BIPPI
 B's Independent Pro-Peace Initiative |
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Secessionist insurgency
in south Philippines
– 1969/2008
The Philippines,
officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an archipelagic
nation located in Southeast Asia, with Manila as its capital city.
The Philippine Archipelago comprises 7,107 islands in the western
Pacific Ocean, of which only c. 400 are permanently inhabited.
THE CONFLICT AT A GLANCE
The confrontation between Philippine
government and Muslim secessionists on the southern island of Mindanao,
which began in 1969, have caused 120,000 deaths and displaced up to 2
million people.
The Mindanao
conflict is deeply rooted in the colonial
history of the country. Muslims arrived in the
Philippines in the 13th century. Mindanao, the
southernmost of the country's three regions, was
ruled by Muslim sultanates well before Spanish
Christians arrived in the second half of the
16th century, finding strong opposition to their
rule in the Muslim area. When the Philippines passed from
Spanish to American colonial rule at the end of
the Spanish-American War in 1898, large areas of
the Muslim south remained untouched. A process
of forced economic and political integration
started
in the first decades of the 20th century. After
independence, in 1946, the government encouraged Catholic
settlers to move from the north to resource-rich
Mindanao, displacing the comparatively poorer
Muslim communities. Today more
than 120,000 people remain uprooted by the
fighting, an estimate considered to be
conservative. Politics and
religion aside, much of the violence is fuelled
by deep poverty rooted in decades of
under-investment.
Politics The
Philippines is divided into three island groups :
Luzon,
Visayas, and
Mindanao. These are divided into
17 regions,
81 provinces,
131 cities,
1,497 municipalities, and 41,994
barangays. On
July 24,
2006, the
State of the Nation Address of
President
Arroyo announced the proposal to create five
economic
super regions to concentrate on the economic
strengths in a specific
area.
TYPE OF CONFLICT
FIGHTING FACTIONS FROM LATE 1960s TO 2007 2) Several Islamic groups acting with separate goals: Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Abu Sayyaf (ASG) Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) Al Qaeda-inspired groups (i.e. Rajah Soliman Movement, Abu Sofia, etc.)
«
The first thing we need to do in order to understand the complex
issue involved in the present Mindanao War is to distinguish the
different Muslim actors. This is NOT a popular view, because from
the Presidency to the people in the street, there is a natural
proclivity to adopt a simplistic view of the complex issue and thus
advocate for simplistic solution such as the prevailing "all out
military solution" expressed in various slogans like: "final
solution," "total war,"... » New People's Army (NPA) is a Maoist paramilitary group fighting for communist revolution in the Philippines. Read on militias
CASUALTIES
Read on internally displaced people
WEAPONS' SUPPLIERS
Read on
guerrilla warfare
and
arms industry
The struggle is rooted to the
conflicts caused by Spanish and US colonisation, beginning in 1521.
However, religion is but one difference, even if a large one,
between the so-called
Moro people
and the rest of
Filipinos. Culture, language, and
tradition are also divisive.
On a larger scale, the Muslim
insurgency in the Philippines is an outgrowth of the division of the
Malay Archipelago by European and American colonial powers. The
colonies that became the nations of
Indonesia,
Philippines,
Malaysia, and
Thailand lumped together and split indigenous peoples of
hundreds of languages and cultures into modern western-like nations,
trying to
assimilate them into "nationalities." There is no doubt that all
of these indigenous groups have suffered immeasurably to avoid
destruction of their culture, language, and livelihood.
Politics, history and religion aside, it must be
said that much of the
present violence is fuelled by deep poverty rooted in decades of
under-investment in the region.
Early history
The term Negrito refers to a small-statured,
dwindling ethnic group which is now restricted to isolated parts of
Southeast Asia. Negritos are arguably the most enigmatic people
on our planet as they belong to an ancient stratum of
Homo sapiens in Asia. No other living human population has
experienced such long-lasting isolation from contact with other
groups.
[1] Their current populations include the
Aeta,
Ati and at least 25 other tribes of the
Philippines, the
Semang of the
Malay peninsula, the
Mani of
Thailand and 12
Andamanese tribes of the
Andaman Islands.
"Negrito" is the
Spanish diminutive of
negro, i.e. "little black person", referring to their small
stature, and was coined by early European invaders and explorers who
assumed that the Negritos were from Africa. Occasionally, some
Negritos are referred to as
pygmies, bundling them with peoples of similar physical stature
in Central Africa.
The Malay people are believed to have
originated in Borneo and then expanded outwards into Sumatra and
later into the Malay Peninsula.
The social and political organization of the
population, in the widely scattered islands, evolved into a
generally common pattern. Only the permanent-field rice farmers of
northern
Luzon had any concept of territoriality. The basic unit of
settlement was the
barangay, originally a kinship group headed by a
datu (chief). Within the barangay, the broad social divisions
consisted of the maharlika (nobles),
including the datu; timawa (freemen);
and a group described before the Spanish period as dependents.
Dependents included several categories with differing status:
landless agricultural workers; those who had lost freeman status
because of indebtedness or punishment for crime; and alipin
(slaves), most of whom appear to have been war captives.
The Philippines had cultural and trade relations
with India, China, and Islamic merchants as early as the 9th
century.
In the 13th century Arab traders from
Malay, Borneo and the
Indonesian islands started introducing
Islam into the southern islands.
By the 13th century, Islam was established in the
Sulu Archipelago and spread from there to
Mindanao; it had reached the area of modern Manila by 1565.
Although Islam spread as far north as
Luzon, animism was still the religion of the
majority of the Philippine islands. Muslim immigrants introduced a
political concept of territorial states ruled by
rajas or
sultans who exercised
suzerainty over the datu. Neither the political state concept of
the Muslim rulers nor the limited territorial concept of the
sedentary rice farmers of Luzon, however, spread beyond the areas
where they originated.
Before the arrival of the Spanish colonialists
the
Bangsamoro
was already in the process of state formation and governance. In the
middle of the 15th century Sultan Shariff ul-Hashim
established the Sulu Sultanate followed by the establishment of the
Magindanaw Sultanate in the early part of the 16th century by
Shariff Muhammad Kabungsuwan. Their experience on state formation
continued with the establishment of the Sultanate of Buayan, the Pat
a Pangampong ko Ranao (Confederation of the Four Lake-based
Emirates) and other political institutions. These states were
already engaged in trade and diplomatic relations with other
countries, including China. Administrative and political systems
based on the realities of the time existed in those states. In fact,
it was with the existence of this well-organized administrative and
political system that the Bangsamoro people managed to survive the
military campaigns against them by Western colonial powers for
several centuries and preserve their identity as a political and
social entity.
When the
Spanish arrived in the 16th century, an estimated 500,000 people
lived in the Philippines area.
The first Europeans to visit (1521) the
Philippines were those in the Spanish expedition around the world
led by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. Other Spanish
expeditions followed, including one from New Spain (Mexico) under
López de Villalobos, who in 1542 named the islands for the infante
Philip, later Philip II.
Spanish
Manila repulsed the attack of the Chinese
pirate Limahong in 1574. For centuries before the Spanish arrived
the Chinese had traded with the Filipinos, but evidently none had
settled permanently in the islands until after the conquest. Chinese
trade and labor were of great importance in the early development of
the Spanish colony, but the Chinese came to be feared and hated
because of their increasing numbers, and in 1603 the Spanish
murdered thousands of them (later, there were lesser massacres of
the Chinese).
The Spanish governor, made a Viceroy in 1589, ruled with the advice
of the powerful royal audiencia. There were frequent uprisings by
the Filipinos, who resented the encomienda system.
The encomienda system was a
trusteeship labor system employed by the Spanish crown during
the
Spanish colonization of the Americas and the
Philippines in order to consolidate their conquests.
Conquistadors were granted trusteeship over the
indigenous people they conquered, in an expansion of familiar
medieval
feudal institutions. The maximum size of an encomienda was three
hundred Amerindians, although they were usually much smaller. The
encomenderos were similar to feudal lords in that they were entitled
to demand tribute from the people under their care in the form of
specie, kind, or corvee, but differed in that they were not given
juridical authority. In exchange for the right to collect this
tribute, the encomenderos were charged with maintaining order
through an established military and providing instruction in
Catholicism. As European disregard for the Amerindians led to
widespread corruption and abuses, the system that was intended to
assist in the evangelization of the Natives and the establishment of
a stable society became a force for oppression and enslavement.
Although the Crown reserved the right to revoke an encomienda from
the hands of an unjust encomendero, it rarely did.
