Changing contexts, localized assymetry and cultural cohesion in Mindanao a local and global challenge
By Gus Miclat, www.iidnet.org
February 5, 2015

Maayong buntag kaninyong tanan, mushi-mushi, good morning everyone.

Before I begin, may I invite you to stand for a minute of silence and pay tribute to the valiant lives lost on all sides including those of the innocent civilians in the tragedy that transpired in Mamasapano the other Sunday.

Thank you very much.

Thank you MISS for the invitation for me to speak at your annual convention. Am humbled and honored as seldom do civil society voices get to be heard in significant gatherings such as yours. I am thus also challenged to perhaps provide a different, perhaps some fresh perspective in the concerns and issues that you are tackling in this meeting.

The aim of your conference is to discuss the significance of Mindanao to the country and to the world. This is very apt in these challenging times.

In a sermon on Peace in 1967, the Rev. Martin Luther King spoke of a world beyond the parochial intents of society. He said;

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a Pacific Islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you’re desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that’s given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured; this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”

What Dr. King posited is akin to the Filipino proverb “Sakit ng kalingkingan, sakit at dama ng buong katawan.” If that is so, then it also means that the cure to that little wound in your little finger will have to be healed by your entire body.

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