Postcolonial Datus and the Persistence of Autocratic Rule
How was Muslim politics in Cotabato affected by the changes, demographic and otherwise, introduced under the Philippine republic? Here I will examine the political and economic strategies employed by various postcolonial datus, both in Cotabato City and at the provincial level.
For the first twenty years of the Philippine republic—from 1947 to 1967—the mayorship of Cotabato City was held by Datu Mando Sinsuat, a son of Datu Sinsuat Balabaran. His tenure in office represented the continuation of Sinsuat control in the city. Unlike his father, however, Datu Mando officially governed all the residents of Cotabato City, not solely its Muslim inhabitants. He required the votes of a large percentage of the Christian electorate to remain in office and received them without difficulty, according to the Christian editor of the city's weekly newspaper. The editor, who by 1986 had observed Cotabato City's political scene for almost twenty-five years, related that among Christians in the city prior to the late 1960s, "there was an idea that a Muslim mayor could control Muslims," and that many Christians opted to vote for Datu Mando "because of his personal appeal."
Additional indirect evidence exists to support this view. In Cotabato City electoral politics from 1946 to 1968, ethnic political coalitions were virtually absent. The slates of city council candidates that campaigned in conjunction with a particular mayoral candidate were almost always composed of both Muslims and Christians. Muslim mayoral candidates invariably had Christian running mates, while Christian candidates paired themselves with Muslims. Every city council in each of Mando Sinsuat's administrations had a large majority (and in one instance, a totality) of Christian members. Moreover, despite Datu Mando's continued electoral successes, the Sinsuat political clan neither monopolized Muslim politics in the city nor, for that matter, did it form a united front. In every one of his campaigns for office, Mando Sinsuat was opposed by another Muslim candidate for mayor, very often one of his half-brothers.[11] Given this relatively free market for votes in city elections, it seems likely that Christian voters or, more
to the point, Christian political brokers, would support the mayoral candidate most able to protect their interests.
Another son of Datu Sinsuat, Datu Blah, exploited a new urban niche using methods reminiscent of his father's. One of the primary urban occupations for poor Muslim males in the postwar city was that of dockworker, or kargador (from the Spanish, cargador ). Cargo handling at Cotabato City piers was (and remains) strenuous and dangerous work for very little pay. It was also viewed as demeaning labor associated traditionally with banyaga (chattel slaves). From the early 1950s, most Cotabato City dockworkers were organized into associations referred to euphemistically as "labor unions" (see Hunt [1957] 1974). Those organizations determined the piece rate charged to shippers, provided workers to handle cargo, and guaranteed against damage to cargo that occurred during handling. Two of these organizations were established in Cotabato City in the early 1950s by two Magindanaon commoners, one of whom made his way from labor gang foreman to controller of the largest share of riverfront cargo handling. This was the peak period for immigration to Cotabato and a time of rapid growth in the amount of goods shipped to and from the province.
By 1957, the scale of expansion on the waterfront (and the potential profits to be gained there) attracted the participation of Datu Blah Sinsuat (a former Congressman—see below), who began an organization of his own, the Progressive Labor Union. Because of his name, and the force he was able to exert, he soon succeeded in taking control of most of the riverfront by establishing new contracts with shippers and bodega owners and drawing laborers away from the established organizations through intimidation. While one of the commoner labor bosses succumbed rather quickly to the offensive mounted by Datu Blah, the other boss—Makabalang, who wielded unprecedented power for a Muslim commoner in those days—resisted him vigorously and effectively for some time. His defiance led to his eventual death by ambush in the city at the hands of Philippine Constabulary troops loyal to Datu Blah.
In 1986, all dockworkers at the main city pier were members of the Progressive Labor Union (PLU), now headed by the daughter of Datu Blah, Bai Fatima Sinsuat. According to the laborers I interviewed, the PLU appropriates 20 percent of the daily earnings of member laborers by withholding that amount from the handling fees earned by each labor gang. In addition, each worker pays an annual membership fee of
6.
