MINDANAO YOUTH. A Kagay-anon student looks at the photographs displayed at the "I Am Mindanao" exhibit at Centrio Ayala Mall as part of the campaign that seeks youth participation to counter extremism. Photo by Rey Anthony Anacleto. 

Words by Meira Andutan

Just a day after President Rodrigo Duterte declared he was willing to engage in peace talks with the Abu Sayyaf, the ISIS-inspired Maute group seized the municipal hall of Butig, Lanao del Sur and fired shots at government troops on Saturday, November 26, 2016. The Maute group allegedly took down Philippine flags in Butig and replaced them with ISIS flags.

The Maute group is one of four extremist groups in Mindanao who have reportedly pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State.

The said group was also behind the Davao City bombing incident in September and the Butig clash in February 2016.

Social media as the new frontier

Social media is the new weapon of the Islamic State to expand the spread of their extremist ideologies.

Twitter and Facebook regularly check for accounts which publish radical content and ISIS propaganda.

Some members of the Abu Sayyaf group are allegedly active on social media and make it a point to display their firearms and extremist activities online.

ISIS targets marginalized members of society, both men and women, regardless of their religion. They make use of state-of-the-art technology and propaganda to appeal to the youth and lure them into joining ISIS.

It is imperative that the youth be educated and become aware of the strategies of ISIS to prevent the spread of jihadist ideologies.

Maria Ressa, Rappler CEO, multi-awarded journalist, and author of Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia (2003), urges the youth to be wary of what they read online.

"Look at the content you’re consuming, look at what it’s pushing you to do, look at the world view that’s behind it and question it," she said.

'I Am Mindanao' campaign

A mall exhibit centered on the theme, “Countering violent extremism in Mindanao” was launched by a student-led campaign called I Am Mindanao on November 28 at Centrio Ayala Mall in Cagayan de Oro City.

The exhibit featured photographs of beautiful sceneries in Mindanao, infographics on violent extremism, various events of the campaign, and interviews with the people of Mindanao as well as the CEO of Rappler, Maria Ressa.

The I Am Mindanao exhibit served as an avenue for the group to showcase the beauty and ethno-cultural diversity of Mindanao, introduce the campaign to a larger audience, uphold the sense of pride of Mindanawons, and address the issue of violent extremism.

I Am Mindanao is a counter-extremism campaign led by a group of fourth-year Development Communication students from Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan.

The social media-based campaign aims to educate college students in Cagayan de Oro City and its neighboring areas about violent extremism, strengthen the sense of pride of Mindanawons, and empower the youth to take action against violent extremism.

"The biggest challenge for Mindanao is to actually bring in development not through arms but through good governance, by reporting corruption when you see it, by looking at your area of influence and saying 'Not on my watch, I won’t allow any corruption in this part,'" Ressa explained.

The campaign calls on the youth to take pride in being a Mindanawon and to become the pioneers of countering violent extremism in Mindanao. ∎