By the end of the 16th century Manila had become a leading commercial
center of East Asia, carrying on a flourishing trade with China,
India, and the East Indies. The Philippines supplied some wealth
(including gold) to Spain, and the richly laden galleons plying
between the islands and New Spain were often attacked by English
freebooters. There was also trouble from other quarters, and the
period from 1600 to 1663 was marked by continual wars with the
Dutch, who were laying the foundations of their rich empire in the
East Indies, and with Moro pirates. One of the most difficult
problems the Spanish faced was the subjugation of the Moros.
Intermittent campaigns were conducted against them but without
conclusive results until the middle of the 19th cent.
The term “Moro” was the appellation
applied to all the Muslim population of Southeast Asia by the
Portuguese who seized Melaka in 1511. The Moros are today a
multilingual ethnic group and they mostly live in a region dubbed as
Bangsamoro in the southern Philippines. Bangsamoro was
originally home to the Muslim sultanates of Mindanao (such as
Maguindanao and
Sulu).
As the power of the Spanish Empire waned, the Jesuit orders became more influential in the Philippines and acquired great amounts of property, while the sultanate was taken by internal struggles and international claims, aiming to keep as much power as possible more than to protect the people. The power of the clergy together Spanish injustices, bigotry, and economic oppressions fed the rising sentiment for independence, greatly inspired by the brilliant writings of José Rizal. José Rizal is considered a national hero and the anniversary of Rizal's death is commemorated as a Philippine holiday called Rizal Day. He was a member of a wealthy mestizo family but he felt limited by Spanish insistence on promoting only "pure-blooded" Spaniards. He began his political career at the University of Madrid in 1882 where he became the leader of Filipino students there. For the next ten years he traveled in Europe and wrote several novels considered seditious by Filipino and Church authorities. He returned to Manila in 1892 and founded La Liga Filipina, a political group dedicated to peacefully unite the whole archipelago into one vigorous and homogenous organization. He was rapidly exiled to Mindanao. During his absence, Andrés Bonifacio and other members of the Liga founded the revolutionary organization Katipunan, dedicated to the violent overthrow of Spanish rule. When the Philippine Revolution started on August 26, 1896, Rizal was convicted of rebellion, sedition and of forming illegal association, condemned and shot dead at Bagumbayan Field.
Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro is regarded as the "Father of
the Philippine Revolution" and one of the most influential national
heroes of his country, eventually given the title of Supremo..
Born to a Tagalog father and a Spanish mestiza mother, he was a
clerk before becoming a nationalist leader and poet. Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy was a Filipino general, politician, and independence leader, who played an instrumental role in Philippine independence during the Philippine Revolution against Spain and the Philippine-American War that resisted American occupation. In the Philippines, Aguinaldo is considered to be the country's first and the youngest Philippine President, though his government failed to obtain any foreign recognition. The
Philippine Revolution followed the creation of La Liga
Filipina and the Katipunan. Even the election of Bonifacio as Secretary of the Interior was questioned by an Aguinaldo supporter, claiming Bonifacio had not the necessary schooling for the job. Insulted, Bonifacio declared the Convention null and void, and sought to return to his power base in Rizal. Bonifacio was charged, tried and found guilty of treason (in absentia) by a Cavite military tribunal. As a consequense he was sentenced to death. Aguinaldo's soldiers caught up with Bonifacio in the town of Indang. They surrounded the house and asked Bonifacio and his men to disarm and come out peacefully but Bonifacio refused and violence followed, during which the Supremo was wounded. Then Aguinaldo confirmed the death sentence, and the dying Bonifacio was hauled to the mountains of Maragondon in Cavite, and executed on May 10, 1897, even as Aguinaldo and his forces were retreating in the face of government troops augmented by new recruits from Spain. The new Spanish Governor-General Fernando Primo de Rivera declared, "I can take Biak-na-Bato. Any army can capture it. But I cannot end the rebellion". Then he offered peace to the revolutionaries. Lawyer Pedro Paterno volunteered as negotiator between the two sides. For four months, he travelled between Manila and Biak-na-Bato. His hard work finally bore fruit when, on December 14-15, 1897, the Pact of Biak-na-Bato was signed, which specified that the Spanish would give self-rule to the Philippines within 3 years if Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo was exiled. In accordance with the pact, Aguinaldo and twenty five other top officials of the revolution were banished to Hong Kong with 400,000 pesos in their pockets, that they subsequently used to buy weapons to resume the fight, while the rest of the men got 200,000 pesos. However, thousands of other Katipuneros continued to fight the Revolution against Spain for a sovereign nation. Unlike Aguinaldo who came from a privileged background, the bulk of these fighters were peasants and workers who were not willing to settle for 'indemnities.' American
colonisation Following declaration of war, Commodore George Dewey sailed from Hong Kong with Emilio Aguinaldo on board, in the hope he would rally Filipinos against the Spanish colonial government. Fighting began in the Philippine islands at the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, where Commodore Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet. However, he did not have enough manpower to capture Manila and so Aguinaldo's guerrillas made the big job and took control of the entire island of Luzon, except for the walled city of Intramuros. On June 12, 1898, Aguinaldo declared the independence of the Philippines. Then 15,000 US troops arrived at the end of July. Although a peace protocol was signed by the two belligerents on August 12, Commodore Dewey and Maj. Gen. Wesley Merritt, leader of the army troops, assaulted Manila the very next day, unaware that peace had broken out, and captured the city. This battle marked an end of Filipino-American collaboration, as Filipino forces were prevented from entering the captured city of Manila, an action which was deeply resented by the Filipinos and which later led to the Philippine-American War.
On
June 12, 1898, Filipino revolutionary forces under General
Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed the sovereignty and independence of the
Philippines from the colonial rule of Spain. The formal
Philippine Declaration of Independence proclamed by the
Dictatorial Government of the Philippines of Emilio Aguinaldo
essentially placed the Philippines under the protection of the
United States, so that it was later modified by another
proclamation. The dictatorial government then in place was replaced
by a revolutionary government headed by Emilio Aguinaldo as
president on June 23, 1898. The Treaty of Paris was signed on December 10, 1898, ending the Spanish-American War only 109 days after the outbreak. Spain ceded to the US, for $20 million, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Caroline Islands, Guam and the entire Philippines, despite the controversial situation created in 1878 with the Sultan of Sulu concerning protectorate or dependency of the Moro territories. Included in this cession were the territories of Mindanao and Sulu, which actually had not been in full Spanish control. About two years later, on November 7, 1900, the US paid an additional $100,000 to Spain to include in the 1898 cession the Sulu islands stretching as far west as Sibutu and Cagayan de Sulu. Following the Treaty of Paris, the Americans asked the Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram II, to recognize the US in the place of Spain, and honor the 1878 provisions of the treaty, which the Sultan had signed with Spain. As first, the Sultan refused, stating that the US was a different entity. But the Sultan was not supported by his ruling council and after few months he had to concede to the Americans. In place of the Spanish treaty, the Sultan presented Brig. General John Bates with a 16-point proposal. The proposal allowed the US to fly its flag side by side with the Sultanate's and required the US to continue monthly payments to the Sultan and his datus. The US was not to occupy any of the land without the permission of the Sultan. The Sultan's proposal was rejected by Bates, because it did not acknowledge US sovereignty. Bates then countered with his 15-point proposal, which included the recognition of US sovereignty over Sulu and its dependencies, the guarantee of non-interference with Moro religion and customs and a pledge that the "US will not sell the island of Jolo or any other island of the Sulu Archipelago to any foreign nation without the consent of the Sultan." The sultan resisted Bates's offer for several months, but he could not get unanimous support from his ruma bichara (ruling council) to press for his demands to the Americans. Because of this internal dissension, led by his own prime minister and adviser Hadji Butu and two of his top ranking datus, Datu Jolkanairn and Datu Kalbi, the sultan conceded to the Americans. Officially, Hadji Butu cooperated with the Americans and "advised his people to accept American rule, for the sake of peace and to prevent unnecessary loss of lives and property in Sulu" (Senate of the Philippines). In February 1899, Aguinaldo led a new revolt, this time against US rule. Defeated on the battlefield, the Filipinos turned to guerrilla warfare. On May 19, 1899, while the forces of the First Philippine Republic under President Emilio Aguinaldo were resisting the American invaders, two American battalions occupied Jolo. The following month, on August 20, Hadji Butu, representing Sultan Jamalul Kiram II, concluded a treaty with General John C. Bates. According to this so-called “Bates Treaty,” the Sultan of Sulu recognized American sovereignty and, in return, the United states recognized the sultanate as an American protectorate and agreed to respect the Islamic religion and customs (including polygamy and slavery) of the Taosug people and not to cede or sell Sulu or any part of it to any foreign country. This treaty was based on the earlier Spanish treaty, and it retained the translation error: the English version described a complete dependency, while the Tausug version described a protectorate. Article I of the Treaty in the Tausug version states "The support, aid, and protection of the Jolo Island and Archipelago are in the American nation," whereas the English version read "The sovereignty of the United States over the whole Archipelago of Jolo and its dependencies is declared and acknowledged."
