'No te vayas a Zamboanga!'

By Noralyn Mustafa

WE in Sulu were preoccupied with the daily and nightly hours-long blackouts compounded by the unjust and enormous amount of PPA that comes with it; water that drips out of our faucets for only a few hours after midnight; the pro and anti-Balikatan rallies; the visit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference monitoring team; the presence of Jema'ah Islamiyah and then, whammo!

A broadcaster on the local radio casually mentioned, with an audible smirk and snicker, that the good mayor of Zamboanga City, the Honorable Maria Clara Lobregat, had ordered the quarantine of all persons arriving from the provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, a.k.a. Moros, on one of the twin islands of Santa Cruz-you know, so they can write love letters on the vaunted pink sands and scrutinize the designs of the Badjao tombstones while waiting to be declared SARS-free and qualified to land in fair Zamboanga.

I didn't believe him.

Amid the uproar and indignation around me (what are we, diseased?) I still maintain my stand to not believe anything I don't see in the Inquirer and since as of this writing I haven't read about it, I am convinced the announcer got it all wrong, or the honorable mayor was misquoted, or quoted out of context, whatever. Innocence is bliss.

Although by the instant laws that came with the SARS scare, any mayor is authorized to quarantine anybody to protect his/her constituency and to halt the spread of the dread virus. I still believe that at the most, she was misinterpreted, and the widespread rage thoroughly unjustified.

A cooler head must intervene, so as usual, I chucked my already finished piece on the state of affairs here for the more urgent matter at hand before matters get out of hand.

First, the people of the Sulu archipelago (which includes Tawi-Tawi) should be made to understand that if it is true, the mayor has nothing but their own welfare at heart. Actually what she is concerned with is not that they would infect the people of Zamboanga with the virus, but that they should be protected from it. I hope this is clear.

You see, being island provinces, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi have much better chances of remaining sterile. Nothing more complicated than the health and port authorities strictly screening everyone who arrives by sea and air, although one can't really guarantee the security of the high seas. How else could Daf Janjalani have abandoned us for the action in Basilan without even the Navforsouth any wiser?

But then what else could you expect from people assigned to patrol the expanse of the Sulu Sea-those poor Navy guys are equipped with only a couple of obsolete rejects from World War II? Imagine how embarrassing, it had to take the Malaysian authorities to spot the party of more than 20 fully armed people, presumably from here, who were heading toward one of their resorts again! But I am digressing.

Although, of course, these prove my contention that it is infinitely easier for the Abu Sayyaf to sail away from Sulu than for the SARS virus to come in, unlike Zamboanga City, which is at the tip of the peninsula that juts out so evocatively from the Mindanao mainland (see map). I mean, one can never tell who may come in with those dozens of buses arriving daily, bearing people from any and all provinces of the biggest island in the country.

And since I also believe that one must never criticize or comment on matters like this without proposing solutions, I will seek an audience with our own mayor, Hadji Suod Tan, to give him unsolicited recommendations, although being a conservative person, he is not known to listen to characters who are known to periodically undergo bouts of comical hysteria.

To start off, I will suggest that he issue an executive order banning all departures from the port of Jolo, and prohibiting anyone from traveling to Zamboanga, our nearest neighbor in particular, on pain of being infected with the SARS virus.

And -- here's the next measure, so full of possibilities, especially for Sulu's moribund economy and future progress!

Send letters of appeal to all former Sulu residents now living in Zamboanga to keep their children at home and stop crowding the malls and bazaars in that city, spending the money that originated from here. Not to mention that their very lives depend on it, literally. Can you imagine what microbes they will inhale in all that air-conditioned, recycled air?

This restriction, if strictly enforced, could force them to spend their summer vacation in Sulu and revel in the cool clean air, the sea breeze, the fresh fish, the fruits, the sparkling beaches -- all that they were forced to leave behind in the Diaspora that followed the burning of Jolo, and make them appreciate their "place of origin" more.

This, by the way, is a term frequently used by Mayor Lobregat whenever, in her foresight, she urged "those people not from Zamboanga" to please leave her city. I fully agree, and how I wish they had listened to her.

Then, our mayor should ban all produce - fruits and vegetables - coming from the mainland and passing through Zamboanga from entering our port. Surely, they are infected.

This will create a market for local agriculture, enticing our own evacuees from the countryside to return to their fertile lands and start cultivating. And the dividend here is that the town of Jolo itself will be decongested; no more squatters, no more garbage!

So people of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi-don't you go to Zamboanga. Stay alive!

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