Kato and the Bangsamoro Question

IMAM Umbra Kato, some say, is just following what former Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Chairman Hashim Salamat wanted--liberation from the main Philippine territory. Liberation means just that--liberate Bangsamoro territory from the Philippine territory. Now, the question is--what means?


For Kato and his growing Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement, it is only thru armed struggle. Autonomy is neither synonymous to liberation nor to the concept of a sub-state. For majority of the MILF, autonomy has failed with the ARMM. A sub-state is also a minimum demand. Kato wants all the powers of a state invested in a proposed Bangsamoro Islamic Republic. 


Another question is---is Kato's perspective, historical or does it has basis in history? Yes, it has. Prior to the inclusion of the Bangsamoro homeland to the main Philippine territory, the Bangsamoro has a fully functioning and well-developed state. When US colonial forces defeated them in 1915, the state was demolished. All territory was absorbed by the Philippine state. The Bangsamoro, thus, became an organic component of the Philippine republic. 


Fast forward, and we have a group that demands liberation. He is now being tagged as a renegade by his own companions in the Bangsamoro struggle simply because the Central Committee of the MILF had already abandoned the struggle towards liberation and has now accepted the alternative of creating a sub-state or probably a strengthened autonomy. 


This is just a repeat of what happened in 1993-1995, when MNLF chairman Nur Misuari accepted the government's offer of autonomy and tried to lead it--to no avail. Misuari's experiment in autonomy failed. 


Kato's organisation is now deadlier and more lethal than the first because it now uses the words or terms "Islamic Freedom", as opposed to the use of "liberation" from the MILF/MNLF. 


Islamic Freedom is a religious or theological term. It is not solely a political term but more than that.


Freedom, in Islam, if we will discuss it here, is quite lengthy. IN brief, it is but saying that the recognition of the right of the Bangsamoro to self-rule is not just historical or even a political right---but it is also a religious one. 


Thus the new Bangsamoro movement has become or has morphed into a more religious organisation than a political one. The previous two, are politically-inclined. 


Kato's new organisation is both---religious and political. The political struggle has now morphed into a religious struggle, something which, for non-Muslims, is quite worrisome. 


When religion has seeped into a purely political problem, that becomes more serious. 


(a discussion of freedom in Islam will be written here very soon)