Although the Bates Treaty granted more powers to the Americans than
the original Spanish treaty, the treaty was still criticized in
America for granting too much autonomy to the Sultan, particularly
concerning the practice of slavery.
On October 10, 1904,
Hadji Butu
was appointed by the American military authorities as assistant to
the Military Governor of the province.
Many Americans strongly opposed this new trend of
imperialism and the annexion of the new territories hardly passed in
the Congress. Then Theodore Roosevelt became the twenty-sixth US
president after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901.
Roosevelt strongly supported American expansionism, and increased
the size of the military to implement it. His policy was epitomized
in the phrase, “Speak softly, but carry a big stick."
On June 1, 1903, the
Moro Province
was created, which included "all of the territory of the Philippines
lying south of the eighth parallel of latitude, excepting the island
of Palawan and the eastern portion of the northwest peninsula of
Mindanao". English was declared the official language. Six
hundred American teachers were imported aboard the USS Thomas.
Although a Filipino was always appointed chief justice, the majority
of the members of the Supreme Court were Americans. Also, the
Catholic Church was disestablished, and a substantial amount of
church land was purchased and redistributed. Some measures of
Filipino self-rule were allowed, however. The province had a civil government, but many civil
service positions, including the district governors and their
deputies, were held by members of the American military. This system
of combined civil and military administration had several
motivations behind it. One was the continued Moro hostilities.
Another was the Army's experience during the Indian Wars, when it
came into conflict with the civilian
Bureau of Indian Affairs. A third was that the Moros, with
their feudal society, would have no respect for a military leader
who submitted to the authority of a non-combatant.
Not surprisingly, Wood’s policies met with increased
opposition. The elimination of slavery and the traditional legal
code struck directly at the power of the datus, and some of them
decided to take up arms against the Americans. Other Moros chose to
resist for religious reasons, fearing the Americans would eventually
demand that they convert to Christianity. The Cedula Act also
created intense resentment among many Moros who saw compliance as a
form of tribute to a non-Islamic government. The Moro rebellion took several forms even if the American occupation forces did not face a unified insurgency or nationalistic movement, but rather the forces of individual datus who refused to accept American control as well as localized popular uprisings. Some Moros, especially on heavily forested Mindanao, practiced guerrilla warfare, raiding US encampments for weapons and setting ambushes on jungle trails. The most unnerving form of Moro resistance was the juramentado, or suicide attack. A juramentado attacker would seek to reach paradise by slaying as many nonbelievers as possible before being killed himself. Such attacks were not common, but they occurred often enough to keep the Americans on edge. The Moro rebellion was an ugly war, poorly armed Moro warriors against seasoned US Army regulars. The Moro weapon of choice was the kris, a short sword with a wavy blade; the Americans used Springfield rifles and field guns. Obviously, the Americans never lost an engagement. Yet even as they demolished one Moro stronghold after another and wracked up an impressive body count, the fighting persisted. Modern Muslim inhabitants of the southern Philippines see the Moro Rebellion as one phase of a continuing struggle against non-Muslim influences, the Spanish, the Americans, and the central government of the Philippines.
To keep full control of the Moro territory, Wood
engaged in strong military actions against the rebels but the usual
result of the indiscriminate firing by US soldiers was the killing
of women and children and burning houses and crops. Any punitive
expeditions left people without homes or food, children without
parents, clans without leaders, and contributed to the breakdown of
the Moro social order. In late 1905, hundreds of Moros-determined to avoid paying the cedula head tax, which they considered blasphemous-began, took refuge on the peak of Bud Dajo, a volcanic crater on the island of Jolo, in the Southern Philippines. Refusing orders to disperse, they set themselves up as ''patriots". In response Wood dispatched several battalions of infantry to Bud Dajo with orders to ''clean it up." On March 5, 1906, the reinforcements arrived and laid siege to the heights. The next day, they began shelling the crater with artillery. At daybreak on March 7, the final assault commenced, the Americans working deliberately along the rim of the crater and firing into the pit. When the action finally ended some 24 hours later, the extermination of as many as 1,000 Filipino Muslims had been accomplished. Only six of them survived in front of 15 to 18 American casualties. Among the dead laid several hundred women and children.
During the Moro Rebellion, the Americans suffered clear cut losses, amounting to 130 killed and 323 wounded. Another 500 or so died of disease. The Philippine Scouts who augmented American forces during the campaign suffered 116 killed and 189 wounded. The Philippine Constabulary, a local police force, suffered heavily as well, more than 1,500 losses sustained, half of which fatalities. On the Moro side, losses were remarkably high, with several thousand killed and wounded. Estimates range from 10,000 to well over 20,000 killed, with an unknown number of wounded. (Wikipedia, Moro rebellion)
The
battles at places like Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak long ago faded from
the consciousness of Americans—in fact, they were not much noticed
by Americans even at the time. Among the Moros, however, the US
campaigns were of major importance. The high Moro death tolls
resulting from US military operations contributed to the
development of an anti-US sentiment that continues today. That
sentiment became obvious in February 2003 when the Philippine
Government announced it would participate in Operation Balikatan, a
joint exercise with the United States on Jolo. The government’s
announcement provoked loud condemnations from many Filipinos,
including nationalists who feared the United States would use the
exercise as a way to become directly involved in combat against the
Islamic groups, a role they said the Philippines
Constitution prohibited. Equally significant was the reaction of the
residents of Jolo. A journalist visiting the island shortly after
the announcement reported an outpouring of opposition to the idea of
US troops arriving. A banner in the island’s main port read, “We
will not let history repeat itself! Yankee back off.” The island’s
radio station played traditional ballads with new lyrics: “We heard
the Americans are coming and we are getting ready. We are sharpening
our swords to slaughter them when they come. . . . Our ancestors are
calling for revenge.”25 In the face of growing opposition, the
Philippine Government canceled the exercises on Jolo.26 For the
Moros, whose ballads and storytelling keep events of the past alive,
the US military’s occupation a century before remains a source of
ill will toward the United States. When Woodrow Wilson became US President in 1913, there was a major change in official American policy concerning the Philippines. While the previous Republican administrations had predicted the Philippines as a perpetual American colony, the Wilson administration decided to start a process that would slowly lead to Philippine independence. US administration of the Philippines was declared to be temporary and aimed to develop institutions that would permit and encourage the eventual establishment of a free and democratic government. Therefore, US officials concentrated on the creation of such practical supports for democratic government as public education and a sound legal system. The Philippines were granted free trade status, with the US The question of Philippine independence remained a burning issue in the politics of both the United States and the islands. The matter was complicated by the growing economic ties between the two countries. Although comparatively little American capital was invested in island industries, US trade bulked larger and larger until the Philippines became almost entirely dependent upon the American market. Free trade, established by an act of 1909, was expanded in 1913. After 1913, civilians replaced US Army officers in positions in the provincial government, and most US soldiers withdrew. Fighting between Moros and government forces virtually ceased, in part because the disarmament policy had removed thousands of weapons from the province. Perhaps more important, the Moros became more supportive of US rule as the prospects for independence for the Philippines increased; they realized that independence would probably mean their lands would fall under the control of the hated Christian Filipinos. When the US Government promised to grant independence to the Philippines, the Bangsamoro leaders registered their strong objection to be part of the Philippine Republic. In the petition to the US President dated June 9, 1921, the people of the Sulu archipelago said that they would prefer being part of the US rather than to be included in an independent Philippine nation (See Appendix C, Jubair 1999). Bangsamoro leaders meeting in Zamboanga on February 1, 1924, proposed in their Declaration of Rights and Purposes that the "Islands of Mindanao and Sulu, and the Island of Palawan be made an unorganized territory of the United States of America" in anticipation that in the event the US would decolonize its colonies and other non-self governing territories the Bangsamoro homeland would be granted separate independence. Pershing was replaced as governor of Moro Province by a civilian, Frank Carpenter.
