SAMBISIG aims to challenge and prevent violent extremism through civic awareness, civic responsibility, and civic engagement by means of arts, community service, social media, and education. Forty five minutes away from our university, on May 23, 2017 the ISIS-inspired extremist group attacked Marawi City which caused outright fear and led to the displacement of thousands of families. Series of sp
eculations are circulating online as to the cause of the siege: some blamed the government for its failure to manage the security issues, while some pointed out that the attack was an implication of the administration’s war on drugs. Most importantly, the siege galvanized the century-old cultural biases and prejudices among the tri-people of Mindanao, reflected in the hateful messages circulated around social media, and even in radio commentaries. Such century-old cultural and religious biases and prejudices has been operative in the minds and hearts of young Mindanaoans and has aggravated the four centuries of war. The proponents ourselves experienced in our childhood days such cultural and religious biases and prejudices which are transferred to us by no less than our parents and elders through oral history: be it part of bedtime stories or at times when our elders want to lock our feet at home. Continuing cultural bias against each other’s culture is a contributory factor paving the way to violent extremism. As our way of challenging violent extremism, we in Sambisig organized ourselves to spread positive messages online and be a support to our peers. Sambisig is a Peer to Peer (P2P) initiative which aims to challenge violent extremism through civic awareness, civic responsibility, and civic engagement by means of arts, community service, social media, and education.
