In the Hands of the Foreign

By: Jesimie Orias

The freedom to rule without an incursion from foreigners was rather rough for the
ancient Moros residing in Mindanao and Sulu. For over 300 years, they actively resisted
the Spaniard’s quest to colonize the Southern parts of Mindanao which resulted to a war
called the Spanish-Moro wars that lasted for over three centuries. By 1899, despite their
yet still active resistance to the colonial policy of the Spaniards, the Philippines including
the Mindanao and Sulu archipelago were sold to the United States by the Spaniards
through the ‘Treaty of Paris’. Was this defeat? What really happened during the
colonialism of the Spaniards and Americans to the Moros in Mindanao and Sulu?
Resistance against the Spaniards
While the Spanish colony easily subdued the archipelagos of Luzon and Visayas,
it was different in the archipelagos of Mindanao and Sulu. The ‘Moros’ known to be the
fieriest warriors in the Philippines, laboriously fought their lands and people. The
Spaniards opted to subdue the Southern Mindanao for the same reason they had in the
Northern parts of the Philippines which are to 1. Let them to acknowledge Spanish
sovereignty over their territory, 2. Promote trade with them, limiting their trade to the
Philippine islands and exploring natural resources of the Moro lands with a view to their
commercial exploitation, 3. Bring an end to Moro piracy against Spanish shipping and
an end to Moro raids on the Christianized settlements on the Visayas and southern
Luzon, and finally, 4. Hispanize and Christianize the Moros along the same lines
followed with respect to other lowland Filipinos groups. However, this did not sit right
with the Moros.
The Moros believed that it was prejudice for them to be subdued by the
foreigners and consequently resented them. They resisted and fought through wars and
continued to refuse accepting the Spaniards in their lands. The Spanish-Moro wars
went through six phases with loses and wins.
Nevertheless, the Moros succeeded in their fight against the Spaniards and
Mindanao was never fully colonized by the Spaniards through their efforts. Yet, it
created a chasm between the Moros and the Christianized Filipinos as each of the
groups was demonized by the other.
American colonization
After the entire Philippines was sold to the Americans and the Moros strongly
objecting the treaty, the Americans proceeded to create the Bates treaty with the non-
interference policy. The treaty states that, 1. Initial Moro-American contact and military
occupation from 1899 to 1903; 2. the creation of Moro province from 1903 to 1913; and
3. the establishment of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu from 1914 to 1920.
 Howbeit, the Americans assurance to not meddle with the Moros was broken
after they took control of the northern parts of the Philippines and placed the Moros
under direct rule for 10 years from the 1903-1913. The Americans administered
governors to rule the Moro Provinces and opt to civilize, to educate, to develop and to
train the Moros in the science of self-government. As this was not what originally
agreed, the Moros retaliate resulting in violent battles and massacres. Even so, the
efforts of the Moros were in vain. The American power triumph over the Moros and the
latter was put under the colonial policy of the Americans. By 1920, the Americans
mandated a Philippine government in the lands of the Moros. But this did not sit right
with the Moros, they as well wanted a separate independence for their lands. They had
protest and rallies by the year 1922 against the Filipino controls but still to no avail.
The fight fought by the Moros in the hands of the foreign attested their name as
the fieriest warriors of the Philippines. They demonstrated fierceness in battles and
fought for freedom. It was a long tiring fight that lasted centuries, yet never did they give
up. This is a clear justification of what the people of the Philippines can do for their right,
that Filipinos can fight back even in the hands of the foreign.