Though the bloody campaigns against the Moros
officially ended in 1915, US troops continued to encounter
sporadic Moro attacks for the next two decades. In 1916, the Philippine Autonomy Act, popularly known as the Jones Law, was passed by the US Congress. The law which served as the new organic act (or constitution) for the Philippines, stated in its preamble that the eventual independence of the Philippines would be American policy, subject to the establishment of a stable government. The law maintained the Governor General of the Philippines, appointed by the President of the United States, but established a bicameral Philippine Legislature to replace the elected Philippine Assembly (lower house) and appointive Philippine Commission (upper house) previously in place. The Filipino House of Representatives would be purely elected, while the new Philippine Senate would have the majority of its members elected by senatorial district with senators representing non-Christian areas appointed by the Governor-General. Elections happened on October 3, 1916. The negotiations which concluded in May 1919 gave the sultan a life-time payment of P12,000 per annum and allowed him and his heirs the usufruct use of public lands. Carpenter was confident that with the settlement final, the sultan would now cooperate with the US by fully recognizing US sovereignty over Sulu.
When the Republicans regained power in US in
1921, the trend toward bringing Filipinos into the government
was reversed.
Gen. Leonard Wood, former Governor of the Moro province and
responsible of the
Moro
Crater Massacre,
was appointed governor-general. He largely supplanted Filipino
activities with a semimilitary rule. However, the advent of the
Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s and the first
aggressive moves by Japan in Asia (1931) shifted US sentiment
sharply toward the granting of immediate independence to the
Philippines. Members to the elected Philippine legislature lost no
time in lobbying for immediate and complete independence from the
United States. Several independence missions were sent to
Washington, D.C. A civil service was formed and was regularly taken
over by Filipinos, who had effectively gained control by the end of
World War I. Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina (b. August 19, 1878 in Baler, Aurora, Philippines - d. August 1, 1944 in Saranac Lake, New York, United States) was the first Filipino president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines under US occupation rule. He is also considered by most Filipinos, as the second President, after Emilio Aguinaldo, whose administration did not receive international recognition at the time. He has the distinction of being the first Senate President elected to the presidency, the first president elected through a national election, and was also the first incumbent to secure re-election (for a partial second term, later extended, due to amendments to the 1935 Constitution). He is known as the "Father of the National Language". In 1934, the United States Congress finally passed a new Philippine Independence Act, popularly known as the Tydings-McDuffie Act. The law provided for the granting of Philippine independence by 1946. It closely looked like the Hare-Hawes Cutting Act, but struck the provisions for American bases and carried a promise of further study to correct “imperfections or inequalities.” On March 18, 1935, an assembly of more than 100 Maranao leaders passed a strong worded manifesto known as the Dansalan Declaration addressed to the US President vehemently opposed the annexation of the Bangsamoro homeland in reaction to the US-backed convention organized to write the Philippine constitution. But the Philippine legislature ratified the Tydings-McDuffie Act and the new constitution, approved by President Roosevelt in March 1935, was accepted by the majority of Philippine people in a plebiscite two months later. US rule was accompanied by improvements in the education and health systems of the Philippines; school enrollment rates multiplied fivefold. By the 1930s, literacy rates had reached 50%. Several diseases were virtually eliminated. However, the Philippines remained economically backward. US trade policies encouraged the export of cash crops and the importation of manufactured goods; little industrial development occurred. Meanwhile, landlessness became a serious problem in rural areas; peasants were often reduced to the status of serfs. In September
1935 Manuel L. Quezon won the Philippine's first national
presidential election against Emilio Aguinaldo and Bishop
Gregorio Aglipay. Following a plebiscite, the
Commonwealth
of the Philippines was formally established,
featuring a very strong executive, a unicameral National Assembly,
and a Supreme Court composed entirely of Filipinos for the first
time since 1901. The new government embarked on an ambitious agenda
of establishing the basis for national defense, greater control over
the economy, reforms in education, improvement of transport, the
colonization of the island of Mindanao, and the promotion of local
capital and industrialization. The Commonwealth however, was also
faced with agrarian unrest, an uncertain diplomatic and military
situation in South East Asia, and uncertainty about the level of
United States commitment to the future Republic of the Philippines. In 1939-40,
the Philippine Constitution was revised to restore a bicameral
Congress, and permit the reelection of President Quezon, who was
eventually
reelected in November 1941.
WWII and independence
Japanese troops
attacked the islands in many places and launched a pincer drive on
Manila. Aerial bombardment was followed by landings of ground troops
in Luzon. Under the pressure of superior numbers, the defending
forces withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula and to the island of
Corregidor at the entrance to Manila Bay where they entrenched and
tried to hold until the arrival of reinforcements, meanwhile
guarding the entrance to Manila Bay and denying that important
harbor to the Japanese. But no reinforcements were forthcoming.
Manila, declared an open city to stop its destruction, was occupied
by the Japanese on January 2, 1942. Many individual soldiers refused to surrender, however, and guerrilla resistance, organized and coordinated by US and Philippine army officers, continued throughout the Japanese occupation. MacArthur was ordered out by President Roosevelt and left for Australia on March 11, where he started to plan for a return to the Philippines. Most of the 80,000 prisoners of war captured by the Japanese at Bataan were forced to undertake the notorious Bataan Death March to a prison camp 105 kilometers to the north. It is estimated that as many as 10,000 men died before reaching their destination. Japanese occupation of the Philippines was opposed by such a large-scale underground and guerrilla activity that, by the end of the war, Japan controlled only twelve of the forty-eight provinces. The major element of resistance in the Central Luzon area was furnished by the Hukbalahap (Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa mga Hapon, "People's Army Against the Japanese"), which armed some 30,000 people and extended their control over much of Luzon. The Japanese military authorities immediately began organizing a new government structure in the Philippines. They initially organized a Council of State through which they directed civil affairs until October 1943, when they declared the Philippines an independent republic, headed by President José P. Laurel, former Supreme Court justice. In August 1944, President Quezon died. Vice President Sergio Osmeña became president. Osmeña returned to the Philippines on October 20, 1944, with the first liberation forces, which surprised the Japanese by landing at Leyte, in the heart of the islands, after months of US air strikes against Mindanao.
The landing was
followed (October 23–26) by the greatest naval engagement in
history, called variously the battle of Leyte Gulf and the second
battle of the Philippine Sea. A great US victory, it effectively
destroyed the Japanese navy and opened the way for the recovery of
all the islands. Luzon was invaded (Jan., 1945), and Manila was
taken in February. On July 5, 1945, MacArthur announced “All the
Philippines are now liberated.” Fighting continued until Japan's
formal surrender on September 2, 1945. The Philippines suffered
great loss of life and monstrous physical destruction by the time
the war was over. An estimated 1 million Filipinos had been killed,
and Manila was extensively damaged. The Japanese had suffered over
425,000 dead in the Philippines. Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered Laurel arrested for collaborating with the Japanese. In 1946 he was charged with 132 counts of treason, but was never brought to trial due to the general amnesty granted by President Manuel Roxas in 1948. The Philippine congress met on June 9, 1945, for the first time since its election in 1941. It faced huge problems. The land was destroyed by war, the economy destroyed, the country torn by political warfare and guerrilla violence. Osmeña’s leadership was challenged in January 1946 when one wing (now the Liberal party) of the Nationalist party nominated for president Manuel Roxas, who defeated Osmeña in April.
As the US was preparing to give the Philippines
commonwealth status in preparation for its independence in 1946,
some Moro leaders favored integration into the republic but majority
from both Sulu and Mindanao protested the plan to incorporate their
homeland into the Philippine state.
The Republic of the Philippines
In March, 1947,
the Philippines and the United States signed a military assistance
pact and the Philippines gave the United States a 99-year lease on
designated military, naval, and air bases. At the beginning of 1967
a second agreement reduced that period to 25 years
After independence, efforts to integrate the Muslims into the new
political order met with stiff resistance. It was unlikely that the
Muslim Filipinos, who have had longer cultural history as Muslims
than the Christian Filipinos as Christian, would surrender their
identity.
The Hukbalahap, commonly known as
Huks, was the military arm of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (PKP), formed in 1942 to
fight the
Japanese Empire's occupation of the Philippines during World War
II. The term is a contraction of the Filipino term "Hukbong
Bayan Laban sa mga Hapon", which means "People's Army Against the
Japanese."
