| 25
February 2003
Moro-American War
PADANG Karbala. Bud Dajo. Bud Bagsak.
I have to admit that until last weekend those names didn't make any
sense to me. Then I read an article in Hong Kong's South China Morning
Post in which Habib Hashim of the Jolo-based Islamic Command Council
warned against US troops entering the southern province of Sulu because
people there still "recalled with pain the Battle of Bud Dajo."
It was a warning to be echoed by Sulu Congressman Hussein Amin and
Governor Parouk Hussin of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in
interviews with the Inquirer published Monday, accompanied by the
headline: "Death awaits US soldiers, Muslim leaders warn."
I had to do some quick research to find out what this Battle of Bud Dajo
was all about, and, in the process, realized how little we know of what
should be called the Moro-American War, which erupted when the Americans
first occupied the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century.
The Moro-American War is separate from the Filipino-American War. The
latter was the struggle of Filipinos to maintain independence declared
in 1898, following 300 years of Spanish rule. The Moro-American War, on
the other hand, was one where the Americans tried to conquer the Moro
[native Muslims] of Mindanao, who had never come under Spanish control.
One of the fiercest battles in the Moro-American War was that of Padang
Karbala in what is now the town of Bayang in Lanao del Sur province. In
May 1902, the US deployed 478 soldiers to wrest control of the town from
Sultan Pandapatan.
Last year was the centennial of that battle, but I do not remember any
coverage in the mass media except for an "I-witness"
television documentary produced by journalist Howie Severino.
Fortunately, I was able to retrieve a copy of that documentary, which
provided valuable information, including interviews with an old imam
(religious leader) who was a child at the time of the battle. The imam
showed the cameras horseshoes used by the US infantry and described how
the Americans towered over them as they rode their huge horses.The
people in Bayang remember, and say the battle was fought in defense not
only of their town but also of Islam. Their fight was fierce, their town
fortified by an intricate system of moats and trenches, but they had
little by way of arms. Some 400 Maranao lost their lives.
American historical accounts say that the Moro in Bayang surrendered,
raising white flags. They were not aware that Moro put up white flags to
mourn their dead.
The survivors named the battleground "Padang Karbala" (Mount
Karbala) after a place in Iraq where Imam Hussain and 72 companions were
martyred a thousand years earlier as they opposed the heretic Caliph
Yazid. History repeats itself, over and over again.
The battle of Bud Dajo (also sometimes spelled Bud Dahu, Bud meaning
"mountain") took place in March 1906 in Jolo. General Leonard
Wood ordered his troops to "kill or capture those savages,"
sending in 790 soldiers and the gunboat "Pampanga" to subdue
the Moro in the area. The Moro took refuge in the crater of Mount Dajo.
About 600 of them died in that battle, including women and children. It
is the deaths in this battle that the Moro of Sulu now talk about
avenging.
But Sulu saw an even bloodier encounter in the Moro-American War. About
a thousand Tausug had settled in the crater of Bud Bagsak, defying the
American occupation as well as oppressive sultans and datu. In June
1913, Leonard Wood ordered General John "Blackjack" Pershing
to attack. Pershing, we are told, had a new .45-caliber pistol, just
invented and ready for testing. The Tausug mainly had knives and bolos.
Later, Wood wrote that "the Moro women wore trousers and were
dressed and armed like the men and charged with them."
Some 2,000 Moro may have died in that battle, including 196 women and
340 children. One American newspaper labeled the Bud Bagsak encounter as
a "frightful atrocity," and the writer Mark Twain offered the
following reflections on a photograph of the massacre: "We see a
picture. We see small forms. We see the terrified faces. We see the
tears. We see small hands clinging in supplication to the
mothers..."
The Moro remember. Some of the information I gathered for this article
comes from the website "bangsamoro.org,"
which combines excellent archival research with thoughtful commentaries.
Beneath its website name, there is a reminder for all of us, Moro or
not: A nation that has no past has no future.
The planned deployment of American combat troops will revive memories of
the Moro-American War, bringing them into sharper focus. Even as
Philippine government officials were denying that the Americans were
sending combat troops to Mindanao, last Friday's New York Times had very
specific figures about the deployment: 750 ground troops and another
1,000 marines with Cobra attack helicopters and Harrier AV-8B attack
planes to be stationed offshore on two ships.
When the facts are in, when we realize the Moro-American War never
really ended, we have to reflect and ask: Just who started, and just who
is spreading global terrorism?
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