Muslim Terrorists and Military Textbooks

Review: Filipino Heroes League

While waiting for the screening of a movie, I grabbed a copy of the Filipino Heroes League (FHL) today and read in one sitting the whole first volume of the Paolo Fabregas opus.

For someone who also aims to create comics relevant to Filipinos, I really enjoyed how Fabregas combined the fantastic and the mundane. FHL also serves as a critique of the Philippine society, including how news organizations cover events.

But there are just a couple of misses, one may offend sensibilities and the other,  possibly a minor factual mistake.



SPOILER ALERT

Terrorists and Islam

On page 9, the caption on the scene at the World Trade Center reads "The Blade of the Desert and the Terrorist Trio, The Islamic Defenders." If the intention of the writer was to show that a reporter irresponsibly portrays "Islam" as a monolithic entity synonymous with terrorism, there should have been a way in the story to tell readers that Islam isn't really equal to "terrorists."

Yes, there are smart comicbook readers who can discern this but amid the growing ignorance and hatred associated with the separatist groups in Mindanao, some readers might subconsciously miss the fact that not all Muslims are terrorists.

The belief that Muslims have a monopoly over the use of violence in propagating their faith is common among Christians including Catholics. What makes it worse, the Filipinos' only exposure to the Islamic culture is the violent stories in news. That single panel doesn't really help in eradicating the discrimination and stereotype against Muslims in our Christian-dominated country.

I believe writers should be careful in writing about Islam and terrorism. Uncle Ben once said "With great power comes great responsibility." Attaching "terrorist" to "Islam" in a Filipino comicbook is a thumbs down for me. Instead of being inclusive, the panel can tick off peace-loving Muslim readers who are also Filipinos.


PMA Textbooks in DepEd

It is odd for the Education Department to handle the supplies of textbooks for the Philippine Military Academy. First, universities and colleges are under the Commission on Higher Education, while DepEd supervises the preschool, elementary and high schools. CHED is not under DepEd--A tip on who to call about class suspensions during typhoons. Second, because PMA is a special government school, it reports directly to the Armed Forces of the Philippines General Headquarters, which is under the Department of National Defense.

If the succeeding stories would show that the Defense Department is also rotten, that would make sense and could spell more trouble for the President.