After its inception
the group grew quickly and by late summer 1943 claimed to have
20,000 active military fighters and 50,000 more in reserve. Weaponry
was obtained primarily by stealing it from battlefields and downed
planes left behind by the Japanese, Filipinos and Americans.
After the war, the
Hukbalahaps remained active, although to a lesser extent and with
their power diminished.
Under the leadership of
Luis Taruc and Communist Party General Secretary
Jose Lava,
the Hukbalahap
continued waging guerrilla warfare against the United States and
later against the first independent governments. The Hukbalahap Insurrection (1946-1954) was
their attempt to take over the Philippines, but they were accused to
commit rape, robberies and murders against unarmed civilians. The Hukbong Mapagpalya ng Bayan was again ressurected as Bagong Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan during the early 1960s, but the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas shifted from the use of armed struggle to parliamentary struggle. In November 1953, Ramón Magsaysay had became president of the country, having defeated Quirino. He had promised sweeping economic changes, and he did make progress in land reform, opening new settlements outside crowded Luzon island. His death in an airplane crash in March 1957 was a serious blow to national morale. Vice President Carlos P. Garcia succeeded him and won a full term as president in the elections of November 1957.
In
June 1959, Philippine opposition to García on issues of
government corruption and anti-Americanism led to the union of the
Liberal and Progressive parties, this one led by Vice President
Diosdado
Macapagal. Malaysia vigorously opposed the Philippine's territorial claim, arguing that a certain Baron de Overbeck had "purchased" Sabah from the sultan of Sulu before later assigning his rights to the British East India Company. Malaysia further argued that Sabah had become part of Malaysian territory when Britain granted independence to the Federated States of Malaysia. The Philippines, by reply, argued a case of bad semantics, insisting that in 1876 de Overbeck had only "leased" Sabah from the Sultan of Sulu. The alleged contract between de Overbeck and the Sultan of Sulu used, they argued, the word padjak, a Malay term that could mean either "lease" or "purchase."
From the
official website of the ROYAL HASHEMITE SULTANATE OF SULU AND SABAH
THE CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT In the 1960s the central government in Manila enforced a "homestead" policy, which propelled the escalation of Christian migration to Mindanao region. Settlers from Luzon and Visayas occupied part of the Bangsamoro. Local and foreign big business obtained titles over the lands. In the 1965 elections, Ferdinand E. Marcos succeeded to the presidency after defeating Macapagal. He inherited the territorial dispute over Sabah; in 1968 he approved a congressional bill annexing Sabah to the Philippines. Malaysia suspended diplomatic relations and the matter was referred to the United Nations. Parallel with diplomatic attempts,
Marcos conceived a plot of establishing a force of commandos to
destabilize Sabah, then ultimately to take advantage of the
instability by either intervening in the island on the pretext of
protecting Filipinos living there, or by "the residents themselves
deciding to secede from Malaysia." Marcos could not have chosen a more auspicious time to try and reclaim Sabah. Malaysia was only a fledgling state at that point, made even more wobbly by the secession of Singapore in 1965, two years after its independence from Britain. Too, Malaysia was embroiled in a border dispute with powerful Indonesia.
The codename for the
destabilization plan was Operation Merdeka. The plan involved the
recruitment of nearly 200 Tausug and Sama Muslims aged 18 to 30 from
Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and their training in the island-town of Simunul
in Tawi-Tawi. The recruits felt giddy about the promise not only of
a monthly allowance, but also over the prospect of eventually
becoming a member of an elite unit in the Philippine Armed Forces.
That meant, among other benefits, guns, which Muslims regard as very
precious possessions. So from August to December 1967, the young
recruits underwent training in Simunul. The name of the commando
unit was "Jabidah".
The Jabidah
Massacre contributed to the rise of various separatist movements:
the Muslim Independence Movement (MIM), Ansar el-Islam, and Union of
Islamic Forces and Organizations. When it became evident to the
Bangsamoro leaders that it would not be possible to regain
independence through political means because of lack of
constitutional mechanism, they organized to pursue their goals
through other means.
At that time,
the Moro were already the largest mainly
non-Christian ethnic group in the Philippines, comprising about 5%
of the total Philippine population, making them the sixth largest
ethnic group in the country. They mostly lived in the southern
Philippines in the region called Bangsamoro, a term coming
from the Malay word "bangsa", meaning "nation
or people", and the Spanish word "moro"
referred to the
Moro people, in general. These include the
Tausug, the
Maranao,
Maguindanaoan, and the
Banguingui.
On March 29, 1969, the
New
People's Army (NPA) was formed as Maoist a paramilitary
group fighting for communist revolution in the Philippines. The NPA
started a "protracted people's war" as the military wing of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
In
November 1969, Marcos won an unprecedented re-election, easily defeating
Sergio Osmeña Jr., but the election was accompanied by violence and
charges of fraud. He was unable to reduce massive government
corruption or to create economic growth proportional to population
growth.
In 1969,
the
continuing need for land reform fostered an uprising in central
Luzon,
in something of a Huk revival,
accompanied by mounting assassinations and acts of terror.
The splinter CPP formed the
New People's Army and launched a
protracted people's war while
Marcos began a major military campaign to subdue the
revolt. In these years bad skirmishes happened between Christian vigilantes called “Ilagas” and Muslim vigilantes called “Barracudas” and “Blackshirts.” The series of Ilaga and military atrocities against Muslims in Mindanao from 1970 to 1972 caught international attention and raised concern in the Muslim world, especially when reported as acts of genocide.
In September 1972, President Marcos declared martial law,
charging that a Communist rebellion threatened. He curtailed press
freedom and other civil liberties; closed down Congress and media
establishments; and ordered the arrest of opposition leaders and
militant activists, including his staunchest critics Senator
Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr..
and Senator Jose Diokno. A curfew was implemented. Political
opponents were given the opportunity to go into exile.
Immediately after the conflict flared up in Mindanao,
the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) took interest in
the resolution of the conflict. The Third Islamic Conference of
Foreign Ministers held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from February 29 to
March 4, 1972, decided “to seek the good offices of the Government
of the Philippines to guarantee the safety and property of the
Muslims” as citizens of the country. In 1973, the 1935 constitution was replaced by a new one that provided the President with absolute direct powers. In July a plebiscite gave Marcos the right to remain in office beyond the expiration of his term.
Throughout the 1970s
the
economy was robust, with budgetary and trade surpluses. The Gross
National Product rose from P55 billion in 1972 to P193 billion in
1980. Tourism rose from less than 200,000 in previous years to one
million by 1980,
contributing to the economy's growth.
THE TRIPOLI AGREEMENT
The implementation of the Tripoli Agreement was
immediately problematic. The Agreement embodied the general principles
for autonomy and its institutional mechanism that would to be
established. The details were to be discussed later by a mixed
committee composed of the representatives of the government and the MNLF. The mixed committee met in Tripoli in February 1977 but no
agreement on details of the autonomy was reached. Again, President
Marcos sent his wife to Tripoli to meet President
Gaddafi and
exchanges of cables between the two presidents followed.
Since
its first steps, (resolution no. 18/5-P of the 5th ICFM), the
OIC prescribed that the solution to the problem should be “within
the framework of the national sovereignty and territorial integrity
of the Philippines.” For the period 1969-1976, which included the fiercest fighting between the government and the MNLF under the Marcos regime, it is estimated that as many as 60,000 people may have been killed, 54,000 wounded or maimed, and as many as 350,000 displaced. In 1977, after Misuari acceded to the wishes of the OIC to drop the Front’s bid for independence and instead settle for autonomy, a faction lead by second-in-command Salamat Hashim broke away from the MNLF and formed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to continue the struggle to pursue independence. MILF did not stray far from the philosophical foundations of MNLF but organized its own political machinery and armed forces separate from the MNLF. With 15,000 members, it became the largest Islamic separatist group in the Philippines.
Although the MILF was as strong a force as the MNLF and was dominant
in Bangsamoro areas in mainland Mindanao, the government confined
the negotiations with the MNLF until the peace accord was signed in
1996. Peace overtures with the MILF were limited to informal
contacts. This was so because the MNLF was the signatory to the
Tripoli Agreement, which was the basis of the peace talks. Likewise,
the OIC, under whose auspices the negotiations were carried out,
recognized the MNLF as the representative organization of the
Muslims in South of the Philippines. In the early 1980s the New People's Army (NPA) was at its peak with over 25,000 fighters, being classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union
Martial law
remained in force until 1981, when it was officially lifted
in order to appease the Catholic Church before the visit of Pope
John Paul II. An opposition boycotted presidential elections then
ensued and Marcos was re-elected, amid
accusations of electoral fraud. In February 1986 Marcos and his opponent, Corazon Aquino, run for presidential election. After the vote, both declared themselves the winner, and charges of massive fraud and violence were levelled against the Marcos faction. Marcos’s domestic and international support eroded, a peaceful civilian-military uprising, now popularly called the 1986 EDSA Revolution, forced Marcos into exile and he fled the country with his wife Imelda, eventually obtaining asylum in the United States. It is said he had amassed an estimated $10bn fortune, but he died only 3 years after in Hawaii.
