Philippines: A Country of 2 Nations

"We are Filipino and Bangsamoro."

"Our people would like to call themselves as Filipino and a Bangsamoro citizen. They cannot do away with their identity as a Moro or as a Bangsamoro. We are Filipinos at the same time Bangsamoro. We are Bangsamoro at the same time Filipinos. We are part of a larger nation."

"Officially, we are citizens of the Philippines. But if you ask our people and also many knowledgeable Filipinos, they will tell you that this country is composed of two nations, the Filipino nation and the Bangsamoro nation that was born much, much longer. We were very much ahead in this part of the world. This is the reality here,"

-Nur Misuari

answers of Nur Misuari, chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front and former professor of the University of the Philippines, when he was asked if Moros consider themselves Filipinos.

Sad to say, He is not alone. Majority of the Filipinos has the same answer.

I Am an Ilocano at the same time Filipino.
I Am a Batangueno at the same time Filipino.
... an Ilonggo at the same time Filipino.

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"Mindanao is known to be the Bangsamoro homeland since time immemorial. And the people there are known to be Bangsamoro people. Now, I don't know how you can make any distinction between the two."

-Nur Misuari

Their identity is tied to their land, to their ethnic group, to their family ties, not to the nation where they really belong. Worse, some would exclaim that they are not Filipinos and have nothing to do with it even though their skin shows who they really are.

______________________________

"I think it is not useful to raise this very sensitive question. It is important we live in harmony with each other to promote peace, economic progress, and prosperity, make citizens happy, harmonious, contented, so on and so forth...

But if we allow our people to remain in the backwater of economic and social and cultural development, with money to be concentrated in Luzon and Visayas at the expense of Mindanao when we are contributing a huge portion to budget, people should expect there will be perpetual crisis in Mindanao...

That's why we are proposing that changes should lead to the creation of an egalitarian state where there is no more discrimination, no more exploitation, that no single sector will say we are superior, more educated, etc. That should not be allowed to come to the fore because (that would) instigate some kind of reaction. Government should treat us with justice."

-Nur Misuari

Egalitarian government or Egalitarian society is a social order, a belief that all people are, in principle, equal and should enjoy equal social, political, and economic rights and opportunities.
It can never be attain by creating or splitting the nation into 2, divorcing from the nation, and then claim that you can be both- Bansangmoro and Filipino. Such avowals is blasphemous to the nation, to the sacrifices of our national heroes- our heroes from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, to the identity the Heavens set forth for us.

Heaven have mercy on us...

source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/topstories/topstories/view/20080902-158167/Misuari-on-Moro-identity-We-are-Filipino-and-Bangsamoro