Nasser Pangandaman Jr.: The Warlord of Masiu

A Cabinet secretary and peace negotiator condoning the violence his son and friends were inflicting on an old man and a 14-year-old boy? By doing nothing to stop the beating, Pangandaman Sr. betrayed his skewed ethical and moral sense. President Arroyo should fire him.

By Carlos H. Conde

Philippine politics is feudal, this much we know. Nothing represents this better than the sight of officials – mayors, governors, councilors – being followed by armed bodyguards wherever they go, behaving like mafiosi.

This is more so with politicians from Moro areas. The context, of course, is that, in Muslim Mindanao, politics is much more deadly. In non-Moro areas, politicians have to contend mainly with their political foes. In Moro areas, politicians have to deal not just with their political opponents but with other tribes or clans with whom they are engaged in a rido, a Moro phenomenon where one clan fights another every chance they get. Rido sometimes lasts for generations and have immensely complicated the search for peace in Mindanao.

This is why, perhaps more than the non-Moro politicians, Moro politicians tend to surround themselves with armed goons and are instinctively paranoid toward other people. Coupled with the fact that holding a public office can screw up your sense of yourself – you tend to internalize the idea that you are a very important person, one who is untouchable and feared — these politicians tend to become arrogant and offensive. Power and guns usually have that effect on a person.

I am saying all this to contextualize the incident involving the mayor of Masiu City, Lanao del Sur, Mayor Nasser Pangandaman Jr., his companions and his father, Agrarian Reform Secretary and government peace panel member Nasser Pangandaman Sr.  The Pangandaman party has been accused of mauling Delfin dela Paz and his son Bino at the Valley Golf Club in Antipolo City last week.

According to an eyewitness, Bambee dela Paz, the daughter of Delfin, Pangandaman Jr. and his friends mauled her father and brother while Pangandaman Sr. merely looked on.

In her blog, Bambee writes:

“The mayor of Masiu City, Lanao del Sur talks with my dad. Things get heated up. Voices were raised. But never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine that someone would pull out a punch. Apparently not. He attacks my father. His flightmates, maybe 2 or 3 of them, rush to his aid and beat up my father. My 56-year-old father. My younger brother and I could not just watch. We rushed to break the fight. My younger brother pleads to the mayor to please stop it. To not hurt my dad. To just stop. His words still ring through my head…”Sorry na po, sorry na po…tama na…tama na po…” With his hands in front of his chest in a praying position. PLEADING. The mayor socks him in the face. My brother defended himself. My dad is still on the ground getting clobbered. My brother is the same way. I try to stop the fight, but all I can do is stop one person. There were 4 or 5 of them attacking now.”

If the charges are true (the dela Pazes have complained to the police) and that indeed the elder Pangandaman just watched while his son displayed how arrogant and power-drunk he was (he allegedly told the elder dela Paz, “Don’t you know who I am?”), he should resign not just from the Department of Agrarian Reform but most especially from the government peace panel that is negotiating with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. There’s just no way he can function properly in that role, considering what we know now.

A Cabinet secretary and peace negotiator condoning the violence his son and friends were inflicting on an old man and a 14-year-old boy? By doing nothing to stop the beating, Pangandaman Sr. betrayed his skewed ethical and moral sense. If the government wants the peace negotiations with the MILF to succeed, Pangandaman Sr. should not be on the panel.

Pangandaman Jr. and Sr. are a disgrace to the good name of Liningding Pangandaman – father of Nasser Pangandaman Sr., former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Pangandaman Jr., evidently with his father’s blessing, acted like the warlord that he apparently is. The golf-course incident shows us what he is capable of doing with the little power he has. I now wonder what sort of atrocity he has been committing on the people of Masiu, a backward community in Lanao del Sur known for the violence and the cheating that goes on there during elections. I covered that place during the 1998 elections and I swore to myself I will never go back. I’m sure a lot of things have changed since then but, going by the behavior of its present mayor, I’m fairly certain it remains the backward, violent and feudal town that it was. Because only a town like that can produce a mayor like this.

Carlos H. Conde is a journalist based in Manila.