I clawed up the steep mountainside near León, Spain, digging my fingernails into clay to steady my body, pitched forward under my pack.
Step, claw. Step, claw. Step. Heavy clouds threatened to downpour. Wind whipped tendrils of hair across my face. My rain jacket whispered softly. Sweat stung my eyes. My quads burned. My lungs gasped.
Focus, almost there.
It was July, 2018 and I was 330 miles into the French Way of El Camino de Santiago, a 560-mile blend of mountainous singletrack, pavement, farm road, and vineyard paths across Northern Spain. The Camino is actually a network of routes through Europe leading to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain and originates from a 9th-century Catholic pilgrimage to pray at St. James’s bones, allegedly buried in the cathedral there. In a normal year, some 300,000 people make the trek.
The Normalization Process in the Bangsamoro Faces Rising Uncertainty
Delays in the decommissioning of Moro rebels and other measures threaten the fragile peace in the newly created Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.
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April 26, 2021
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Two years into the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), the peace process that put an end to decades of war in the Southern Philippines may be running into a rough patch.
Leading the interim government, the former rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are making headway in building up the new entity’s institutions and passing key legislation ahead of the new region’s first elections, due in 2022, but delays resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic now threaten to push that important deadline. Another key element of the 2014 peace deal between the rebels and the Philippines government is also languishing: the so-called “normalization process,” an ambitious combi
What’s new? Two years into a three-year transition, the “normalisation” process that aims to disarm ex-rebels and pay peace dividends to the Philippines’ Bangsamoro region is behind schedule, partly because of COVID-19. Manila has recently taken steps to restore the momentum, but time is of the essence.
Why does it matter? Normalisation has several essential components, including supplying socio-economic support, deploying peacekeeping teams to boost conflict mitigation efforts and disbanding private militias. Whether or not the government extends the 2022 deadline for the political transition, delays in carrying out these measures could frustrate former insurgents and raise the risk of violence.
Asia Art Tours Interviews Bandilang Itim: Philippines & Anarchism
Asia Art Tours interviews Bandilang Itim.
To better understand the history of Anarchism in the Philippines and the state terror unleashed by Rodrigo Duterte, we were thrilled to speak with the Bandilang Itim collective.
Asia Art Tours: From this summer of global uprisings, one of the main lessons I took away was the importance of translation. When it comes to Bandilang Itim (a Tagalog translation of ‘Black Flag’) could you let us know (and take as much time as you’d like), historically what are some of the most important abolitionist/anarchist/communist terms that define the leftism of the Philippines?