Check out our Quick Start Guide or Video. Please Support Our Fundraising Drive. While a citizen of the Philippines, I also ascribe to the Bangsamoro identity. I belong to a traditionally underrepresented group; a religious and ethnic minority in a predominantly Christian country. Our homeland, located in certain parts of Mindanao and Sulu, is ninety-nine percent Muslim in a country that is ninety percent Christian. Growing up in the midst of the armed conflict between the Bangsamoro fighters and the Philippine government, I have witnessed the economic and psychological devastation that have been wrought on my country and my people.
Nearly ninety percent of the people of Sulu live below the poverty line earning less than one dollar a day. Seventy percent do not have access to running water and electricity. Thus, I vowed to work for peacebuilding and bring a just and peaceful resolution to the conflict. Before I could work on building peace, I had to understand the conflict and to know my identity.
It was a process of self-discovery, of placing myself in the world of the Bangsamoro and the Filipino. The discovery began when relatives would take refuge in our home, bringing news of fighting and of deaths and abuses committed on civilians, often relatives, by Filipino soldiers.
These recent events brought the conflict to my close proximity.
Journey for Peace
My grandparents would even go further, describing how American soldiers arrived in and, by the s, brought with them Christian Filipinos from the North to serve as local administrators and to assist in the American occupation. They would vividly recall the March 7, Bud Dajo massacre [3] and June 13, Bud Bagsak massacre, wherein Moros who defied the payment of a head tax and the disarmament policy of the American occupiers were mercilessly killed. I would learn later on about the March 18, Jabidah Massacre[5], the execution of twenty-eight Moro youth from Sulu by Filipino soldiers.
Moreover, there was the continued land grabbing of Moro lands that were given to Christian Filipino settlers from the North. This falls under Lederach's framework of "remembered history. The narrative calls for a restoration of past glories when the Moros were paramount over their own destiny and lived under their own rules. Today, I have a better understanding of my people and my identity. The Bangsamoro story is retold every time fighting erupts in Moro land.
The narrative, remembered history, and lived history blend with every recent event of fighting and killing. The Moros and the Christian Filipinos are people of the same Malay race.
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- Personal Reflections on the Bangsamoro Struggle.
Before Islam came to the Philippines, all its inhabitants had a common origin. Though the inhabitants were divided into different ethno-linguistic or geographical groups, there was no question in their minds that they were of the same race. The arrival of Islam in the 11th century introduced a new way of life. It brought new laws, new ethical standards and a new outlook on the meaning and direction of life.
The Muslims began to develop the consciousness of belonging to a wider Islamic community - called "the Ummah. Islam was a social and political force, and by the time of Spain's arrival, the Muslims were already in Luzon and the Visayas and were trading with the British, the Dutch and the Chinese. Most historians would agree that if it had not been for the arrival of Spain, the Philippines would be a Muslim country.
By the time of Spain's arrival, Islam and the rule of the Sultans were firmly in place in Mindanao and Sulu. Spain came to the Philippines on 16 March with the express objective of colonization and Christianization. The Spaniards, however, were surprised to find people adhering to Islam - the religion of the Moors, their rulers and adversary for more than years.
In some sort of thought transference, they began to call these people Moros. After their success in colonizing and converting the natives to Christianity in Luzon and Visayas, they trained their guns on the Moros of Mindanao and Sulu. For more than three hundred years[9], the Moros passionately defended their community, their freedom and their faith against Spain.
The Moros, therefore, developed a distinct identity intensified by Islam and self-preservation, which was far different from the Christianized natives - the Indios. The Indios , on the other hand, adopted the Christian religion with greater zeal than the Spaniards. They were so devoted to it that they willingly accepted Spain's hegemony and became her slaves. They adopted Spain's laws, her systems, and the Spaniards' seething hatred of the Moros.
The gap, however, did not stop with the differences in history and culture. It was made worse by the fact that Spain used the Indios in their war against Moros. Spain also made sure that the Indios feared, disliked and hated the Moros with their frequent staging of Moro-Moro plays. In the end, Spain left a 'heritage of suspicion, if not hatred'[11], between the Moros and the Christian Filipinos.
