The Mindanao Conflict is not a new invention of our times. In fact, the present realities of war in Mindanao are fruits of various attempts at the assimilation and integration of the ‘minorities’ with differing goals and emphases usually set by the central government.
Historically, the establishments of Fort Pilar in Zamboanga City, the naval station at Polloc in the present province of Maguindanao, the “intramuros” (within the walls) in the town of Jolo and the military stations/forts along the Rio Grande de Mindanao from Taviran to Reina Regente were few examples of “containment” program to build “peace” in the southern Philippines.
The so-called Moro problem haunted the Spanish government in Manila for more than three centuries and half. The northern Mindanao and some parts of western and northern Mindanao were successfully brought to the mainstream politics by way of settlements beginning the second half of the 19th century. But in southern Mindanao, including the islands of Sulu, Tawi Tawi, and Basilan, the Spanish presence was limited to military stations and garrisons, except for pockets of civilian settlements in the present city of Zamboanga and Cotabato City.
During the Spanish time, the Moro populace was, largely, left on their own. They lived under their sultans and datus and were governed according to their laws and traditions. The Spanish government interfered in the Moro affairs by way playing politics in several succession issues in the Sultanate of Sulu and in the two dominant Sultanates in the mainland Mindanao (Buayan and Maguindanao). However, the Moro people always rejected any Spanish ‘anointment’ of their Sultan.
The political and economic configurations in Southern Philippines were radically altered during the American occupation. Paradoxically, the “new life” began with a peace pact known as Bates Treaty of 1899, with the Sultan of Sulu recognizing the sovereignty of the USA over Mindanao and the Archipelago of Sulu. This was the real beginning of the systematic program to integrate/assimilate the Moro people into the mainstream body politics of the whole Philippines.
At the end of the Philippine-American War (from 1898 to 1902) with the defeat of the nascent Philippine Republic, the Americans unilaterally abrogated the Bates Treaty. And with the far superior army the Americans quashed all Moro resistance to the American rule.
To put the peace in Southern Mindanao on a more solid footing, several “peace programs” were unfolded, again from the perspective of the central government in Manila.
First was the creation of the Moro Province that would, in time, evolve/mutate into different government structures. It was a “de facto” autonomous government within the insular colonial administrative bureaucracy that ensured fast and effective governance of the Moro peoples and the Indigenous peoples.
Second, the Moro Province looked into the economic development of Mindanao’s fertile land. Corporate plantations were opened and major trading posts in Zamboanga, Cotabato, Jolo, and Iligan.
Third, Mindanao was opened to settlement of landless Filipinos from Luzon and the Visayas. It began with the establishment of the agricultural colonies in the fertile plains of the then empire province of Cotabato. This was followed by a massive and a well planned settlement programs during the Commonwealth period that continued unabated in the post war era during the subsequent administrations of Presidents Roxas, Quirino, and Magsaysay. (In time, the various settlement programs resulted to the ‘minoritization’ of the Moro and Indigenous peoples in Mindanao.
Another pillar of the integration program was the establishment of educational system in the whole Southern Philippines. The two salient features of this ‘peace program’ were the “universal” public school system and the “pensionado” (scholarship) program for the children of Moro ruling families. From the latter would emerge the “new” Moro leaders (the Piang brothers, Pendatum, the Sinsuat’s, the Alonto’s, Lucman, Dimaporo, Kiram, etc.) who, with few exception, had served the Philippine government faithfully and advocated for the full integration of the Moro people into Philippine body politics.
During the past 100 years, Mindanao has seen a dramatic shift in population and landownership that has contributed to the Moro rebellion. In 1900 the Muslim population in Mindanao made up more than 90% of the island’s inhabitants, but by 1970, the Muslims constitute barely 20% of the population of Mindanao. The population shift came about through policies that gave the settler population from Luzon and the Visayas incentives to migrate to Mindanao. The new immigrants cleared the vast plains in Central Mindanao for agriculture and soon new towns and provinces were established.
The inevitable “minoritization” of the Moro and Indigenous peoples was compounded by what was then conceived as a “policy of neglect” or the failure by the Manila Government to deliver the basic social services and infrastructure for development of southern Mindanao. By the late 1960, the Moro peoples’ “groaning” and resentment reached a fever pitch that eventually led to the formation of the Moro National Liberation Front under the leadership of Prof. Nur Misuari.
At the beginning of the Moro rebellion in the early 70’s, the MNLF espoused the politics of separatism. The conflict in Mindanao in the early 70’s was a secessionist war with a vision to establish a separate Moro homeland and Republic. However, through peace negotiation between the MNLF and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines under the auspice of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the separatist war would be toned down to a fight for genuine self rule in local affairs in a sort of ‘autonomous arrangement’. This autonomous set up was the very core of the peace agreement signed in Tripoli, Libya on December 23, 1976. In a queer way, the Tripoli Agreement of 1976 has put an end to the politics of separatism in Southern Philippines.
