Abstract
Of all the principles connected to our daily life as well as to our sacred struggle, the most important one which lives through our consciousness, is the aliyan or slogan of hula-bangsa-agama. This is the aliyan of the time. This was the aliyan of our forebears during their times, crossing waves upon waves of colonial disaster besetting the collective life of the Tausug as a nation. Resounding across generations the love for hula-bangsa-agama is actually the hallmark of the Tausug national consciousness, which continues to awaken and to nurture the psyche of some Tausug up to this day. These holy words are not just a mere slogan. Hula-bangsa-agama is a padduman or political doctrine visualizing the Tausug concept of state. It is a vision, an ideology, a principle, and a shield against disunity. Unfortunately, the exact discourse of this hula-bangsa-agama did not survive to the present. Treatise dealing with this hula-bangsa-agama got destroyed during the 1635 battle against the colonial invaders, then again in 1876 when the Spaniards finally occupied our city until 1899.