THE
JEDDAH ACCORD
The two panels
agreed to continue discussion of the proposal for the grant of full
autonomy. It was also agreed upon that a joint commission, which
would “discuss and draft the mechanism and details of the proposal
for the grant of full autonomy” would be created.
On January 29, 1987, a group of
heavily armed rebels occupied a television station as part of a
series of carefully orchestrated attacks on key military bases and
broadcasting stations, including the Villamor air force base near
Manila airport. It was the fifth uprising following her
controversial election victory in spring 1986. In 1990, with the new constitutional mandate, President Aquino proceeded to establish the partially autonomous region known as the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao region was
first created on
August 1,
1989 through Republic Act No. 6734 otherwise
known as the Organic Act in pursuance with a
constitutional mandate to provide for an autonomous
area in Muslim Mindanao. A plebiscite was held in
the provinces of
Basilan,
Cotabato,
Davao del Sur,
Lanao del Norte,
Lanao del Sur,
Maguindanao,
Palawan,
South Cotabato,
Sultan Kudarat,
Sulu,
Tawi-Tawi,
Zamboanga del Norte and
Zamboanga del Sur; and in the
cities of
Cotabato,
Dapitan,
Dipolog,
General Santos,
Iligan,
Marawi,
Pagadian,
Puerto Princesa and
Zamboanga to determine if the residents would
want to be part of the ARMM. In 1992, Aquino declined to run for re-election and was succeeded by her former army Chief General Fidel V. Ramos. He immediately launched an economic revitalization plan premised on three policies: government deregulation, increased private investment, and political solutions to the continuing insurgencies within the country.
On January 1, 1993 a new Islamic group was formed
in Johor, Malaysia, by the name of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which
means “Islamic Community”. JI had its roots in Darul Islam (meaning
"House of Islam"), a conservative movement born in Indonesia in the
1940s. JI's goal was the creation of an Islamic
state across Southeast Asia to include Singapore, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand, and southern Philippines.
On
December 11, 1994, a bomb exploded on
a Philippines Airlines flight en route from Manila to Tokyo with 292
people on board. One passenger was killed an 10 others injured. The
victims were all Japanese. The
Abu Sayyaf Group
claimed credit for the bombing, even if it is still not sure that the
group was involved.
The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is one of
the smallest (but maybe the strongest) radical Islamic group active
in the Southern Philippines and Malaysia. Its stated goal is the
creation of an independent Islamic state encompassing the Islamic
parts of Southern Thailand, the island of Borneo, the Sulu
Archipelago, and Mindanao, areas where Moro Muslims make up the
majority of the local population.
Abu Sayyaf is believed to receive a small level of
logistical and material support from other extremist groups active
in the region and and to provide safe haven for terrorist leaders
from other groups. It has local infrastructure in place to raise
money. It is also known to have substantial links to factions of the
MILF.
GRP-MNLF
PEACE AGREEMENT OR JAKARTA ACCORD
On September 2, 1996, in Manila, Ambassador Manuel T. Yan,
Nur Misuari, Ali Alatas and Dr. Hamid Al-Ghabid, representing the
government, MNLF, the OIC Committee of Six, and the OIC Secretariat,
respectively, affixed their signatures to the agreement, which was
the full implementation of the Tripoli Agreement of 1976 and
embodied the totality of all agreements, covenants and understanding
between the government and the MNLF. On December 3-5, 1996, 1,070,697 delegates allegedly took part to the First Bangsamoro People's Consultative Assembly (BPCA) held in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, and called for reestablishment of the original Bangsamoro state and government.
On September 9, 1996, elections were held for the
ARMM officials. Prof. Nurallaji Misuari, the Chairman of the Moro
National Liberation Front (MNLF), was elected as governor and stayed
in charge
till 2002.
The ARMM elections were considered unique because
they were peaceful, despite being held in what has been the
country's traditionally most volatile areas. After his election as ARMM governor, Misuari promised to use "moral pressure" to convince
members of the Abu Sayaf group and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) to lay down their arms and assist the government in promoting
peace and development in Mindanao. The role of the OIC and Libya was helpful in bringing the government and the MNLF to the negotiation table, and Indonesia was instrumental in forging the final peace agreement. But in the implementation stage the OIC, Libya and Indonesia stayed at the background while the multi-donor agencies took the center stage.
Several
natural disasters, including the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo on
Luzon and a succession of severe typhoons, slowed the country’s
economic progress in the 1990s. The Philippines, however, escaped
much of the economic turmoil seen in other East Asian nations in
1997 and 1998, in part by following a slower pace of development
imposed by the International Monetary Fund.
When the Philippine government was sure that final
agreement with the MNLF would be reached, it contacted the MILF to
search for a peaceful and political settlement of the Mindanao
problem.
Subsequent meetings of the GRP-MILF Technical
Committees were focused on the cessation of hostilities. Agreements
were mainly on the operational guidelines for the general cessation
of hostilities, administrative procedures, monitoring mechanism and
identification and acknowledgment of MILF positions/camps.
In
1998, Joseph Estrada, a former movie actor, was
elected president, pledging to help the poor and develop the
country’s agricultural sector.
Hundreds of thousands of Bangsamoro allegedly
participated in the Rally for Peace and Justice held in Cotabato
City and Davao City on October 23, 1999, in Marawi City on
October 24, 1999 and in Isabela, Basilan on December 7, 1999.
On May 3, 2000, Abu Sayyaf
guerillas abducted 21 tourists from a beach of Sipadan, Malaysia's
renowned dive resort island, hitting Malaysia's tourism industry.
Two Malaysians were freed early because they were Muslims. Abu
Sayyaf was demanding $2.4 million for the release of the other
hostages which included at least 10 foreigners. The Abu Sayyaf even
demanded the release of various Muslim terrorists including Ramzi
Yousef, convicted of masterminding the bombing the World Trade
Center in New York in 1993. The ceasefire agreement was broken in April 2000 when MILF's main base, Camp Abu Bakar, was attacked by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and fell to the Philippines military. After twenty months of negotiations at the technical committees level, the formal negotiation on the panel level was inaugurated on October 25, 1999 at the Da’wah Center, Crossing Simuay, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao. Then on December 17, 1999 both peace panels met and agreed on the rules and procedures on the conduct of the formal peace talks. Substantive issues were tabled for discussion, but these were not tackled seriously because of reported ceasefire violations in Maguindanao, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Lanao del Norte provinces. On the identification and acknowledgment of MILF positions/camps, out of 46 major and satellite camps submitted by the MILF for recognition, only Camp Abubakre as-Sidique, Camp Bushra, Camp Darapanan, Camp Omar, Camp Badre, Camp Rajahmuda and Camp Bilal were acknowledged. The other 39 camps were scheduled for verification and acknowledgment.
The peace panels met on April 27, 2000 in Cotabato City and before
midnight signed an Aide Memoire enumerating what steps they would
take to defuse the tensions. At dawn, however, the
Armed Forces of the Philippines
(AFP) launched an
attack against Camp Abubakre, opening the Philippine
Government-initiated all-out war against the MILF
in Central Mindanao, which displaced half a million people. In response to the call of civil society to save the peace process, a meeting between the two peace panels took place on June 1, 2000, when the GRP representatives presented a political package as a government proposal to solve the problem. That was a draft of the amendments to the ARMM Organic Act, which, earlier, had been rejected by the MNLF. After few days the MILF central committee decided to withdraw from the talks and disbanded its negotiating panel. In November 2000, Estrada was impeached on charges of graft. Demonstrations against him mounted and members of his cabinet resigned, the supreme court stripped him of the presidency, and Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was sworn in as Estrada’s successor.
Late in
2000, Estrada was accused to have accepted
millions of dollars in payoffs from illegal gambling operations.
