Popular Opinions and Pragmatic Responses

Ordinary urban Muslims were not passive recipients of the cultural assertions of competing elite groups. On the contrary, they had distinct views of their own and responded with a good deal of pragmatic resistance to the moral imperatives of the ulama or the traditional appeals of the datus.

Scrutinizing the Independent Ulama

As I walked with Nur Miskin one day along the busy river road connecting Campo Muslim with the rest of the city, we happened to pass a prominent ustadz walking toward the community. The sight of the us-

tadz unaccompanied and on foot prompted Nur to remark, "See there, he is not like the datus, who travel only in cars and with bodyguards."

The residents of Campo Muslim found much that was appealing about the new ulama. As with Nur, they often expressed their approval to me in the form of a negative comparison: ustadzes are unlike datus. Residents also respected the ustadzes for the Islamic learning they had acquired, and they appreciated the social messages contained in some of the Friday sermons at the Mahad mosque.^[22] Their admiration for the ulama notwithstanding, community members were, on the whole, quite resistant to ulama attempts to purify ritual practice or restrict popular celebration. The various proposed reforms caused confusion and apprehension as individuals were torn between abandoning identity-affirming rituals and practices and engaging in what the ustadzes had characterized as un-Islamic behavior.

The mediator in many of these cultural disputes in the community was Imam Akmad, the head imam of the Campo Muslim mosque. The imam maintained close relationships with local ustadzes and had been much influenced by their teachings. At the same time, he identified with community members who were confused by the changes promoted by the ustadzes. In counseling community members, Imam Akmad distinguished between behavior that is un-Islamic and that which is anti-Islamic, and he suggested that there was nothing anti-Islamic in traditional rituals. He also expressed the sentiments of many community members by drawing a distinction between Islamization and Arabization. He advised members of his congregation that they were obliged to follow the injunctions of the Qur'an but not the practices of the people of the Middle East, and that the ustadzes sometimes confused these two. I once heard him comment that Allah revealed himself to the Arabs precisely because their behavior was so wicked. On balance, the imam sincerely respected the ustadzes and counseled others to listen to their teachings. Yet he did not urge community members to change traditional practices, noting that the ustadzes were still young and lacking in practical knowledge. He himself had not ceased performing the "emergency" marriages traditionally required for unmarried women who had become pregnant. The ulama had disallowed these, declaring that what is haram (forbidden) cannot be made halal (permissible) by means of post-hoc authorization.^[23] Imam Akmad was sympathetic to the principle guiding the ustadzes' pronouncement but was also well aware that strict compliance with their prohibition would be impractical—even injurious—insofar as emergency

marriages were most often arranged to avert violent retribution for the grave offense to the honor of the family of a pregnant but unmarried girl. The imam, a man possessed of considerable spiritual potency, had made his own compromise with the new ritual order by choosing not to exercise his supernatural powers lest doing so be construed as a form of the sin of shirk , or attempted partnership with the divinity.^[24]

The one-quarter of community households with children who were CCF recipients also quietly but firmly resisted two attempts by the local ulama to force the removal of the program from the community. Community ustadzes were understandably threatened by a large and well-funded program that promoted (intentionally or not) Christian cultural hegemony in a Muslim community. Community recipients held some similar feelings but recognized as well that most of the ustadzes neither shared their poverty nor seemed concerned to alleviate it. Although many of the parents of CCF recipient children were acutely anxious at being associated with activities that had been characterized as anti-Islamic by the community ulama and the MILF, they nevertheless made known to the ustadzes that they would not cooperate in the program's removal unless another could be provided in its place.^[25]

As teachers rather than ritual specialists, the ustadzes did not play an especially active role in the daily religious life of the community. The effect of their disapproval of so many activities associated with marriage and funeral ceremonies was to diminish their participation at ritual events they might otherwise have attended. Consequently, although the ustadzes were acknowledged as the most prominent religious figures in the community, they were not viewed by residents as specifically "community" leaders, nor indeed were they regarded as integral to community life. That fact was dramatically illustrated at the single most important community religious service of the year—the assembly prayers to celebrate Idul Fitr, the holy day marking the end of the Ramadan fast. The service was conducted in the community mosque rather than the Friday mosque at the Mahad and without the participation of a single ustadz.

Although I did not directly solicit community sentiments about the MILF, a number of community residents volunteered their opinions. From them I received the impression that there was a great deal of community support for the leaders of the Cotabato MILF forces who, despite their popularity, remained somewhat shadowy figures. I also sensed concern among community members to avoid offending (intentionally or unintentionally) representatives of a powerful armed under-

ground organization. The only open (though quietly expressed) resentment I heard regarding MILF policies concerned the appropriation of community pitra (Arabic: fitrah , zakat al-fitr ) contributions by the local MILF. Pitra payments, made at the end of the Ramadan fast, consisted in Cotabato of a quantity of polished rice equal to about two quarts (or its cash equivalent) per person in a household. One interpretation of the Islamic notion of zakat (almsgiving), of which pitra payments are a part, is that the giving of alms is obligatory and those alms should flow directly to mujahideen (those who struggle in defense of Islam) in periods of active conflict with nonbelievers.^[26] On that basis, MILF representatives had, each year since the beginning of the Bangsamoro Rebellion, claimed the largest portion of the pitra payments collected by local imams, who were required by the MILF to keep a list of contributing households. Some Campo Muslim residents commented that the continued appropriation was unfair because many of the people in the community had greater economic needs than the rebels, who grew food for themselves in their rural camps. They also disputed the MILF-ulama interpretation of the contemporary situation, noting that the faithful were only obliged to support the mujahideen when they were actively fighting, and the war in Cotabato had been inactive for some time.^[27]

