AMIRAH ALI LIDASAN: CV
Amirah Ali Lidasan, 33, Female September 23,
1974
Lidasan clan comes from the Iranon tribe of Matanog
and Parang, Maguindanao. Lost her father at the age
of three months old while her mother remarried and
was separated from her, as per customs of the clan in
her ancestral home. She grew up at the care of her
aunt and uncle who adopted her when she was still a
child and was raised along with her four cousins.
She spent early part of her childhood in Maguindanao,
but because of the war in Mindanao due to the
imposition of Martial Law in the Philippines, her
family moved to Manila. Her uncle's brothers were
affiliated with the Moro National Liberation Front in
the 70's. Her uncle who raised her was himself
accused of helping rebels because of his profession.
He is a medical doctor and was in Jolo, Sulu in 1974
when the whole municipality was burned to the ground
by the Marcos administration.
She studied in Manila and graduated at the University
of the Philippines, BA Journalism. She was active in
college organizations like the Union of Journalists
of the Philippines and Center for Nationalist
Studies. She was elected as the chairperson of the
College of Mass Communications in 1994 and was
elected as the Executive-Vice President of the
National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP),
a nationwide organization of student councils and
governments in the Philippines. In 1995 she served as
the National President.
After graduation, she volunteered for Karapatan and
one of the federations of the Kilusang Mayo Uno. In
1999, Karapatan did a fact-finding mission and
advocacy for the human rights victims in Maguindanao,
and Amirah was asked to help in the formation of an
advocacy group fighting for the rights of the Moro
people. This led to the formation of an alliance of
Moro, Christian and Indigenous People recognizing and
fighting for the rights of the Moro people. In August
1999, the Moro-Christian People's Alliance was
established.
She was visiting her grandmother in Matanog,
Maguindanao in 2000 when President Joseph Estrada
declared an All-Out War against the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front and ordered its military to attack
MILF's central Camp Abubakar, which was near her
ancestral home.
Together with her grandmother, she became also an
evacuee, fleeing her ancestral home while government
military troops were pounding Camp Abubakar and all
the neighbouring areas. It was then that Amirah
became most vocal in her advocacy against the all-out
war of the government that affected not only the MILF
but all Moro areas. She was helped by Bagong
Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) and the Promotion for
Church People's Response (PCPR) in visiting
Philippine lawmakers in Batasan to petition them to
ask President Estrada to stop the all-out war.
The National Council of Churches of the Philippines
and the Christian Conference in Asia also helped in
propagating Amirah's plea of justice to her Moro
brothers and sister who were victims of all-out war
by inviting her to international conferences that
asked her to give testimonies of the Moro people's
plight. She was also asked by Gabriela Women's
Organization to represent the Moro women to a
dialogue with the United Nation's Rapporteur on
Violence Against Women in Sri Lanka in 2000.
In 2001, she participated in the EDSA II uprising
where she rallied the Moro people in Metro Manila who
were vicitms of illegal arrests and who were made
"fall guys" for the series of bombings in
Metro Manila and Mindanao.
Amirah considers the successor of Estrada, Ms. Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo, as a traitor to the EDSA II
uprising and to the Moro people. For while the next
president offered peace negotiations with the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front in 2001, she continued the
policy of attacking the Moro people's rights. she
continued the policy of illegal arrests and detention
of Moro people used as fall guys.
In September 2001, the MCPA along with Karapatan and
Bayan led the fact-finding mission in Basilan,
Mindanao where more than 500 Moro people were killed,
arrested and detained as a result of Arroyo's
declaration of intensive military crackdown against
the Abu Sayyaf sympathizers and supporters. The
crackdown did not end the Abu Sayyaf, but it did
destroy the lives of many Moro people in Basilan,
Sulu and Zamboanga City. This crackdown also served
as the pretext for the coming of the US troops in
Basilan where the President declared as the venue for
their Balikatan military exercises. The MCPA stayed
and organized in Basilan to monitor the Balikatan
along with Karapatan, and on July 2002, they led the
international fact-finding mission which exposed the
human rights violations of the US troops against the
Moro people and the government's disregard tot he
rights of the Moro people by making the US troops
take Basilan as their target areas.
The futile attempts of the MCPA and other Moro
organizations to make their Moro lawmakers take the
stand of the victims of human rights violation was
the reason why in 2002 MCPA led the formation of the
Suara Bangsamoro Partylist, a partylist organization
of the Moro people who vowed to actively pursue the
Moro people's economic, social and civil and
political rights in Congress. She served as the
national vice-chairperson and was elected as the
second nominee.
But due to the massive election rigging and cheating
of President Arroyo, with which the Moro governors
from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the
Suara Bangsamoro failed to get a seat in Congress.
Suara Bangsamoro was also a victim of red-tagging of
the Arroyo administration, lumped together with Bayan
Muna and the rest of the progressive partylists.
In the Moro provinces, the Armed Forces of the
Philippines harassed governors and mayors and Suara
members in the Moro communites and disbarred the Moro
people from voting. Those who were able to vote, the
military who were manning the election results made
sure that the Suara and other progressive partylist
votes would not be counted. Despite of this, Amirah
continued to serve both as the secretary-general of
the Moro-Christian People's Alliance and the national
vice-chairperson of the Suara Bangsamoro Partylist.
She is currently based in her hometown Cotabato City
and roams Mindanao to solicit the support for Suara
Bangsamoro and the fight of the Moro people.
