Zamboanga Crisis - here's why a layperson should care

(super disclaimer -- I am no expert at Mindanao issues, nor do I claim to be)

If you're anything like me, you probably don't understand the nuances of the Mindanao conflict. What's happening in Mindanao, the continuous conflict between rebel groups + government troops, the prickly peace agreements, the clan feuds, etc. -- these are long-running issues that someone like me will never fully grasp or understand. Today, I tried to catch up to what was happening in Zamboanga and found myself almost at an utter loss to really explain it or get to the root of the problem. My background seems to have built itself into a silo that will never truly understand the difficulties of what a Mindanaoan would go through. I'm a twenty-something year old Catholic living in Manila. I've never found myself in the minority in this country before. I've lived in Luzon most of my life and my descendants hail from Visayas. I will never be comfortable speaking about the Mindanao crisis. But this Zamboanga crisis is precisely the wake-up call for the rest of us living in blissful ignorance as the majority. 

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