Muslim kargadors (laborers) unloading cargo
at a riverside landing at the main city market.
fifteen pesos. In return, members receive identity cards and little else in the way of regular benefits. They are not insured against accidental breakage and must pay for the goods they damage from their earnings share. Workers have no job security and no guarantee of daily earnings. They typically work seven days per week and earn twenty to thirty pesos (approximately $1.00 to $1.50) per day, but there are also days with no work and no earnings. On those days, they may ask their foreman for a cash advance. PLU members also report that Bai Fatima has given members money in times of family emergencies and has also bailed laborers out of jail. This organization of work relations on the city's main pier, first consolidated by Datu Blah, demonstrates a combination of exploitation and protection (from economic calamities or governmental authorities) that duplicates to a remarkable degree the structure of traditional relations between datus and their subordinates.
To consider the fortunes of the postcolonial datus at the provincial level we may first examine the postwar career of Datu Salipada Pendatun, the most prominent former student of Edward Kuder. Pendatun was appointed governor of Cotabato in 1945 by Philippines President Sergio Osmena and was the first Muslim to serve in that post. He was subsequently elected to the Philippine Senate in 1946. His Senate term
ended in 1949 with the election of Elpidio Quirino to the Philippines presidency. During the Quirino administration, Cotabato province was controlled by Pendatun's political rivals, the Sinsuats. Quirino appointed Datu Duma Sinsuat (another son of Datu Sinsuat Balabaran) governor of the province. His half-brother, Datu Blah, was elected congressman while Datu Mando, also a half-brother, served as mayor of the capital.
Pendatun returned to practice law in Cotabato City until winning election to the House of Representatives in 1957, where he served without interruption until the declaration of martial law in 1972. During his tenure in Congress, Pendatun (having apparently learned from his experience in the Senate) changed his party allegiance more than once in order to remain aligned with the party of the man who held the presidency—such allegiance securing access to the primary font of political funds.
In 1966, Pendatun ushered a bill through Congress to divide Cotabato into two provinces: North Cotabato and South Cotabato. Political leaders in southern Cotabato, virtually all of them Christian, had been agitating for a division since 1956. Because of the rapid increase in population, there had been twenty-six new municipalities created in the province since independence; most of them offshoots of the two large settler colonies established in the Alah and Koronadal Valleys in 1941 (Wernstedt and Spencer 1967). Pendatun championed the bill after losing the southern Cotabato vote in a previous Congressional election by a two-to-one margin to a Christian former protégé. As a result of Pendatun's efforts, the old Empire Province of Cotabato was divided in two on the first day of 1968. With an eye to the continued preservation of his political position, Pendatun was, as early as 1966, planning the further subdivision of the province (Mindanao Cross , July 16, 1966).
Congressman Pendatun was a respected but somewhat remote figure to most Cotabato Muslims. That detachment was due in large measure to his absence from the province for a good part of any year. It was also, however, a cultural distance. Pendatun was very highly educated by provincial standards, had married a Christian wife, and moved in social and political circles far removed from the traditional Muslim politics of Cotabato. When non-elite Muslims remember Pendatun today, they occasionally refer to the supernatural powers he must have possessed to survive a Manila assassination attempt in 1972, but are more likely to remark on the presence of Catholic statuary in his Cotabato City mansion.
Datu Udtug Matalam
A far less remote figure, who was also considerably more "traditional" than Pendatun and almost equally powerful, was Datu Udtug Matalain, who held the post of governor of Cotabato Province from 1946 to 1949 and from 1955 to 1968. Datu Udtug was a lifelong comrade of Salipada Pendatun and in most ways his political opposite. Whereas Pendatun was Westernized, cosmopolitan, and relatively aloof, Matalam was traditional, provincial, and personally popular among ordinary Muslims. Together, they controlled Cotabato politics for the first twenty years of the Philippine republic.
Datu Udtug was the son of the Sultan of Pagalungan, another small upriver sultanate aligned with the larger Buayan Sultanate. He was born in the last decade of the nineteenth century and spent his life under nominal American or Philippine hegemony. Nevertheless, an anecdote related by Datu Adil (a close associate of Matalam's) concerning Datu Udtug's childhood establishes Udtug's ties with a heroic precolonial past.
