INTRODUCTION

PEOPLE
Yano
Romeo Lee
Manny Villar
Nur Misuari
Benjie Paras
Dino Ignacio
Eraserheads
Jerry Barican
Obet Verzola
Jessica Zafra
Zider Lubiano
Myla Algarme
Gary Granada
Raymond Red
Mike Defensor
Jerome Bailen
Eric Altamirano
Amante Jimenez
Miriam Defensor
Malou Mangahas

ISSUES
ID
UAAP
STFAP
US Bases
Collegian
Frat Violence
SAMASA split
SR controversy
Sexual Harassment

In front of his father's grave in 1971, Ayatolah, Maas, Nurullaji or Nur Misuari, vowed justice for the Moros. For a quarter century, he led the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in a war that claimed 120,000 lives, resulting in an estimated loss of $3B in property and infrastructure. Sixteen years later, he finally pledged before his first wife's grave to find a way back to peace.

The Misuari-led armed struggle in Mindanao started in 1967, when Benigno Aquino released an expose about the Jabidah Massacre. Aquino revealed that dozens of young Muslim recruits trained to infiltrate the Malaysian State of Sabbah were killed by soldiers of then President Ferdinand Marcos.

This was a few years after he had completed his degree in Political Science. In the university, Misuari became part the surging student movement of the early '60s. An avid reader of liberal books, he would spend most of his time in the library, his favorite place on campus. He idolized Libyan leader Moammar Ghadaffi, who would later become the first Arab patron to provide the MNLF with arms and funds.

At the height of Martial Law in 1972, Misuari went underground. Proceeding to Jolo, Misuari formed the MNLF to fight for Mindanao's independence. In January 1974, 36 battalions of soldiers, along with naval boats and aircrafts, reportedly assaulted their camps, forcing the belligerents out of Jolo. This tragic scenario was repeated in February 1974, when the Jolo War broke out. Thousands of Misuari's fighters and civilians died. As a result, the fight of Muslims against the government intensified.

But along the way, Misuari chose to abandon his holy war. The peace talks during the term of President Fidel Ramos persuaded him to return to the Philippines in 1993, after years of self-exile in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

On September 2, 1996, the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) forged a peace agreement and established the Special Zone of Peace and Development in Southern Philippines and the Southern Philippines Peace and Development Council (SPCPD). Amidst protests from Christians and Muslims alike, Misuari became chairperson. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the group that broke away fom the original MNLF following the Tripoli peace talks, did not recognize Misuari as SPCPD Chair. Hashim Salamat, head of the MILF, accused Misuari of being a reformist, abandoning and compromising Mindanao's struggle for independence in exchange for political power.

History has been replete with the unexpected. Adversaries become allies, the burdened rage, revolutionaries turn into bureaucrats. When all is said and done, however, only time will tell whether Nur Misuari and his SPCPD have suceeded in giving his people the justice and peace that had been denied them throughout Philippine history, or in bringing them further misery. Whatever the case may be, in the end, history shall be Misuari's judge. And if worse comes to worst, it shall also be his executioner.