Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:51 am (PDT)
There is something in the infighting among Christian Filipinos vs Muslim Filipinos, that boils down to its real face. This infighting is actually a problem between the rich and powerful versus the poor and the lowly, and the former is always the winner - by hook or by crook - and this is INJUSTICE as anointed by the Inutile Philippine Justice System.
Stated another way in
Mindanao, particularly in the Muslim Regions, the problem is that there are some bad datus or sultans who are enslaving the common poor and the lowly Muslims. Common or ordinary Muslims could hardly finish their elementary schooling because, as they approach adulthood, they are required to work for their datus or sultans with just enough food to give them strength to work. This is INJUSTICE. Correct?
Many datus and sultans are good people to deal with. Unfortunately, there are some bad ones whose bad deeds often outweigh the good deeds of good datus and sultans.
In another note, poor Christians migrated from the Visayas and Luzon in Mindanao and they were able to acquire some piece of lands in the Muslim region. Their conduits or connections in purchasing Muslim lands owned by the powerful datus and sultans as well as lands owned by the sakops naturally were the schooled or higher educated datus and sultans.
As the poor Christians start to cultivate and prosper in the lands they purchased from the Muslims, some datus and sultans continue their attempt to dominate and enslave the poor Christians like the way they enslaved their sakops. Since the Christians, however, strived to be more educated than poor common Muslims, it makes it difficult for datus and sultans to dominate the Christians.
On the Christian side, the rich and powerful Christian versus the poor and lowly Christians have their own problem between them, too, in Mindanao and as well as in all other parts of the Philippines. The rich and powerful Christians often become the government leaders over the common poor and lowly Christians. How do they accomplish this? Through dirty politics that graduated and went as far as "dagdag/bawas" politics. Naturally, the losers are the poor and lowly Christians - "thanks" to our inutile justice system again.
Can you see the implications in the above analysis? The real trouble makers are the rich and powerful Christians and powerful Muslims over the poor and lowly Christians and Muslims.
The ultimate and basic problem is the infighting between the Rich and Powerful versus the Poor and Lowly.
The ultimate and basic solution therefore is to level the playing field of justice between the Powerful and the Lowly. This can only be achieved by the adoption of the Jury System wherein the representatives of these two groups will be seated TOGETHER in our courts of law regardless of their religion, wealth and power and wherein they will have EQUAL VOICE to determine a wrong or a right under the supervision or guidance of judges by means of Jury Instruction to make the less educated people understand and know how to serve in juries. Judges could either be a Muslim Judge or a Christian Judge but the rules and instruction under the jury system will be the same for both.
When it comes to Justice, we need to resist and remove our traditional datuism or sultanism and our political bossism system of justice with a democratic Jury System wherein they can collectively decide together and equalize their voting power in justice regardless of wealth or nobility.
In fact, if we are able to install the Jury System, the current feud between Christians and Muslims in Mindanao will automatically be solved and render the so-called "peace process" negotiation between the GRP and MILF academic. Even if an agreement is reached between them, the fooling around by the rich and powerful Christian and Muslim will still continue over the poor and lowly Christian and Muslim in Mindanao. The same trouble will again reassert down the line in the near future if we fail or ignore to set up the jury system.
To learn easily how the Jury System works, please read the Jury Diagram in the web site below:
http://www.the- filipino- people.com/ support-files/ x-jury-diagram. pdf The writer of this piece was a resident of Cotabato for 17 years, from 1955 through 1972 and graduated in commerce and law at
Notre Dame University Cotabato City in 1967.
Marlowe in
California 