When Udtug was just four years old his father was defeated in battle and beheaded by Datu Mantawil, the Sultan of Kabuntalan. The place where he was beheaded is still called Pagagawan [the Battlefield]. One day not long after his father's death, Udtug was playing with other children beside the Pulangi River. Datu Mantawil passed by with his men in a vinta [longboat] beautifully decorated with mirrors. The children heard the rhythmic paddling and then the datu's caller announcing, "Datu Mantawil is passing." Young Udtug found a piece of wood, threw it, and hit the old datu. Datu Mantawil unsheathed his kris and demanded to know the culprit. He was told that it was Udtug, the son of his slain enemy. Years later, the family of Datu Mantawil submitted to Datu Udtug. He vanquished them but did not kill them.
In 1914, while still a young man, Datu Udtug was appointed assistant colony superintendent of the American-sponsored agricultural colony established in his district of Pagalungan. He was charged with managing the affairs of the Muslim colonists, who comprised approximately half the total number (Gowing 1983). Later, he became the district school inspector and saw to Muslim school attendance, persuading Muslim parents to send their children to colonial schools. Datu Udtug's early career was thus spent cooperating with colonial authorities by facilitating the incorporation of Muslims into the new American order.[12]
With the Japanese occupation of Mindanao during World War II, Pagalungan became a central assembly point for the anti-Japanese
guerrillas of Cotabato. Datu Udtug fought at the side of his brother-in-law Salipada Pendatun and was given the rank of major. His arms, men, and supplies were a key factor in the successes of the guerrillas.
In 1946 Datu Udtug was appointed governor of Cotabato Province at the behest of Pendatun, who had just been elected to the Philippine Senate. Within three years, ten new municipalities had been created in the province and Udtug, despite his lack of formal education, had gained a reputation as an able administrator. He resigned the governorship in 1949 with the installation of a new national administration but was elected to the same office in 1955, the first year of full suffrage, and served four consecutive terms until his retirement in 1968.[13] The provincial leadership of Udtug is remembered as strong and efficient and his administration is noted for its fiscal soundness. In a parallel to political arrangements in Cotabato City, many Christians in the province were apparently of the opinion that a Muslim governor could better keep Muslims in line and were specifically in favor of the governorship of Udtug Matalam. According to the newspaper editor quoted above, "Christians really trusted Matalam." They also reportedly felt their interests adequately represented by his "formula" for administrative power-sharing—a Christian vice-governor and a Christian majority on the three-man provincial board (Mindanao Cross , January 1, 1983).[14]
Those who knew him recount that Datu Udtug was an indifferent campaigner and infrequent speechmaker by comparison with other Muslim political figures.[15] His political staying-power seems to have been a direct consequence of his continued access to external resources. That access, first acquired through his personal political skills, allowed him to attract followers and create political allies. The possession of such resources and skills was a particularly critical factor in the Muslim politics of postwar Cotabato because the indigenous political arena had been significantly altered as a result of the war. The absence of American colonial authority during the Japanese interlude and the infusion of firearms and ammunition into the region during that period allowed reinvigoration of the political power of local datus in Cotabato and throughout the Muslim South and the resurgence of precolonial patterns of feuding and adjudication (Gowing 1979; Mednick 1965; Thomas 1971). The influx of wealth into the province after the war, in the form of war-damage payments, back pay awards, and reconstruction aid amplified this process. Local datus spent a good deal of the newly obtained cash on bridewealth payments, pilgrimages to
Mecca, mosque building (see below), ceremonial feasts, and other means to increase their prestige and followings (Mednick 1965). Violent intra-elite conflict among datu families was also common in the early postindependence period.[16]
It was the talent of Datu Udtug to be able to forge a number of these revitalized local datus, as well as a growing number of Christian politicians, into a political bloc. That was accomplished in part by providing local leaders with official political bases as the mayors of newly created municipalities. Udtug granted local datus officially sanctioned local power as well as a certain amount of public and party funds. In return, the mayors guaranteed the votes of their constituents. In municipalities with populations that were overwhelmingly Muslim, voting typically did not occur at all. Mayors merely delivered tally sheets indicating 100 percent support to the provincial center and local subordinates dared not protest their disenfranchisement. In mixed Muslim-Christian municipalities with datu mayors, voting might take place but results were altered if unacceptable. According to Datu Adil, Datu Udtug regarded this, and most other datu larcenies, as "a necessary evil."
