Mindanao's wars and the Bangsamoro peace
Muslim Filipinos, the Moro, take up arms for independence or autonomy in a conflict that kills tens of thousands; decades of talks produce the autonomous Bangsamoro region in 2019.
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press (1998)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Republic Act No. 11054 (Bangsamoro Organic Law) — Congress of the Philippines, Official Gazette (2018)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Muslims, today about 6% of Filipinos, live mainly in western Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago, and belong to more than a dozen ethnolinguistic groups, among them the Maguindanao, Maranao and Tausug. The sultanates there resisted Spain for three centuries. In the twentieth century, American and then Philippine governments encouraged Christian settlers from the north to move to Mindanao, and Muslims became a minority across much of the island, losing land and power.
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press (1998)
- Religious Affiliation in the Philippines (2020 Census of Population and Housing) — Philippine Statistics Authority (2023)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
The spark came in 1968, when reports emerged that Muslim army recruits had been killed on Corregidor in the “Jabidah massacre”. In 1972 Nur Misuari founded the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and launched a war for independence that peaked in the 1970s; the wider conflict is often said to have killed more than 100,000 people over the following decades.
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press (1998)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
After years of talks, the government and the MILF signed a comprehensive agreement in 2014. The Bangsamoro Organic Law of 2018, ratified in a plebiscite in early 2019, created the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), with its own parliament and Islamic courts, and MILF fighters began to decommission. Its first parliamentary elections were repeatedly postponed, and building peace and prosperity there remains unfinished work.
- Republic Act No. 11054 (Bangsamoro Organic Law) — Congress of the Philippines, Official Gazette (2018)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
The Bangsamoro were never conquered by Spain and were incorporated into the Philippines without their consent. Under American and then Filipino rule, government-backed migration of Christian settlers took their lands and made them a minority in their own homeland. Armed struggle was a response to marginalisation and massacres.
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press (1998)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Mindanao is an integral part of the Philippines and home to Christians and Lumad peoples as well as Muslims. Autonomy is acceptable but secession is not; many settler-descended communities, who have lived there for generations, also fear violence and losing their land.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Republic Act No. 11054 (Bangsamoro Organic Law) — Congress of the Philippines, Official Gazette (2018)
Why it matters today
Mindanao's conflict shapes how Filipinos think about faith, the nation and the south. Many Muslim Filipinos feel the national story leaves them out, and the success of Bangsamoro autonomy is seen as a test of whether the Philippines can be home to all its peoples.