Although his support among the poor Filipino majority remained
strong, many political, business, and church leaders called for him
to resign. In November 2000, Estrada was impeached by the house of
representatives on charges of graft, but the senate, controlled by
Estrada’s allies, provoked a crisis when it rejected
examining the president’s bank records. As demonstrations against
Estrada mounted and members of his cabinet resigned, the supreme
court stripped him of the presidency, and Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
took the presidency. When Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo became President, Nur Misuari was ousted by the "MNLF Council of 15", forced to vacate his chairmanship of the MNLF and replaced by a senior official of the MNLF.
Bangsamoro leaders headed by Sultan
Abdul Aziz Guiwan Mastura Kudarat IV of the Sultanate of Magindanaw
meeting in Cotabato City on January 28, 2001 expressed their
strong desire to regain the Bangsamoro independence. The Declaration
of Intent and Manifestation of Direct Political Act they issued
states:
- To remain as an autonomous region
On March 24, 2001, GRP and MILF signed an agreement for the resumption of the talks, which provided for the resumption of the peace negotiations to “continue the same from where it had stopped before April 27, 2000 until they shall have reached a negotiated political settlement of the Bangsamoro problem.”
The Second Bangsamoro People's Consultative Assembly
held on June 1-3, 2001
held in Sultan Kudarat,
Maguindanao,
allegedly attended by 2,627,345 delegates from all over the
Bangsamoro homeland, including representatives of non-Muslim
indigenous communities, unanimously declared that "the only just,
meaningful, and permanent solution to the Mindanao Problem is the
complete independence of the Bangsamoro people and the territories
they now actually occupy from the Republic of the Philippines."
In 2001 a new law was passed for
the expansion of the ARMM to include the areas which initially
rejected inclusion and the provinces which were carved from them,
however only
Marawi City and
Basilan with the exception of
Isabela City opted to be integrated in the region.
Following talks brought to a ceasefire and then to the Tripoli
Agreement on Peace on June 19–22, 2001.
After
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed
office, she sought the assistance of Malaysian Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohammad and Indonesian President Abdul Rahman Wahid to
convince the MILF to go back to the negotiation table. After series
of trips by the Malaysian emissaries, MILF chairman
Salamat Hashim agreed to resume talks
with the government and sent his top deputy, Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim, to Kuala Lumpur to meet
the Philippine Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Eduardo Ermita. The meeting was kept so secret that even Presidential
Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza, the chairman of the new
Philippine peace panel, was not informed about it. On March 24,
2001, Murad and Ermita signed the agreement for the resumption of
the talks.
Following the Kuala Lumpur talks, the MILF declared the suspension
of offensive military action (SOMA) against AFP forces on April 3,
2001 to reciprocate the government declaration of suspension of
offensive military operations (SOMO) against MILF forces. Satisfied
that its conditions5 were met, the MILF central committee agreed to
the resumption of the negotiations and reconstituted its negotiating
panel. The second round of the resumed talks in Kuala Lumpur focused on the implementing guidelines of the ceasefire. At the end of the meeting of the peace panels, agreement on the Implementing Guidelines for the Security Aspect of the GRP-MILF Tripoli Agreement of Peace of 2001 was signed on August 7, 2001 at Putrajaya, Malaysia. The third round was supposed to tackle the issue of the rehabilitation of refugees and development of conflict-affected areas, but the two panels could not agree on the details. To preclude the breakdown of the negotiations the GRP panel presented the Manual of Instruction for the Coordinating Committees on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH) and Local Monitoring Teams (LMT) for consideration. The contents of the manual were culled from provisions of previous agreements. It was signed on October 18, 2001 at Mines Resort, Selangor, Malaysia. Then the talks were suspended. Malacañang announced that the negotiations would still continue through the back channel with Secretary Norberto Gonzales, the Presidential Assistant on Special Concerns, in charge of the part of the government.
The
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center in New York, and the Abu Sayyf abduction of a group of
20 tourists in 2001 that left five hostages dead, including
Americans, pushed the United
States government to provide training and assistance to Philippine
troops fighting the guerrillas.
In January 2002 US announced joint exercises
with Filipino military as a new phase in war on international
terrorism.
Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines
was part of
Operation Enduring Freedom and was classified as part of US
War on Terrorism.
More than 1,200 members
of
United States Special Operations Command, Pacific (SOCPAC)
and its components joined their counterparts from the Southern
Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The mission
was to advise and assist the AFP to help combat terrorism in the
country. Much of the mission took place on the island of Basilan in
the southern Philippines, a stronghold of the terrorist group Abu
Sayyaf. This deployment of forces was conducted under a Exercise
Balikatan 02-1, which is not to be confused with a much larger
exercise named Balikatan 02-2 which took place in April 2002 and was
purely a training exercise.
A new militant group, the
Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM), was formally
established in January 2002, apparently to divert military attention
from the Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf.
On May 7, 2002, the parties signed an
agreement that authorized the MILF to determine, lead and manage
rehabilitation and development projects and established that the GRP
would provide reparations for properties lost in the conflict.
On February 21, 2003, the US Department of Defense announced
that the US and Philippine forces would conduct combined operations
against the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the Southern Philippines.
About 350 US special operations personnel from the Army, Navy and
Air Force joined Philippine soldiers in the Sulu Archipelago.
Another 750 Americans were to provide logistics support from the
headquarters in Zamboanga on Mindanao Island. In March 2003, a powerful bomb exploded at Davao airport, in the Philippines' second largest city, killing at least 21 people and injuring 148, CNN reported. An hour after the airport blast, a bomb exploded at a health center in Tagum City, 50 kilometers north of Davao, injuring two people. The Philippine government blamed on rogue MILF elements, though MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu denied involvement in the airport attack and denounced both blasts. However, a truce was declared in July 2003. In the same month some 300 soldiers were involved in a mutiny in Manila that the government claimed was part of a coup attempt.
Suspended talks resumed
on May 7, 2002 at Putrajaya, Malaysia after months of back channel
contacts. Instead of the Dureza panel representing the government,
Secretary Norberto Gonzales and Secretary Eduardo Ermita were in
Kuala Lumpur talking to the MILF. They signed the version of the
agreement that Secretary Dureza had refused to sign. Ancestral domain was the third issue to be discussed but the talks were not resumed after the May 7 meeting. The attack by government forces on MILF positions in Pikit and Pagalungan on February 11, 2003, at the time the Muslims were celebrating ‘id el adha (feast of sacrifice), derailed the resumption of the negotiations. Three exploratory talks were held to put back the negotiations on track, but the talks remained suspended. The MILF insisted that the government should comply with its commitment made during the exploratory talks that government troops withdrew from the Boliok complex and criminal charges against MILF leaders be dropped.
The military confrontations between the AFP and MILF forces in the year 2000
had displaced an estimated 932,000
people.
As of 2003, MILF controlled
12,000 men under arms, broken up into small and very mobile
guerrilla units, whose leaders were confined to secret locations.
The ARMM was supposed to translate into reality the political
empowerment of the Bangsamoro people but it went to paralysis in
front of poverty, lack of basic services and unresponsive
leadership.
On May 6, 2003,
in a BBC interview,
Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim,
the MILF Vice Chairman for Military Affairs and Chief of Staff of
the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF),
said that Islam inspired the Bangsamoro, movement, but he stressed
that the struggle was really about political and social neglect. On February 2004 peace talks between government and communist rebel New People's Army started in Norway, to be called off by the rebels in August, when the government declined a request from the rebels to convince the United States and other Western European states to remove the New People's Army (NPA) and its self-exiled leader, José María Sison, from terrorist blacklists.
RECENT
STATUS OF FIGHTING In July 2004 President Arroyo decided to withdraw the 51 Philippines troops from Iraq, bowing to the demands of the Iraqi Islamic Army, which had kidnapped a Filipino lorry driver. The decision worsened relations between US and the Philippines but the driver was freed. A series of four devastating storms during November and December killed as many as 1,000 in the country’s north and east, particularly on Luzon.
On
October 10, 2004, the International Monitoring Team (IMT)
was officially deployed in Mindanao with a one year mandate
to
monitor the upholding of a cease fire from both camps, to monitor
the implementation of the agreements signed since 2001 and to ensure
that the peace process progress to the stage of rehabilitation,
reconstruction, and development of the conflict affected areas.
