A deeper look on the peculiar ramifications of ARMM politics

COTABATO CITY -- For local folks, among the priorities of incoming president Rodrigo Duterte should be how to fix feudal Moro politics, where some losers never concede and can even readily escalate rivalries into bloody clan wars that are so destructive.So extreme is politics in the country’s southernmost areas that even relatives of politicians in the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) usually gets dragged into deadly political competitions, where feuding camps each have maratabat” they often wrongly stand up to at all cost.Maratabat is a generic Moro term for clan pride and honor.In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for instance, Sulu Vice Gov. Sakur Tan has not conceded yet to reelectionist ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, despite a difference of more than 300,000 votes in the tally of election results for the regional gubernatorial race as of Friday night.ARMM’s Lanao del Sur and Sulu provinces accounts for most number of unsettled clan wars involving political clans.Hataman was the official bet of the Liberal Party for ARMM governor while Tan aspired for the same post as an independent candidate.Hataman told reporters, during a dialogue in Cotabato City on Wednesday, he can ambiguously pursue development efforts for Sulu alongside Tan, touted as ARMM’s wealthiest politician and most powerful leader in the island province. We must rebuild friendships and mend fences immediately after each political exercise. We need to tear down the partisan walls that separated us during the campaign period right after the election day for people outside of ARMM to realize that just like them, we love peace and unity too,” Hataman then said.The reelected governor of Maguindanao, Esmael Mangudadatu, immediately extended his hand to voters and local executives allied with defeated rival, Ali Midtimbang, after his proclamation Wednesday, but none responded positively yet so far.Partisans even continued bashing the staunch political allies Hataman and Mangudadatu on social media even as the elections are over.In other ARMM provinces, the bloodshed between rival camps even escalated after May 9, with innocent civilians getting caught in the crossfire.As if taunting the police and the military, masked men armed with M-16 and M-14 assault rifles killed a newly-elected councilor, Hadie Malaguial, in Shariff Aguak town in the second district of Maguindanao just two days after the elections.The police had said the murder of Malaguial was politically-motivated,” but could not give any hint on who the culprits were.Cases of post-election violence have also been recorded by the ARMM police in the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Tawi-Tawi in the past three days.Many defeated candidates for local elective posts in ARMM took to Facebook their satirical attacks on victorious rivals, even accusing the Commission on Elections of inaction on alleged fraud and vote-buying during the May 9 polling day.Loose firearms, such as military-type assault rifles and grenade launchers, in the hands of local partisans, is one of the reasons why they are so recalcitrantly unforgiving.ARMM residents do not deny knowing that each of the 116 mayors in the autonomous region has no fewer than 50 assault rifles and shoulder-fire grenade launchers, being kept both as status symbol and as tools for perpetuating political power.Since provincial governors in the region are touted as wealthier, it is always assumed that they keep more firearms than their constituent-mayors.There is also a strong culture of zero tolerance” to political opposition by ruling clans in the autonomous region.The now infamous November 23, 2009 Maguindanao Massacre” was, in fact, for local peace activists, a true epitome of maratabat that went awry.The bloody incident resulted to the political demise of the Ampatuan clan that ruled the province then with an iron fist.At least 58 people, among them 32 journalists, perished in the incident, which shook the nation to its core