In the late 1990s she took up AB Development Communication, majoring in Broadcasting, at the University of Southern Mindanaos Kabacan, North Cotabato campus. Her goal was to take up Law after graduation. The motive for this was two-fold, she says.
Her parents, who owned a small restaurant, earn lower than her aunts and uncles. One of her reasons for wanting to take up Law was the desire to help bring their family up from the hard life.
The other reason, she says, was that she wanted even then to defend the rights of her fellow Muslims and she thought that being a lawyer was the best way to do it.
Her developing awareness of social realities led her to join the League of Filipino Students (LFS) chapter at the University of Southern Mindanao of which she eventually became the spokesperson. In 2000-2001, she served as president of the University Student Council, which she led in campaigning for various causes.
After graduation, she became a full-time activist instead of pursuing her original dream of becoming a lawyer. In 2002, she became one of the founding members of the Suara Bangsamoro Party.
One of our reasons for founding the Suara Bangsamoro Party is that the Moro people have no voice (in the countrys political life), she says. We want the Moro people to have a voice, to have legitimate representation, in Congress. At the minimum we want to be able to block anti-Moro and anti-people policies of the government.
The Suara Bangsamoro Party, Ampatuan says, aims to: Uphold the Moro peoples right to self-determination, promote a politics of self-reliance, bring about a progressive and healthy interaction between the Moro and Filipino peoples, forge a just peace not only in Mindanao but throughout the Philippines, embark on a policy of genuine industrialization and land reform as the path toward eradicating the Moro peoples poverty; create international solidarity against foreign aggression, domination, exploitation, and oppression; and protect the Moro people and their homeland.
There have been many individual politicians and even several party-list groups from Mindanao claiming to represent the Moro people. How does the Suara Bangsamoro Party differ from them?
The Suara Bangsamoro Party has been consistent in speaking out on various issues affecting the Moro people, particularly the massive human rights violations, she says. There have been many Moro politicians who claim to represent our people but have never taken a clear stand for our cause, who have not come up with programs responding to the basic needs of the Moro communities. To this day there are many Moro communities in Mindanao that lack even basic services like water and electricity.
The Suara Bangsamoro Party has never allowed and will never allow big politicians or clans to dictate upon it, to make it sacrifice its principles, she added.
The Suara Bangsamoro Party ran for party-list seats in the 2004 elections, with its secretary-general Amirah Ali Lidasan a former chairperson of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) as its first nominee. It lost, however, having fallen victim to the dagdag-bawas (vote-padding and vote-shaving) that is known to be widespread in vote-rich Mindanao.
Ampatuan says the group has learned hard lessons from the 2004 elections which she hopes would help it achieve success in its second electoral bid for Congress. Bulatlat
