Calling for surveys in Mindanao Page 1 of 3

Column for Philippine Daily Inquirer PDI 08-34, 8-28-08 [for publication on 8-30-2008]

Calling for surveys in Mindanao

Mahar Mangahas

From the outset, let me say that SWS is not looking for survey projects in Mindanao. This piece simply suggests that the path towards peaceful and practical consensus on the appropriate political future of Mindanao can be illuminated by extensive, local-level, opinion polling in Mindanao, by scientific institutes of Mindanao, for public dissemination.

For context, consider the proposed Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) between the government and the MILF, which refers to establishment of a Juridical Entity (BJE) in certain territories. What are the opinions about the BJE of the people currently residing in those territories? What are their expectations and/or fears on account of the MOA-AD? To begin with, how familiar are they with the MOA-AD? (Problems due to simple ignorance or confusion can be remedied by improving public information.)

How different, if at all, are the expectations of Muslims, Christians, lumads and others? Are the differences connected more to religion, or more to ethnic origin? Who (meaning which persons, or organizations, or institutions) do the various groups trust most to design and implement a program for achieving lasting peace?

Actually, the MOA-AD starts not by designating territories but by defining the Bangsamoro people as “those who are natives or original inhabitants of Mindanao and its adjacent islands including Palawan and the Sulu archipelago at the time of conquest or colonization and their descendants whether mixed or full native blood,” adding that spouses and their descendants are included.

Well, how many of the present residents of Mindanao and the said adjacent islands consider themselves Bangsamoro by this description? Are there some who feel Bangsamoro by another description? How many of those who identify themselves as Bangsamoro reside in the BJE-designated areas;

M. Mangahas, Social Climate, PDI 08-34 Aug 30 Calling for surveys in Mindanao Page 2 of 3 how many of them are outside? Regardless of whether or not they identify as Bangsamoro, how many Mindanaoans wish to reside in BJE areas?

The MOA-AD states, in its Annex A, that the Core of the BJE shall include the present geographic area of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) plus the municipalities of Baloi, , , Pantar, Tagoloan, and in , on the ground that these towns had voted for inclusion in ARMM in the 2001 plebiscite. Since Annex A also lists 735 barangays outside ARMM which are to decide by plebiscite, within 12 months of signing the MOA-AD, whether they assent to joining the BJE area, it appears that the said six towns of Lanao del Norte shall not have the same choice any more.

Do the people of those six towns wish to be within ARMM at present, and by extension within the BJE? (As of the 2000 Census, the population of the six towns was 132,000, or 17.5 percent of the Lanao del Norte population of 758,000. The six towns happen to cover about one-third of the land area of Lanao del Norte.) What do the residents of Lanao del Norte expect to happen to their province – will it be partly inside and partly outside BJE, or will it simply be truncated?

For that matter, do the people within present ARMM assent to being within the BJE? Do they assume that ARMM will be assimilated by the BJE? How do they expect the BJE government to be chosen?

To get the needed data, from the many sectors and areas involved, will require many opinion polls. I do not recommend that this be done by a grandiose research project. It is better for the polling to be done by many institutions, both Muslim-oriented and Christian-oriented, using different agendas and questionnaires (though probably it would be good if they overlapped a bit). Opinion polling is basically an exercise of free speech, only a bit more sophisticated than usual. The more that people practice it, independently of each other, the better for society as a whole.

I am referring, of course, only to opinion polls that are honest and scientific. Honest but unscientific ones can be ignored; they are relatively easy to spot. Outright fakes don’t work -- just as counterfeit money never causes reversal to barter trade.

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True opinion polling aims to discover what answers people give, not to tell people what answers to give. Certainly, Mindanao has institutions with the expertise to conduct scientific opinion polls. By all means, let them compete with each other in generating meaningful data about where Mindanaoans of all origins stand in the current political crisis.

Finally, a word about the resources needed. The SWS practice is to take a random sample of 300 interviews for each micro-group that needs to be separately represented. Our standard sample of 300 for the entirety of Mindanao does not allow confident analysis of Muslim opinion, because usually it will only have about 60 Muslims. For example, for an institute to separately analyze Muslim and Christian opinions in Lanao del Norte, then it should obtain samples of 300 for each group, or 600 in all. The same holds for Isabela City, Cotabato City, etc.

For those with more research funds, I recommend doing polls in more areas and/or at more points in time, rather than saturating a single area at a single point in time with more interviews.

Some people think surveys are unaffordable. But is it more costly to spend on opinion research than to spend on armaments? What is the cost of listening to people peacefully express their opinions, compared to the cost of shedding blood so as to force one’s opinions on other people?

Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or [email protected].

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M. Mangahas, Social Climate, PDI 08-34 Aug 30