Ali Dimaporo was born June 15, 1918, (his birthday this month) and to remember this swashbuckling Ranaū-Iranūn, I have put up this encomium I have culled from my modest library to reveal the young idealist everyone hardly knows about.
Whenever we – of the last
two generations – think about Ali Dimaporo, a few things
stood out. What we remember mostly were: the controversy of his taking up the
title of Sultan sa Maçiu; his waltz with the dictatorial regime of
Ferdinand Marcos; his becoming a president of the Mindanao State University
without having obtained a doctorate degree; his love and hate relationship with
the Bangsamoro secessionist groups; his preoccupation with his pit Barracuda
private army; and his romance with a commoner girl barely a third his age.
Through these carousel of events, a common denominator is that most of
these were only later episodes in his life – an icing on a cake when
Ali had the luxury of breaking taboos at will. That's what we remember. Barely
anyone knows about the impatient but fresh young man who literally fought his
way to fame and glory, so impatient that when he had earned the praise from
American and Filipinos alike after paving way for the successful landing of the
American forces on April 17, 1945 in Malabang, he downplayed it with a shrug,
and later, said, "I had no ambition except to fight and defend our
country. That's why I didn't even bother myself to make reports. I wasn't in it for any credit whatsoever." In his household, in the walls hang not too many
medals, although he received numerous of them. He hardly could recall much of
them, but, as he said, he did not really care.
It was
1944: the Japanese were relentless, inexorably making inroads into the interior
of Mindanao. The Imperial troops engaged the northern coast, and a week would
not pass by without flash encounters between them and the guerrillas.
In March 15, 1944 the Japanese broke through Kolambugan and
killed two key officers of the 108th regiment, Major Juan Curaming and Lt.
Arturo Murphy. Although they seemed unstoppable, the Japanese studiously
avoided the Ranaū territory, knowing the readiness of
the Maranaos to fight ferociously, so most encounters took place along the
northern coast and the southern coast, where the Japanese had the sea, Panguil
Bay and the Illana Bay for fall back as ready retreat.
This did
not mean that the MMF (Maranao Militia Forces) were biding their time only for
any eventuality in the interior. Two officers, Majors Busran Kalaw and Manalao
Mindalano, constantly made forays to the coasts to help guerilla regiments
stood up in their protracted struggle with the Japanese
army. Between January 23 to 24, Mindalano's regiment reinforced the
beleaguered 10th regiment of Major Juan Navarro at Kapatagan. And, without
breaking his stride, two days after on January 26, he had a firefight with the
enemy at Tubod, killing about ten Japanese in close combat.
From
this hit-and-run, and cat-and-mouse play, emerged a young man, who become the
scourge of the Japanese installations: Mohamad Ali Dimaporo. The young Ali was
only twenty-three years old pursuing his law studies at UP and later at Far
Eastern University when the war broke out, and as an ROTC Reserve Officer, he
had to join the army.
So, on
October 30, 1941, Ali was commissioned a 3rd Lieutenant, assigned in the 10th
Battalion on the 101st Infantry of the Army. His unit was immediately given the
defense of Davao, but Davao fell, and the unit retreated to Bukidnon.
Then he
was requested by Gen. Guy O. Fort of the USAFFE high command to become his aide
de camp and then tasked to organize the Moro Battalion in the southern part of
Lanao. But the Japanese were relentless. Ali and his men were forced to drop
back to Karomatan where he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant for saving the life
of an American officer.
Finally, unable to withstand the onslaught, Gen.
Jonathan Wainwright IV, Commander of the Allied forces in the Philippines,
threw in the towel and gave the order to surrender. In turn, Gen. Fort, along
with the USAFFE officers, and Dimaporo ended up incarcerated at the
concentration camp in Camp Keithley in Marawi. A few months after in July 1942,
Dimaporo was released by the Japanese on the expectation that he would do as
they bid in the pacification campaign. In exchange for a pledge to bring about
the surrender of Captain Mamarinta Lao and Major Manalao Mindalano, the highest
ranking Muslim officer in USAFFE (United States Armed Forces in the Far East),
he was provided with thirty rifles and two launches to patrol Laka Lanao for
the purpose.
