Kusog Mindanaw, BARMM and federalism

Last of 2 parts

FOR the past three decades, Kusog Mindanaw (Kusog) was the premier platform for its various stakeholders to air their concerns, gripes and aspirations. The strategy was to achieve whatever consensus is to be arrived at in view of the diversity of cultures within one nation whose collective personality has been forged by the ascendency of two Western civilizations — Spanish and American — blended into a mongrelized pastiche, embodied in the centralized government lodged in Manila, the symbolic imperial seat. The task therefore was an ambitious undertaking encapsulated in a catch-all phrase encompassing our hopes — peace and development and unity in diversity through federalism.