Lanao mayor's life immortalized in locally produced documentary -by:Ali Macabalang/Manila Bulletin

ILIGAN CITY, Philippines – A documentary movie depicting the life of a former Moro rebel leader-turned-municipal mayor in a former strife-torn town in Lanao del Norte was shown here on November 25 in observance of the Mindanao Week of Peace that started that day and ends December 2. Over 500 people from various sectors viewed the documentary film at the College of Nursing of the Mindanao State University–Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) here, a venue chosen aptly for the occasion by organizers belonging to the Ecoweb in collaboration with the United Nations' ACT for Peace Programme. At the end of the 21-minute presentation, most of the viewers lauded it as "very informative," and expressed hope this would be replicated in other parts of the country, especially for those having no knowledge about the history of the lingering Mindanao conflict, according to Ecoweb executive director Regina Antequisa and Precious Derro of the Cinema for Peace. The documentary film titled "Engaging Dante's World" portrays specifically the life and exploits of Abdulaziz Batingolo, a former Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) freedom fighter, who rose to the mayoralty post of Tangkal, Lanao del Norte, film director Ted Juanite said. It generally depicts the evolution of the Moro rebellion reckoning from the American troops' massacre of villagers in Sulu in 1900s and the execution by military agents of Muslim recruits undergoing clandestine training in the island of Corregidor in 1968, Juanite said. The repressive American occupation of Sulu, for which the 1911 model of the caliber .45 pistol was manufactured, rekindled the Moro rebellion during the Spanish invasion, while the infamous Jabeddah massacre in Corregidor triggered the formation of the mainstream MNLF. Former University of the Philippines (UP) Professor Nur Misuari, inspired by Muslim leaders pushing the Mindanao Independence Movement (MIM), formed the MNLF with the first batch of 90 combatants trained in Malaysia followed by the second batch of 300 members to resist the Marcos dictatorship and struggle for Moro secession. Batingolo, known in the MNLF as "Commander Dante Mutia," is a member of second 300-man batch, to which Chairman Hadji Ebrahim Murad of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) belongs. How Mayor Batingolo gradually transformed Tangkal town from the ravage of war to greater heights – being the first MNLF camp in Lanao del Norte – has inspired the Pakigdait, Inc., a Mindanao-based non-government organization, in collaboration with the UN Act for Peace to make the documentary film in his tribute, Juanite said.