Throughout the postindependence Philippines, the possibilities for self-enrichment through election to office at the provincial or municipal level were greater than ever before due to the increased importance of the state as a provider of capital and the absolute reliance of central state politicians on the votes delivered by local officeholders (Wolters 1984).[17] In Muslim Cotabato, however, in contrast to most other provinces in the Philippines, the costs of attaining political office did not rise concomitantly because the local capabilities of autocratic datus precluded the need for the expense of extensive campaigning and/or vote-buying.[18] Connections at the national level were of course important, and these were provided by Salipada Pendatun. Pendatun and Udtug ruled Cotabato in tandem: Pendatun furnished the high-level associations in Manila, while Udtug cultivated the provincial alliances and generally followed Pendatun's lead in party affiliation.[19]
As the effective owner of provincial votes, Udtug was courted by representatives of both national political parties and provided with significant amounts of party campaign funds.[20] As Datu Adil remembers: "Liberalista Party and Nacionalista Party leaders would come to Udtug and ask him for his support. They would give him money even though he would never promise them anything. That money was the single largest source of his income despite the fact that he never asked for any of it." There is a sense in which Datu Udtug approximated the
cultural ideal for datus envisioned in the precolonial ideology of aristocratic rule: he was regularly presented with tribute without having to demand it. Of course the greatest portion of Udtug's revenue came not from subordinates but from powerful outsiders, and a more accurate analogy is available from the colonial period. Datu Udtug was the true political successor of Datu Piang of Buayan, who enriched himself by selling supplies and services to Spanish and American colonial occupiers. Datu Udtug brokered votes, the new political currency of the postindependence Philippines and, like Piang before him, was adept at obtaining favorable terms in his dealings with external political forces.
Datu Udtug was a popular and impressive figure for Cotabato Muslims. As the first Magindanaon governor of the province, he represented the assumption by indigenous Muslims of modern political authority and the end of colonialism. As the heir, in body and spirit, of the Sultan of Pagalungan, he personified a cultural continuity with the precolonial past.[21] Most important for ordinary Muslims, however, he embodied the characteristics of a "good datu" (mapia a datu )—one who protected his subjects without exploiting them. Datu Udtug's inclination to behave in such a manner was certainly encouraged by his ready access to externally derived resources. Like Congressman Pendatun, Datu Udtug is said to have accumulated significant wealth during his career, much of it in the form of productive land. However, Unlike many other colonial and postcolonial datus, his wealth seems not to have been gained primarily at the expense of his subordinates.
The careers of Datus Pendatun and Udtug illustrate one of the most interesting features of the postcolonial datus in general: a distinct discontinuity among them that correlates with a greater or lesser degree of incorporation into the dominant culture of the Philippine state. Congressman Pendatun is a notable example of the more culturally incorporated type. These postcolonial datus had some college education (often having attended Manila universities) and were usually professionals (most often lawyers or educators). They tended to be familiar with, and comfortable in, Manila, the national capital, often having lived there for a number of years. They were versed in national party politics and personally acquainted with national political figures. In addition, they exhibited a pronounced tendency to marry Christian wives and often to remain (or become) monogamous as a result of those marriages. Hunt ([1957] 1974) cites evidence that as many as forty prominent Magindanaon men (most of them presumably datus) had Christian wives in 1953.
Because of the relative acculturation of these datus, as well as their tendency to be physically absent from Cotabato for significant lengths of time, they risked alienating themselves, socially and politically, from Magindanaon followers and allies. That danger tended to be averted by the maintenance of special relationships with representatives of the other general type of postwar datu. The partnership between Congressman Pendatun and Datu Udtug exemplifies that sort of relationship, and Datu Udtug epitomizes the second variety of postcolonial datu. Those datus (much more numerous than the former type) tended not to be well-educated. Many were effectively illiterate and most, like Datu Udtug, neither spoke nor read English, the language of national politics. They were local leaders—in the case of Datu Udtug a metalocal leader—and national politics held little interest for them. In most essential aspects, in fact, they were datus ruling ingeds and no different from their precolonial counterparts. Those with mayoral offices governed traditionally and autocratically, with little regard for official rules or administrative procedures. In most areas they continued to adjudicate traditional cases and impose fines. They usually completely controlled the armed force and electoral outcomes in their municipalities. They tended to be polygynous, maintained relatively large personal followings, and in general were tradition oriented in most of their practices.[22]