Philippine government

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on November 13th, 2011
Photo by Reuters

The colourful and vociferous Philippine media called it everything from a “bloodbath” to an “ambush”.  Accusations were traded and fingers were pointed in all directions immediately after. But that was nearly a month ago. Now, the story has been relegated to the back pages of the broadsheets, if on the pages at all. 

Less passionately, it is now simply referred to as “the Al Barka incident”, after the locale in which it took place on the small southern island of Basilan in Mindanao. 

The “incident” nearly ruined an already tenuous truce between Philippine government troops and Muslim insurgents – who, by the way, no longer want to be called that. But they aren’t “rebels” either. Nor is it right, they say, to call them “separatists”. For the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), this is a battle to reclaim Muslim independence.  

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on February 16th, 2011

They cut through the jungle to the small clearing like a swarm of bees with their leader at their core. The only sound was the swish of their feet slicing through the unkempt grass. At least two hundred of them – heavily armed. Most wearing black shirts that proclaimed "BIFF of the MILF" – and in that one instance clarifying the primary question on people’s minds: this renegade "splinter group" still considered itself a part of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

According to their leader Ameril Umbrakato – one of the Philippines' most wanted men – he put together the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (or B.I.F.F.) because he was left with little choice. 

"When they had a ceasefire, the government and the MILF – they didn’t include me – they put me aside, rejected me," Umbrakato told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview.  

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on October 18th, 2010
Photo from EPA

OFWs – the Overseas Filipino Workers. Seen in their home country as modern-day heroes.

Soldiers in a battle against poverty.  Wanting to win the war for their families.

There is no other way to put it.

And like heroes all over the world, many ultimately have to pay for the "honour" with their lives.

Sometimes words are nowhere near enough – so here, in moving images, is the story of two families whose daughters sacrificed everything for a fractured dream http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3nIuShFFYE

Every day some 3,000 more leave the  to join the workforce abroad. Already there are some 10 million Filipinos away from home. It's a nation exporting its best resource to stay afloat. Some so desperate to earn dollars that they are willing to take short-cuts to get placed in foreign jobs faster.

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