiefdoms and our present polity, is, unfortunately, only a matter of degree.