Basilan is a relatively small island, 800 square kilometers and sitting almost directly off of Zamboanga City. Many people, Filipinos included, are unware that Mindanao also governs 3 provinces consisting of smaller islands, Tawi Tawi, Sulu (including Jolo) and of course Basilan. While the population is 71% Muslim, Christian ethnicities were settled here during the American colonial era, mostly to work the huge rubber and lumber concerns that American investors created in the island's lush volcanic soil. Today they and their descendants make up a full 75% of the land holders. Tsinoy, or "Chinoy" as some call them are Filipino-Chinese, some with ancestors going back well over 400 years. On Basilan more than 75% of all businesses are directly owned by Tsinoy, who for a variety of reasons also dominate most of the nation in this manner.
Politically, it is a mixed bag. For along time Christians dominated, then Tuasug, a Muslim tribe indigenous to Sulu Province who over the centuries created many coastal communities ringing Basilan and nearby islands. Today the indigenous Yakan tribe has come into its own with the dyansty de jour being the Akbar clan.
Founded by the late Ustadz Wahab Akbar, the family is unique among Filipino political dynasties in that he is the first patriarch to have installed multiple wives in leadership roles, with his first 2 wives, now widows currently the Governor (Jum Akbar) and the mayor of the capitol, Isabela City (Cherrilyn Akbar). Some point to his personal history, as an ex-guerilla but in the Philippines that is truly par for the course, albeit in his case it is highly unusual.
Born in 1960 to a bandit clan, on an island famed for its bandits, he joined his father in the mountains in 1971 while only 11 years old. This gave him a first hand opportunity to observe how politics, and life in general is played here in the Southern Philippines, His father, Mutamad Salijin, like the smarter among his ilk, surrendered to the Marcos Government and was promptly rewarded with a mayorship, controlling one of the island's largest population centres, Lantawan in 1974.
This move, while Akmad was nearing 15 enabled him to gain a top rate education in Manila. Education is not generally valued by most Moro (Filipino Muslim) ethnicities above and beyond a very basic Islamic education. Then, having missed a considerable number of school years while encamped with his father deep in the bush, it says alot in defence of Akmad's character that he was able to not only resume his education but to do so with elan and to then promptly enter a top university.
Unfortunately it all came to an end abruptly when Akmad involved himself with the MNLF's political apparattus and was arrested by the Marcos regime in 1979. After being released from a short stint in prison on Luzon he made his way to Malaysia's Sabah State on Borneo, then the Capitol-in-Exile of the MNLF. In 1982 it was the MNLF that sponsored his advanced religious education in Damascus where he was able to earn the honourific "Ustadz" (Teacher of Religion).
In 1987 his MNLF handlers deployed him to Libya to undertake advanced military training at 1 of 2 MNLF administered camps existing there at the time. It was in Tripoli that he first crossed paths with fellow Yakan and Basileno, Abdurajak Abubakr Janjalani, the main founder of Abu Sayyaf. Janjalani was in Tripoli courtesy of the organisation Tabligh Islamiyya (usually known as Tabligh Islam) and their interaction was limited , though apparently fruitful.
Six months later, as Janjalani headed to Pakistan to join his university professor in a paramilitary allied with the nascent Osama Bin Laden organisation near Mazar-e-Sharif, inside Afghanistan, Akbar was returning to Basilan where he was given a junior command role within the Basilan BIAF (Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Front), the military arm of the MNLF.
In 1990 Janjalani returned to Basilan where he found work as an Ustadz ofr younger boys. It was in that unused classroom 1 evening in 1991 that Janjanlani sold Akbar on his vision of a pan-Asian state based on shari'a, or Islamic Law. The entity was to serve as a springboard with which to propgate his particular islamic beliefs. Though Abu Sayyaf, usually known as "ASG" (Abu Sayyaf Group) later devolved into the avaristic gang of kidnappers it remains today, Janjalani aimed for something much higher.
I wont devolve into a piece about the nascent ASG, only to say that in the beginning at least, the organisation actually did adhere to a very political agenda. Akbar, though relatively new within the BIAF, had already become a minor factional leader. He found himself frustrated with the hedging and hawing of the MNLF's leader, Nur Misuari. He also felt, as did Moro ethnicities on mainland Mindanao that the MNLF was a Tuasug-centric organisation, concentrating much too much on Sulu and the needs of the Tuasug tribe, a tribe that had related to Yakans historically as inferiors.
Thus it did not take too much cajoling to get Akbar to join with Janjalani and become a co-founder of ASG, something he tried to seriously downplay in later life.
In 1998, for a variety of reasons, Akbar chose to distance himself from ASG and declare his candidacy for Governor of Basilan. Against tough odds he won that election and for 3 consecutive terms he held court as the island's top leader. In 2007, with his term limit upon him he traded that role for the island's Congressional seat, and slid his 1st (as in "primary") wife Jum Akbar into the governor's seat, a position she just had reaffirmed in this last election, May, 2010.
As stated earlier in this entry, he also installed his 2nd wife Cherrilyn as mayor of the island's capitol, Isabela City along with 8 other lesser relatives in a variety of leadership positions though it is worth noting that his 3rd wife lost her election for a large town that same year.
Akbar took well to his new role as Congressman and seemed to enjoy being back in Manila and is probablly best remembered by other Filipinos for his Speech of Privelege, shortly after that first election in 2007. directing his comments to the Speaker of the House as protocol demanded, he addressed the "allegations" that he had beein "involved" in the founding of Abu Sayyaf, and I quote:
"Dear Mr.Speaker, when I joined politics, there were accusations that I was the founder of the BULLSHI* Abu Sayyaf..." Definitely a personality in a nation of such personalities.
Sadly for Ustadz Wahad Akbar, he never got to finish his 1st and only term as Basilan's Congressman. On the evening of Novemeber 13th, 2007, just 5 months after gaining that position, he was blown to bits as he exited Batasan Pambansa , the Congressional Forum in Manila. As he exited shourtly before Session adjourned, a motorcycle parked next to his SUV detonated, seriously wounding 8 people including Akbar and a 2nd Congressman (Henry Teves of Negros Oriental).
Both men were taken to separate hospitals but Akbar succumbed just 2 hours later. The bombing remains unclaimed and unsolved until the present, 3 years later.
Today Basilan remains controlled by the Akbar clan, but violence didnt stop with their ascencion and neither has it diminished since. In my next entry i will outline the most recent Election related developments on the island.
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