For a
while, Dimaporo feigned obedience and played the part. He made public his
support of the Japanese plans for the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere" and urged his fellow Maranaos to cultivate the land and desist
violence against the occupying forces. He also collected firearms for surrender
as a token of his "sincerity." Seeing the relationship blossoming,
the Japanese provided him two vehicles to trade on rice, coffee and tobacco
between Lanao and Misamis Oriental, and he was assigned in the repair of roads
and bridges, even as he was cautiously mustering enough forces to break away.
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This was
a daring move for Ali, a shot in the dark, for there was no way of clearing his
plan with any upper command. He was improvising on his own. Recruiting a
company was all gut feel and fraught with danger as one would have no way of
ascertaining whether a candidate was a spy. A Macario Tucao of Malabang
squealed on him. The Garrison Commander, Captain Ishima, summoned him to the
headquarters and gave him a lecture with a stinging slap at the face. This
humiliation never left Ali.
The
opportunity to spring his revenge came when Ishima ordered Ali to provide guard
to the Japanese doing repair works on a bridge straddling the boundary of
Malabang and Cotabato. The convoy of three trucks and a flatbed pick-up loaded
with seventeen Japanese soldiers, including Captain Ishima. Dimaporo and
thirty-two of his men, and some 100 Christian civilian workers left Malabang in
the morning and traveled thirty-one kilometers to the site just in time for
lunch.
They
decided to eat first before working. Not suspecting anything, the Japanese
soldiers laid their rifles at the base of the trees, grouped themselves and
started eating their food and chuckling. Ali's men waited for the signal, which
was tying a handkerchief round his wrist. As he did so, his men opened fire on
the Japanese and all were killed. They then took all the weapons, anything
useful, and had some them of the men don Japanese uniforms, and drove back to
Malabang.
Before
taking the town, Ali's uncle, Sayīk Batawi {Datumulok} had some reservations on
the non-combatant Christians workers. He wanted them all executed, arguing that
he feared that these "weaklings" might squeal on the group. But Ali
would have none of this nonsense, and pointed to the real enemy--the Japanese.
Eventually, they released all the workers and everyone went their separate
ways. Ali grouped his men into three and attacked, the garrison, the outpost at
Fort Corcuera (renamed Fort Abad Santos in honor of the Chief Justice executed
by the Japanese in Malabang), and the detachment at the airport. The
annihilation was successful, and after a short-lived celebration, Malabang
braced itself for the expected retaliation. The residents were herded to the
hills, and the town became a virtual ghost-town, and except for the tight
circle of Ali's men, only the howling of dogs at the far end of the downtown
could be heard as the troops waited anxiously.
The key
to the defense was to block entry of reinforcements at the Matling bridge,
manned by Macapangkat Tomara. After three days of waiting, a massive contingent
of Japanese soldiers finally came from Cotabato. Realizing the strength of the
opposition, Ali put up a token fight just to give enough distractions to
preoccupy the enemy to allow his men to his escape unscathed. Japanese warships
then bombarded coastal area to uproot
guerillas wherever they might be in hiding.
Ali
retreated to Lake Lanao in his hometown Binidayan. True to form, he employed
some delaying tactics to ward off the impending attack in his territory by
sometimes offering to surrender and then haggling on for some terms and
conditions. He also offered for a peace conference in Binidayan or Wato; in
turn, the Japanese offered him a safe conduct to a meeting in Malabang or
Dansalan. But each would not be fooled by the other. The haggling continued and
Ali was only too happy to temporize until he was served a notice from the
USAFFE to prepare for a massive uprising in anticipation of an American
landing. The operations was so successful that when the Americans sent patrols
along the highways toward Lake Lanao it was clear of Japanese already.
He was only twenty seven years old then at this time, and he was just getting started in life. These experience was mostly responsible in molding Ali's life. It pays for our present leaders who tend to be tender at the bellies to emulate his unorthodox handling of situations which is a study in grand strategies endemic to the Ranaū-Iranūn. His steadfastness where he cannot be sidetracked by petty ambitions was without peer. He could walk the wire. Call him a 'mad dog' if you will, but he sniffed trouble by a mile. I believe that were he alive today, he could have offhandedly diffused the tense situation in Marawi, without breaking a sweat, before things had gone haywire.
