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Fredo Basino, one of the leaders of Blaans here and the provincial administrator of Sarangani said, “If Mindanao is considered part of the Philippines, then we must highlight the struggle of the Moro people who defended this land.”
He said people fought for freedom. He noted that everyone must still possess the will to fight for freedom. “And we need to attain freedom, freedom from poverty,” Basino stressed.
He noted that an economic revolution is essential considering that “we are not well developed and can be considered one of the weakest links in the Asia-Pacific region.”
“Now the battle is against poverty,” he pointed out. “Let us tell the people to fight poverty,” he said.
Oscar Solaiman, a Tausug leader in General Santos City, said “Mindanao history has to be revised to be able to tell what transpired before.”
“And we must not forget that there are Moro and the Indigenous people who have been heroes in their own history, he added. “They were defenders, thus they must be recognized,” he stressed.
Al Nezzar Ali, a Moro artist and local historian from General Santos City said “there is no history written for the Moro people, only opinions.”
He stressed that history must not be focused mainly on heroism and idealism. “History must be rewritten to accommodate new findings and propose new insights and thesis,” Ali said. (Gandhi C. Kinjiyo/MindaNews)