The team was composed of 60 members among which 4 Libyans, 10
Bruneians, and the rest were Malaysians. Upon arrival in Mindanao,
the members were re-grouped and stationed in five areas or sectors
that cover the conflict areas, namely, Iligan City, General Santos
City, Davao City, Zamboanga City, and Cotabato City which served as
its headquarters. On December 22, 2004, the MILF and the Philippine government announced that they had formed a joint organization to clear the southern Philippines of criminal elements and operatives of two terrorist organizations, the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
In early 2005 heavy fighting broke out on
Mindanao between government forces and a splinter group of MILF
rebels; also a "state of war" was declared by a MNLF splinter group in
Sulu, followed by frontal attacks against AFP fixed positions. The
AFP countered with artillery, aerial bombardment and armored
supported ground troop assaults against MNLF fixed positions in both
the eastern and western fronts in Sulu. The fighting resulted in
hundreds of casualties on both sides while, due to the
pre-evacuation of 70,000 civilians from the battle zones, there were
zero civilian casualties during that ten-day war.
Despite peace negotiations that had appeared to be
fruitful and a two year cease-fire, in January 9, 2005, MILF operatives
attacked government troops in Maguindanao resulting in at least
twenty-three deaths. Led by Abdul Rahman Binago, one or two hundred MILF
guerrillas surrounded the soldiers and were believed to have
executed several wounded. The combined troops of MILF and Abu Sofia
(a small splinter group of the Pentagon Gang allegedly involved in
kidnaps for ransom) were involved in days of fighting, to avenge the
killing of suspected kidnappers by soldiers. Another round of peace negotiations between the MILF and the government of the Philippines to discuss ending the Muslim insurgency began in mid-April 2005 in Malaysia. Issues to be discussed included “ancestral domain” and the natural resources present in rebel-held areas. Negotiators disagreed over the size of the proposed Muslim homeland. In July-September 2005 President Arroyo survived an opposition attempt to impeach her over allegations of vote-rigging. In 2005 and 2006 renewed fighting between the government forces and Abu Sayyaf guerillas allied with the New People's Army (NPA) hit the south of the Philippines. At the end of 2006 the NPA was estimated to have 7,000 fighters while Abu Sayyaf had 2,000. A new round of fighting occurred from June 28 to July 6, 2006, between the MILF and armed civilian volunteers (CVOs) under Maguindanao Province Governor Andal Ampatuan who were backed by Philippine Army troops. The fighting began after Governor Ampatuan blamed the MILF for a June 23 bomb attack on his motorcade, which killed five in his entourage. The MILF denied responsibility, but Ampatuan sent police and CVOs to arrest MILF personnel allegedly connected to the attack. Four thousand families were reported displaced by the fighting that followed, which was ended by a cease-fire agreement signed July 10-11. In August 2006 President Arroyo survived an opposition attempt to impeach her over allegations of corruption, human rights abuses and election fraud. In February 2007 a Government report accused military figures of being behind the killings of hundreds of mainly left-wing activists since 2001.
STATUS OF FIGHTING AT PRESENT
DAY
In April 2007 Abu Sayyaf
militants beheaded seven Christian road workers in retaliation for
the death of a militant commander, and sent their heads to troops on
the southern Philippine island of Jolo, which had been carrying out
operations against Islamic militants for several months, aided by US
counter-terrorism trainers.
On July
12, 2007, in Basilan, a patrol of GRP marines searching for
kidnapped Italian priest, Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, ran into a group of
some 300 MILF armed men. During the clash, 14 marines were killed, 9
other marines were wounded and at least 4 rebels were killed. Later
10 of the marines were beheaded. In Spring 2007 allegedly 140 people were killed during three months of campaigning for parliamentary and local elections. On July 9, 2007, a lower court Judge allowed jailed MNLF leader Misuari to attend a tripartite meeting in Saudi Arabia, which aimed to the implementation of the 1996 peace agreement between the Philippine government and MNLF. Misuari, however, failed to leave for failure to present a "sovereign guarantee" to return from the Saudi government. On December 20, 2007, Makati Regional Trial Court denied Misuari's petition for bail as he remained under house arrest in New Manila, Quezon City. In August 2007, battles between the Philippine military and militants on the island of Jolo left at least 26 soldiers and 31 militants dead. On September 5, 2007, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Amnesty Proclamation 1377 for members of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People's Army; other communist rebel groups; and their umbrella organization, the National Democratic Front. The amnesty had to be approved by the Congress.
The amnesty would cover the crime of rebellion and all other crimes
"in pursuit of political beliefs," but not including crimes against
chastity, rape, torture, kidnapping for ransom, use and trafficking
of illegal drugs and other crimes for personal ends and violations
of international law or convention and protocols "even if alleged
to have been committed in pursuit of political beliefs". In mid-November, 2007 Arroyo created a cabinet-level task force to end political violence after putting Manila and provinces north and south of the capital under a state of alert.
In November 2007 renegade soldiers barricaded
themselves in a luxury hotel in Manila after breaking out of court
where they were standing trial for the failed 2003 mutiny, and
called for the overthrow of President Gloria Arroyo "in order to end
her unconstitutional and illegal occupation of the presidency," one
of the leaders, Brig Gen Danilo Lim, wrote. About 1,500 government
troops had surrounded the building before an armoured personnel
carrier smashed through the main entrance. The renegades were all
arrested. On February 18, 2008, about 6,000 U.S. soldiers held conventional and anti-terrorism drills with 2,000 Filipino troops during the two-week annual Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises in several areas in the country, including on Jolo.
PEACE PROCESS The difficulties of the ongoing GRP-MILF peace negotiations included intervals of cease fire violations, suspension of peace negotiations, administrative delays, from the conflict parties and the third party facilitator as well. The March 2007 governmental offer of self-determination to the Moros raised hopes for a durable peace deal but negotiations with the MILF then stalled for about a year over the issue of boundaries. A breakthrough was announced in November 2007 and in January 2008. Jesus Dureza, the president's adviser on the peace process, said a mutually acceptable deal could be reached and sent a copy of the re-worded agreement on ancestral domain to Malaysia hoping to schedule a new round of talks by February, but he signalled that the government would need for congressional approval. On the other hand, the MILF feared if any deal was sent to Congress it would be watered down by the Christian majority, which happened to the 1996 peace agreement with MNLF. Although President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo repeatedly said she wanted peace, hawks in her cabinet were opposed to giving large swathes of land to Muslims and politically powerful Christian clans in the south opposed a deal, so that many analysts had cast doubt on Manila's willingness to relinquish full control over one of the most resource-rich parts of the country. The discontent among the Moros became an opportunity for a handful of jihadists, hiding in remote areas in the restive south, to train fresh recruits for bombing campaigns. While Indonesia had arrested hundreds of militants allegedly linked to JI, foreign jihadists continued to operate in the Philippines, training recruits in bomb-making. The decades-old conflict has already killed more than 120,000 people, displaced 2 million and kept millions more in dire poverty despite their region having billions of dollars worth of unexplored mineral wealth and fertile farmlands. HUMAN RIGHTS
Terror
tactics are no monopoly of insurgents. Government forces have
countenanced and at times even supported, particularly through the
activities of paramilitary and vigilante groups, covert abductions,
“salvagings” and killings of legal personalities suspected of
collaborating or sympathizing with insurgents. For some on the
government side, terror tactics can look like a cheap and convenient
way to resolve certain issues and set up a deterrent without the
inconvenience of going through the legal system. TFDP documented 152
cases of summary executions under the Ramos administration and 28
under Estrada, numbers which on the other hand can be compared with
the estimated 2,500 summary executions under the Marcos regime. DEVELOPMENT
OF THE COUNTRY
In the meanwhile the economy of Mindanao is growing. It contributes
34 per cent of the country’s total agricultural production; 44 per
cent of domestic food trade; and 13 per cent of its total
manufacturing output. Estimates of economic losses due to the Mindanao conflict range from P5 billion to P10 billion annually from 1975 to 2002. Read the Philippine Human Development Report 2005
MILF-RELATED INFORMATION
WEBSITES
LOCAL e-news
SOURCES 
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2000 census: Tagalog 28.1 Cebuano 13.1% Ilocano 9% Bisaya/Binisaya 7.6% Hiligaynon Ilonggo 7.5% Bikol 6% Waray 3.4% other 25.3% The great majority of the people of the Philippines belong to the Malay group and are known as Filipinos. Other groups include the Negritos (negroid pygmies) and the Dumagats (similar to the Papuans of New Guinea), and there is a small Chinese minority. Filipino (standardized version of Tagalog) and English (imposed by the Americans during the colonisation). More than 180 languages and dialects are spoken in the archipelago
Religions
is 70.51 years. 65% of the population is up to 14
years old, being the median age less than 23.
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On February 1, 1906, Major Gen.