About The Author
It was in this condition that America found the inhabitants of the Philippines on the first of May America, however, easily crushed the rebellion of the Christian Filipinos who willingly accepted their rule. They were defeated in battle and the leader of the Filipino resistance, Emilio Aguinaldo, surrendered to the Americans. The Americans easily assimilated the Christian Filipinos into their own system of government including their principle of separation of church and state. The principle of separation of church and state was not entirely foreign to the Christian Filipinos.
It was the same principle they adopted in the Malolos Constitution. It was, however, a different matter for the Moros. America's policy toward the Moros started with appeasement. They forged a treaty [13] wherein America committed to respect the religion and political affairs of the Moros. Later, the treaty lost its significance and America officially abrogated it. It was clear that America had no intention of honoring the treaty and was resolute on colonizing the Moros.
When organized resistance under the Sultanate failed, individual Moros began to take up arms. After establishing effective rule in the Moro areas, the Americans began to impose their laws. America began to implement major programs in the Muslim South which were entirely secular from the point of view of their ideology. For the Moros, these programs were far from secular; they were fundamental assaults on their Islamic faith.
Thus, while the Christian Filipinos began to adapt and perfect American principles, the Moros were reinforcing Islamic principles. The Muslim Filipinos have an intensely deep sense of Islamic identity. It is an identity characterized by an Islamic way of life. It is an identity that began in the ninth century and was profoundly nurtured by Spain and America's campaign of its extirpation.
It is an identity that is ten centuries old that undertook a fundamental revival when the Moros again felt the threat of physical and religious extinction in the light of the Philippine governments' policies in the 's and 's. There has been a reawakening of the worldwide Islamic community or the Ummah that manifested itself in the Philippines in the form of the Organization of Islamic Conference's mediation of the armed conflict in Muslim Mindanao. The threat of physical extinction, the assault on their Islamic identity, and the revival of renewed enthusiasm for an Islamic way of life has brought the Moro people to once again struggle for their self-preservation.
In the past, the Sultanates led the organized resistance. They may have ideological and ethnic differences, but in the end, they are all believers of Islam and united in its Ummah. In fairness to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines GRP , it must be acknowledged that it has tried to remedy the situation. As a vestige of colonialism, it saw the problem as a "Muslim problem" and its first remedy was the American formula of integration. It adopted the Constitution, without special provisions, concerning the Moros in the name of national unity and integrity.
It continued the enactment of national laws without due regard to the Islamic beliefs of the Moros. In the Constitutional Convention, the Moros voice was finally heard. The Muslim delegates' proposals ranged from a federal form of government to complete political autonomy. The Moro voice was, however, lost to the cacophony of the majority. The same objectionable provisions of the Constitution were again incorporated as part of the fundamental law of the land. In the year after, the Philippines experienced an armed rebellion never before equaled in magnitude.
The GRP was forced to the negotiating table by the progress of the Moro rebellion and the pressure from the Islamic countries, and had to work under the mediation of the Organization of Islamic Conference.
Pressenza - The Bangsamoro Basic Law: What it means for peace in Mindanao
This led to the Tripoli Agreement. The hope for peace was quickly dashed by the violations of the agreement by the Marcos administration. The Moros were again back on the warpath. Working to fulfill the commitment of the martyred opposition leader Benigno Aquino to respect Moro self-determination, the administration of his wife, President Corazon Aquino, pursued a policy of peace with the Moro people, which the latter committed to the Moro leaders.
The promising beginning was betrayed by government machinations to undercut the bilateral talks.
The constitution stated that this was in recognition of the "common and distinctive historical and cultural heritage, economic and social structures, and other relevant characteristics" of the Muslims. The preamble of the Organic Act provides that the people of ARMM "establish an Autonomous Regional Government that is truly reflective of their ideals and aspirations within the framework of the Constitution and national sovereignty. In practice, however, the concept of autonomy appeared to be strict supervision and control by the Office of the President and the Philippine Congress.
The budget of the ARMM is determined by the Philippine Congress and the elected Regional Governor is chosen by the President and subject to her supervision and control. The Philippine Supreme Court, composed mostly of Christian Filipino jurists with little or no knowledge of Islamic law, can set aside the decisions of the Sharia Courts.
Thus, the ARMM has failed miserably in answering the Moros' aspiration for their political space in the Philippine nation. With President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's strong advocacy for a charter change in the system of government, there is now a continuous and vigorous clamor for a change to a federal system of governance.
