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The first people of the Philippines are believed to have arrived between ten and fifteen thousand years ago. Cultures and languages diversified as the varied landscapes of the entire archipelago were gradually settled. Arab traders and Islamic missionaries are believed to have introduced Islam to the Southern Philippines in the 13th or 14th Century, and, over the next several centuries, Islam spread, influencing social, political, religious, and cultural life. Muslim converts coexisted amicably, however, with the indigenous tribes who had held to ancestral traditions rather than convert.
The Spanish, who colonized the Philippines from the mid 16th to the late 19th Century, encountered resistance particularly from Muslims in the Southern Philippines, and were not able to colonize Mindanao as they colonized Luzon and the Visayas. Nevertheless, they violently displaced many residents of Mindanao, and, to the extent that they were able, imposed a new land tenure system: all land not legally registered under this system was claimed by the Spanish crown. The Spanish also introduced an ethno-religious hierarchy, according to which indigenous and Muslim Mindanaoans, whom they referred to as “Moros” (the Spanish term for Muslims in Spain), were considered inferior to Filipino Christians.
Though the Spanish had never controlled more than small portions of Mindanao, the island was included in the package when, in 1898, the Spanish “sold” the Philippines to the United States as part of the settlement of the Spanish-American war. The US regime encouraged Christian Filipinos from the Northern Philippines to resettle in Mindanao, and Muslims, who had formed a clear majority on the island, were “minoritized” within two generations.
Legal reforms under the American regime discriminated against non-Christians. New laws explicitly invalidated ancestral domain claims, and set unequal limits on private land ownership for Christians and non-Christians. New institutions of self-government for Mindanao effectively excluded non-Christians. By the mid-20th Century, the Muslims and Indigenous People of Mindanao were “dispossessed, displaced, and disempowered.”
After 1946, the independent Philippine government continued to encourage settlement of Mindanao by Christians from the Northern Philippines. Continuation of the prejudicial land tenure reform begun under the Americans saw the best land appropriated for farming, plantations, and logging by settlers and large companies, further marginalizing Muslims and IPs, both economically and politically.
Social tensions increased to the point that Christian, IP, and Muslim elites all began forming private armies. In the late 1960s, a Muslim independence movement began to emerge as paramilitaries harassed the minority Muslim communities. By the early 1970s, a full-scale civil war had erupted between the Philippine government and the revolutionary Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), who, reclaiming the originally derogatory term “Moro” as an expression of political pride, were fighting for the independence of the “Bangsamoro,” the Muslim Nation.
Peace negotiations were attempted under Presidents Marcos and Aquino, and in 1987 four of Mindanao’s twenty-three provinces voted for, and were granted, autonomy, (not full independence) forming the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). No lasting settlement was reached, however, until the MNLF and the government of Fidel Ramos signed a peace accord in 1996, creating the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development, and the Special Zone for Peace and Development. Though the signing of the agreement offered significant potential for peace and development, many communities and groups, particularly the Indigenous People, felt that they and their needs had been ignored during the process.
Peace talks also began with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which had earlier split off from the MNLF and continued to fight for the right to self-determination for Bangsamoro. Despite the signing of an Interim Ceasefire Agreement in 1997, negotiations were fragile, taking place against a background of continuing hostilities. Following a series of violent incidents in 2000, President Estrada declared “all-out war” on Moro rebels, while the MILF declared jihad against the government.
Though peace talks resumed in 2001 under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, full-blown war re-erupted in early 2003. By July of that year, though a bilateral ceasefire re-established the possibility of peace talks, in the meantime hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced to evacuate their homes. Although, as of October 2005, a bilateral ceasefire is in place, and, according to both government and MILF announcements, negotiations are eighty percent completed, many internally displaced people (IDPs) remain in evacuation centres to this day.
During the past three decades of violence in Mindanao, an estimated 150,000 people have been killed and millions displaced. In designing a program to support Mindanaoans to address this deadly and persistent conflict, CRS analyzed root causes in terms of five elements, referred to as the “five eyes”—issues, identities, institutions, international factors, and interactions—concluding that conflict in Mindanao
“is rooted in persistent material inequality, fueled by historical competition between ethnic and religious identities, sustained by diverse institutions embedded in Philippine society, and shaped by international forces. At various points in Philippine history, these factors have interacted with and reinforced one another.”
Issues: Persistent Material Inequality
Stark material inequality between Mindanao’s tri-people—IPs, Moros and settlers—provides a perpetual impetus for conflict. Material inequalities coincide with ethnoreligious differences in Mindanao—statistics suggest that IPs and Moros in Mindanao are generally poorer, less secure in land tenure, less educated, less literate and more infirm than their Christian peers.
Identities: Status Inequality and Broken Relationships
Strong ethnoreligious affiliation has been a critical catalyst for violence in Mindanao. Ethnic and religious differences alone, however, do not lead to conflict; they become explosive only when they coincide with class and/or status inequalities. In Mindanao, relationships have been badly strained by the ethnoreligious status hierarchy (introduced by the Spanish, and perpetuated by the American regime and independent Philippine government), in which IPs and Moros occupy the lowest positions. Moreover, more than three decades of violence have exacerbated biases and resentment among Mindanao’s tri-people.
Institutions: Structures that Perpetuate Injustice
Diverse structures and processes embedded in Philippine society have helped to generate and perpetuate the material and relational inequalities described above. The transformation of key structures and processes, such as land tenure regimes and governance, is necessary for social justice, sustainable peace, and development in Mindanao. Institutions such as IP leadership structures and the ARMM administration lack resources and capacity, while the national government must be made more effective, equitable, and inclusive. The process of documenting and registering ancestral land titles has been slow; this process, as well as land and resource use, and economic development policies, often circumscribe the civil and human rights of IP communities in particular, depriving them of the cultural and economic security provided by land tenure.
International Factors: Shaping the Arena of Conflict
International factors have been key contributors to conflict in Mindanao since Spanish colonial times, and continue to influence its course. Foreign countries, such as the United States, which supports the Philippine government militarily, and Libya, both a supplier of arms to the MNLF and a promoter of the peace process, influence the outcome of the armed conflict directly, while multilateral institutions, along with transnational corporations and international NGOs, impact the prospects for peace and development in Mindanao through investment, trade, technology exchange, and development programs. Furthermore, international religious groups continue to play a role: just as Spanish conquistadors appealed to the Catholic Church to mobilize support for armed conflict, Muslim extremist groups have drawn moral and material support from Islamist extremists internationally.
Interactions: Self-Perpetuating Spirals
Material inequality, competing ethnic and religious identities, and discriminatory institutions reinforce one another as root causes of conflict. Throughout Mindanao’s history, for example, the “soft” ideas of ethnic or religious bias have been translated into the “hard” realities of material inequality through cultural practices, discriminatory laws or military conquest. This inequality, in turn, has reinforced existing stereotypes and biases, feeding a self-perpetuating cycle of conflict.
___________________________, Mindanao Conflict Map, DRAFT Davao City, 2003.
Ibid.
The following points are adapted from CRS/Philippines Peace and Reconciliation Program, Mindanao Conflict Map, 2003.
Conflict History from: Building Peace, Justice and Reconciliation Through Empowerment of Grassroots Mindanaoans: An Analysis of CRS' Peace and Reconciliation Program in Mindanao. Catholic Relief Services: Peace & Reconciliation Program. November 2005. (To access full report, click here)
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