Disregarding Traditional Authority

Despite their hesitancy about the reform program of the ulama, ordinary Muslims were not enthusiastic about the various appeals to shared tradition made by the datu elite. As mentioned above, I found little community regard for the traditional nobility, and some vocal disregard. Younger community residents, in particular, gave little heed to what they often referred to as "datu business." Some young people openly mocked the flowery speech of the elderly Sultan sa Magindanao when he occasionally gave speeches on the radio. Others hastened to point out to me that the paired words "da "and "tu "(meaning "absence" and "to grow") amounted to "no growth." Even community elders expressed their dislike of behavior they referred to as datu-datu —the social posing and status competition associated with traditional elites.

Opinions gathered from structured interviews provide a revealing pattern of attitudes concerning traditional elites. When asked to name the most powerful datu they knew of, 36 percent of community respondents could cite no one. Another 24 percent cited Zacaria

Candao, who at the time of the interviews had just been appointed governor of the province by the newly elected Corazon Aquino. Candao, as I have noted, neither referred to himself as a datu nor identified himself with the traditional nobility. Eighteen percent of respondents cited Datu Kamsa, the barangay captain. These responses indicate that a significant number of community residents no longer associated datus with political power (about 10 percent of respondents cited datus, such as Datu Udtug, who were no longer living), and that many of those who did continued to understand the term "datu" pragmatically, as one who rules.^[28]

While a majority of Campo Muslim respondents (59.8 percent) reported that they would seek adjudication from Datu Kamsa, the barangay captain, in the event of a dispute with their neighbors, I also found that individuals brought different varieties of minor disputes to a range of adjudicators that included Imam Akmad, Kasan Kamid (in his capacity as formal leader of an organization of Campo Muslim neighbors), and other influential community members. For more consequential legal cases, residents relied on various forums, including both the Philippine legal system and the MILF courts. It was not, in fact, unusual for an individual to present a single claim successively in more than one forum in an attempt to receive a single favorable ruling. One community resident (an unusually litigious individual) became involved in a land conflict and first argued his case in the local provincial court where he received an unfavorable ruling. He then brought his claim "inside" to the MILF courts, where the decision again went against him. Subsequently, he presented his case before the government Sharia Court, a body of the regional autonomous government that applied a special law code loosely based on Sharia law. The Sharia Court had been labeled a "fake Islamic court" by the MILF and, at the time this case was brought before it, was very little used by Cotabato Muslims (the government Sharia Court also denied the man's claim).

The limited nature of the direct political influence exercised by either Datu Kamsa (and, by implication, other collaborating datus) or the MILF over community residents is indicated by the results of two elections. Mayoral elections were held in 1980, at a time when military control was still quite strong and the KBL, the party of the martial law regime, was at the peak of its power in Cotabato. Although the MNLF recommended nonparticipation in the election, the great majority of Campo Muslim household heads (88 percent) cast their votes. Of those household heads who cast their ballots in the city elec-

tions, 32 percent voted for the Chinese-Muslim KBL candidate, who was strongly supported by Datu Kamsa. Almost 25 percent voted for his opponent, Datu Mando Sinsuat, the former mayor. A great number of the votes for Datu Mando came from Iranun speakers who hailed originally from Kalanganan, a rural area lying within the city limits and the headquarters of the former smuggling economy. The former mayor had long had warm relations with the people from Kalanganan, while their relations with the barangay captain had been strained for some time. Most intriguingly, 13 percent of household heads voted for Teodore Juliano, the former mayor who had recently spent three years in a military prison for daring to challenge military control of the city during the armed rebellion. The only Christian mayoral candidate, he had not been recommended by any Muslim community leader. Those who voted for him tended to be the poorest members of the community. Their electoral support was most likely acquired as the result of a specific method he had developed for obtaining Muslim votes. The Christian former mayor owned a lumberyard in the Muslim quarter and is said to have provided community members with wood for home-building free of charge. In exchange he required them to swear on a copy of the Qur'an that they would cast their vote for him.

In the last election of the Marcos period—that between President Marcos and Corazon Aquino—community members also voted in large numbers despite the fact that the MILF again took a nonparticipatory stance.^[29] Those who participated voted overwhelmingly in favor of Corazon Aquino (by more than a three-to-one margin), in spite of Datu Kamsa's intensive campaigning for President Marcos.