The ultimate outcome will possibly be one where the federal states will have sufficient power and authority to determine their destiny, while still being part of the country. As they entered the 20 th century, however, the United States, having gained control over the Philippines from Spain as a result of the Spanish-American War, turned the Philippines, including Mindanao and Sulu, into a colony.
As a result of this relocation policy, the Muslims of Mindanao had their land stolen by the Christian farmer immigrants and they were forced into social marginalization and impoverishment. Then, from the late s to the beginning of the s, the conflict that began as a territorial fight between the Christians transplanted to Mindanao and the Muslim residents gradually escalated into an armed conflict Tokoro The MNLF received funds and arms, as well as the provision of facilities for training and launching attacks, from the likes of Colonel Gaddafi of Libya and Tun Mustapha of Malaysia then the governor of the state of Sabah.
The group used these resources to engage in armed battles with the goal of seceding from the Philippines, and in the first half of the s there were continuous armed clashes throughout the southern Philippines between the MNLF and the Philippine Army. Under its terms, a high level of autonomy would gradually be established in certain parts of the southern Philippines with the support of the central government, in exchange for the MNLF reaffirming that it had given up on secession Tokoro, However, even after the transition period envisioned by the FPA expired, the establishment of high-level autonomy guaranteed in the initial agreement was not carried out, and inevitably the peace process experienced reversals, such as renewed fighting between the MNLF and the government in The government and the MILF also achieved a certain amount of progress later on with a peace process mediated by the Malaysian government and other parties.
While this peace process was making progress, backward steps were still being taken elsewhere. For example, even after the s armed groups like the Abu Sayyaf Group ASG —said to have ties to al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiya and other foreign Islamic terrorist groups—committed acts such as kidnappings and assaults on security forces in places like the Sulu Archipelago and Basilan, as well as the state of Sabah on the eastern coast of Malaysia.
The Bangsamoro Basic Law: What it means for peace in Mindanao
Particularly noteworthy is the Sabah incursion described below from February to March by a group calling itself the Royal Security Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu. Furthermore, in fighting between the MNLF-MG and the Philippine army in the city of Zamboanga on Mindanao in September of that year, local residents endured continued hardship, such as the more than , who were turned into refugees. Guerrillas of the Moro National Liberation Front. Photo taken in September by the author. A loose estimate is that the armed fighting with the government in the Mindanao conflict has thus far produced over , deaths and a flood of refugees exceeding 1 million in number including internally displaced persons.
Of these, the majority of Muslim citizens who have fled overseas have flowed into the Malaysian state of Sabah as refugees. Muslim citizens have been relocating and migrating to Sabah from the southern Philippines since the late s, but since that time they have often been talked about in the context of migrant workers moving or migrating across borders for economic reasons, rather than as refugees in the strict sense of the term. However, the author believes that it is not necessarily appropriate to neatly classify the flow of people from the southern Philippines to Sabah as either refugees or immigrants, but rather that there is an overlap accompanying a sort of continuity under the actual circumstances.
This section will address the reversal in the flow of people who primarily had set out for Sabah from the southern Philippines, which was caused by the armed clashes that broke out recently in Sabah. To put it another way, the flow of relocating Filipino Muslims who have streamed into Sabah as refugees or immigrants for the past plus years has reversed itself, and now these people were flowing back to the Philippines, their original homeland, as two-time refugees from Sabah.
That is to say, this phenomenon should be described as Muslim Filipinos becoming two-time refugees, and this is the topic the author would like to cover here. The renewed refugee status discussed in this section was caused by armed clashes occurring in Sabah in February and March Basically, the chain of events began in the first half of February , when a group calling itself the Royal Security Forces RSF of the Sultanate of Sulu originating from the southern Philippines; led by the younger brother of Kiram III, a descendent of Sulu Sultans who once ruled the Sulu Archipelago made landfall in the Lahad Datu district on the east coast of the state of Sabah in eastern Malaysia, where they occupied a small fishing village called Tanduo.
Some points about the background leading up to this incident are still unclear, but whatever the case may be, the armed clash sparked repercussions from Lahad Datu to Semporna and elsewhere along the eastern coast of Sabah. In the process the situation escalated, with the Malaysian Army engaging in large-scale military operations including aerial strikes, and the UN Secretary-General called for a cease-fire.