Acting Maguindanao Governor Bai Nariman Ambolodto

SHARIFF AGUAK, Maguindanao—Nariman “Ina” Ambolodto somehow doesn’t fit in the office of Andal Ampatuan Sr., the former governor of this province who is now in a police detention center in nearby General Santos City.

It is an enormous room with three sets of heavy living-room furniture, including leather sofas, and a long, oval 16-seater conference table facing his desk. One side door leads to a dining room with French-inspired chairs, a round table that sits six, and a glass cabinet with wine glasses and delicate china. Another door leads to a spacious toilet with a jacuzzi bath as its centerpiece.

Soft-spoken Ina Ambolodto, 41, this scarred province’s transition governor, comes from a world foreign to the Ampatuans. She belonged to the early wave of evacuees in the 70s—today, they are called internally displaced persons or IDPs—when war broke out between the Muslim insurgents and government forces. Her parents prized education so they sent her to school despite the bursts of conflict and their hardscrabble life.

Later, on scholarship, she took her postgraduate degree at the University of the Philippines Institute of Islamic Studies.

Ina was at the academe—she taught at the Notre Dame University where she finished her undergraduate course—when she entered politics. She was appointed vice mayor of a newly created municipality in 2007 and moved on as board member, the only woman in the group and the top vote-getter of Shariff Kabunsuan, a short-lived province carved out of Maguindanao.

“I was pinching myself during my first day in office,” Ina says, still amazed by the experience. “I couldn’t believe that I replaced the most powerful man in Maguindanao.”

OIC vice governor and governor

When she received a call at the unholy hour of 1:30 a.m. on December 15, she was informed that she would be installed as OIC vice-governor in a few hours. Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno was coming over so Ina, with little sleep, showed up at the provincial capitol which, by that time, had already been ransacked.

“The computers were gone, the files, even the water dispensers, sound system, microphones,” narrates Ina.

When Puno arrived by helicopter from General Santos City, he hurriedly administered her oath as vice-governor. But there was no one else with Ina, no governor. As if in an afterthought, Puno told Ina that she was to serve as OIC governor, too, in a concurrent capacity. He then assigned two teams from the police’s Special Action Force to provide her 24/7 security. This came as a big surprise to Ina.

Looking back, she said that the first things she did were to call meetings of board members, heads of offices, conduct housekeeping, and do an inventory of equipment and furniture.

Mission: To restore normalcy

A political novice, with only two years in local government, she has set goals for her six-month tenure. Wearing denims and a pink long-sleeve blouse, Ina talks about her mission for Maguindanao: “I want to do so many things in a short period of time. First is to restore normalcy, for people to report to their offices, conduct transactions.”

The more difficult goal is “how to erase the bad image of Maguindanao, the IDPs, the massacre.” She reflects and says she wants to achieve one thing: that there will be no more IDPs, no more evacuation centers. “They’re becoming tourist attractions. They (evacuees) should have livelihood, not just food.”

When she visits the evacuation sites, she sees her past. And she says that she always leaves one message with the displaced mothers: “Don’t neglect your children, send them to school.” And she tells them her story.

But the awesome responsibility of steering Maguindanao out of poverty is out of Ina’s hands. Whoever will win in May will inherit one of the poorest provinces in the country (eighth in the bottom ten of the provinces ranked by the Human Development Index in 2006). It is also deeply feudal.

'We miss Ampatuans'

The reality is: It will be hard to erase the Ampatuans from this province. They are still very much around. Andal Sr. is running for vice-governor after almost a decade as governor. Talk here is that some of the candidates for governor are allied with the Ampatuans.

Along the highway, streamers shout “We miss you, Idol! We love you!” showing a photo of one of the Ampatuan sons, Datu Anwar. It was his 38th birthday. Anwar, mayor of Shariff Aguak, is detained with the family patriarch in General Santos City.

A few minutes away, in Datu Hoffer town, a newly built grandiose municipal hall—in the scale of the Ampatuans’ mansions—stands out in a desolate area, and enjoys a commanding view of the sloping fields. The mayor of this dirt-poor town is the wife of ARMM Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan.

Most of the seven living children of Andal Sr. (two have died) are in local government, either as politicians or as employees.

When Ina steps down end of June, so will the province’s brief respite from the warlords.