Is a Basic Law for Cebu not far behind?

Lost in the ensuing arguments against the Bangsamoro Basic Law or BBL is its potential as a model for all other parts of the country to secede from troublesome Metro Manila.

And the most naughty of these possible “secessionist” provinces is Cebu which, for those who are too young to remember, began moves in that direction with the simplest of things way back in the late 1980s under Gov. Emilio “Lito” Osmeña: the singing of the Lupang Hinirang or the National Anthem in Cebuano. It was soon shot down by national cultural agencies as an affront to the Constitution but that attempt was part of a handful of trial balloons intended to show that Cebu had a right to a destiny distinct, autonomous and separate from that of the Philippine nation writ large. Some even went to the far end by foisting the idea of a Republic of Cebu.
Since then, there have been no more attempts to assert Cebuanism or a separate Cebuano identity, the wounds of defeat assuaged in part by the passage of the Local Government Code sponsored by Mindanao-based senator Aquilino Pimentel, which transferred certain powers to local governments and included an internal revenue allotment such that even the smallest barangay today sports a two-story barangay hall.

Now comes the much-ballyhooed BBL, which, for all intents and purposes re-establishes the Sulu, Maranao and Maguindanao sultanates minus the elite families of the precolonial and early colonial period, replaced with minions and supporters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). To spice up the deal, the national government is even willing to place 79 billion pesos in funds that are exempted from national audit, money that will surely be distributed to clans and families that make up the MILF and its cousin, the Bangasamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

Without sounding sarcastic, I believe Cebuanos may have in the BBL the right instrument that can be used to begin the initial steps of establishing a separate Cebuano state as it were from the rest of the country and even get 79 billion pesos in funds free from national audit.

In fact, I would venture to say that before the BBL is passed, perhaps it would be best to start with a Sugboanon Basic Law or SBL to first test whether it will work, sans the internecine tribal and clan wars that make life in Muslim Mindanao seem no different from the time of the Spaniards and Americans. The BBL and any attempt to change the face of Muslim Mindanao by administrative fiat is always bound to fail because there are no abstract state or public interests there.

Everything there is familial and personal, every decision running not along abstract class or political interests but through the narrow prism of persons and families.

To a certain extent, there is politics at the personal level in Cebu but all these narrow personal political agendas fail in comparison to Muslim Mindanao, where fratricidal violence, called “rido” can erupt over a simple argument over the location of a fence on a property shared by two families or between a Tausug from Sulu and, say, a Maguindanao– violence that eventually goes out of control, lasting for years on end and involving relatives who eventually have no idea how the fight began. Until and unless these narrow tribal/clan and familial-personal interests are subsumed under modern but abstract, impersonal and disinterested state interests, no amount of legal finesse, curried with billions of pesos will work.

So, before BBL, why not try out a basic law for Cebu? And who knows that one day we will wake up with every province foisting its own version of the BBL. All one needs is to fight the state, build a small army, bomb a few establishments here and there and then pretend to negotiate for peace while building an arms factory.

This is in fact the best time to do so, what with a sitting president announcing that he is for peace, no matter what the cost. After all, as commander-in-chief, he will always find someone else to blame.