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Metaphorical framing and the 'Moro problem' - Miriam Coronel Ferrer

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WAYS OF SPECIES | MIRIAM CORONEL FERRER | 10/23/2009 12:35 AM

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The debacle over the non-signing of the draft Memorandum on Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) last year shows how Philippine officialdom and society remain extremely suspicious of the Philippine Moros. Many perceive the Moros’ quest for self-governance as a threat to national sovereignty and territorial integrity. As such they see the problem as a matter of “peace and order” which should be addressed militarily. “Take Two” or repeat presidential contender Joseph “Erap” Estrada openly advocated this hard-line policy in his speech during his formal proclamation in Tondo this week and in other forums. It is a populist stance for a populist contender who also supports illegal gambling.

Fear or disdain of the Moro groups can be credited to the success of the Moro armed groups themselves in projecting their ethnonationalist demands. Many continue to consider the Moro armed groups as secessionist or separatist. This perception prevails even though in fact, since 1976, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and later the MILF were no longer asking for independence. In signing the 1976 Tripoli Agreement, the MNLF already accepted an autonomous arrangement under the Philippine government as the political solution.

The MILF did not split from the MNLF because it did not agree with autonomy. In 1986, the MILF actually wanted to be included in the talks that will realize the terms of the Tripoli Agreement but the Aquino government chose to deal only with the MNLF. This was a missed opportunity to arrive at a joint arrangement with the two Moro groups. Today, how to unite the groups and arrive at a single political set-up with all other claimants over basically the same claimed territory remains problematic.

Misperception

Despite more than 30 years of negotiating for some form of autonomy, that the MNLF and MILF are no longer secessionist continues to be lost to many. The media is party to this misperception, aside from compounding the confusion further by often collapsing the MILF/MNLF and the Abu Sayyaf Group(s) into one category.

For example, an Agence France Press report on the kidnapping of Irish priest Fr. Michael Sinnot on 11 October 2009 that appeared on this website stated that the “The MILF and the Abu Sayyaf are striving for an independent Muslim homeland in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines.” This is a typical shorthand statement found in many news reports that rates high in audience recall, but is low in accuracy. Even if the MOA-AD and the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity were the basis, the MILF was not asking for a state independent from the Philippines. Neither had the so-called Abu Sayyaf made such demands. Their only demand is money.

The concept of metaphorical framing can help us explain this persistent view of the MNLF and MILF as a threat to national territory and sovereignty and how, in effect, negotiated political solutions that would allow for new political arrangements have failed to get “national” support.

The greater public can be imagined as a collectivity of embodied beings who experience meaning in characteristic ways. Metaphorical framing supposedly serves as the transmission belt for experience and position-making. In this manner, metaphors are not mere linguistic devices that illuminate or obscure the issue. Rather, they are tools of thought and social construction. Given similarities in the way the human mind works in relation to a similar environment, a stable and functional body of knowledge or truths may be shared within a group or community. These “shared truths” within a socio-cultural group shape the way problems are set or defined, and decisions or positions are taken.

Nation as Singular

Metaphorical framing of the nation as a single, unitary entity remains a common powerful image nurtured by schools, media and the family. The metaphor of the nation-state as a human being finds familiarity in both folk idiom and even analytical discourse. There is the adage that goes: “Ang sakit ng kalingkingan ay sakit ng buong katawan” (“The pain in the armpit is the pain of the whole body”) which stresses the unitary wholeness of the institutional structure. This metaphor has also become classic in the theoretical framework called “pangulo regime” developed by the late Filipino political scientist Remigio Agpalo. In this frame, the head of the human body represents the presidency, who governs the rest. The image is further encapsulated in another similar metaphor, “Ama/Ina ng bayan” (Father/Mother of the nation). Here, the country is equated with a close-knit family with the president as the head of the household.

These related metaphors tap on a benign and commonly experienced source domain (the human body, the family) and transplant these on the target domain of the nation-state. In the process, they achieve the ideological function of nation-building since it enjoins one and all to unite and view themselves as one monolithic people. They also serve the ideological function of accepting a sovereign authority centralized in the presidency. Indeed, they were used well to justify presidential dictatorship. As a powerfully shared embodied experience, they predispose perceptions and decision-making towards preserving the interest of the whole over the parts, and centralization over more devolution.

The notion of redistributed, shared or multilayered sovereignty that is operative in autonomous arrangements or a “nation of nations” runs roughshod with this dominant view on the unitary wholeness of the nation and the state that is imbued with the essential elements of (one) people, (one) sovereignty, and (one) territory. Threats from inside this solidarity – expressed in the notion of “internal threats” – pose a problem to “peace and order”, the other conjoined metaphorical expression that allocates to the state a good measure of authority and justification to use its coercive power.

Metaphors and decision-making

How does metaphorical framing translate into decision-making? According to William Flanik from the University of Toronto, decision-makers have cognitive and affective biases that bound or constrain the mental tasks of problem setting, option-formulation and option-evaluation. In this regard, metaphors influence the cognitive and affective importance of decision inputs.

“One people, one nation” – a construction of the nation-state born out of anti-colonial struggle and symbolized in the national flag – easily provides both conceptual and emotional obstacles to counter-claims of distinct nationhood, history, culture and right to self-governance such as that claimed by the Moros.

This principle of indivisibility of the nation embodied in the metaphorical frame constrains the understanding of the problem and the range of policy options. As such, the “Moro problem” has been largely defined (then and now) as one of cultural and socio-economic backwardness that can be addressed through development and education, and neutralization of the armed threat. At the same time, autonomy arrangements conceded remain limited by the centralized structure of the unitary state and the formal and informal prerogatives of the president. Consequently, the Moros have not put down their arms. Politicians, meanwhile continue to pick from these established national metaphors to endear them to and get the vote of the majority.

E-mail: mcf178@yahoo.com