June 15, 2022

Aljhon V. Banderada
Reading in Philippine History

“The Bangsamoro Question and the National Democratic Option”, by Jun Valila and “The
State-Moro Armed Conflict in the Philippines Unresolved National Question or Question of
Governance”, by Rizal G. Buendia

The Mindanao region has been practicing muhammadanism long before the Spanish
discovered the Philippine archipelago. Other early Filipinos practiced animism, particularly
among the baranganic people. However, despite their differences, they still lived peacefully.
They even became trading partners with each other. Then, all of a sudden, Spain arrived and
ruined the people's harmonic way of life by introducing Catholicism, initially to the baranganic
tribes of the Visayas region. The Spaniards used all kinds of force and weapons to convert the
natives and teach them about Christianity, as well as convert the people to Catholicism. Seeing
the Islamic religion in Mindanao, the Spaniards mistook them as moors that they had warred
against before in the Iberian Peninsula, where, based on their point of view, they were labeled as
evil and ferocious muggers. The conflict between the Spaniards and the Moros occurred in a
17th-century war, during which Ferdinand Magellan led a military expedition and attacked
Zamboanga. Spain at first used the threat of force to compel the people to accept Catholicism,
but they later coerced them into joining a cause of war by subduing rebellious Zamboanga.
Following the conversion of the majority of the population of Luzon and the Visayas to
Christianity, bigotry against their beliefs and lifestyle practices became the catalyst for the
establishment of a barrier between the majority and their Islamic religion. Some legal, cultural,
and traditional practices are incompatible with one another. Instead of simply respecting one
another, the gap between understanding and accepting differences grew wider.

Prior to the Spanish Conquest, Islam had begun to spread when people from Mindanao,
particularly the people of Sulu, began trading with merchants from neighboring countries and
preachers from Malaysia and Jahore, even to the point where Arabs began converting everyone
to the Islamic doctrine. Maguindanao and Bauyan provinces followed suit in practicing the
Islamic religion until the early or mid-century, and the religion spread throughout Mindanao.

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 These obnoxious outsiders were not satisfied. They saw Mindanao's economic potential
and attempted to suppress its people. They thought it would be simple, as it is on Cebu and other
islands. People in Mindanao, like them, are united and bound by their own religion. Their own
faith is their primary weapon in the fight against Catholic invaders attempting to impose
Christianity on them. The dictum was not implemented in Mindanao due to the failure to conquer
the land. Mindanao will be treated as a separate country from the subjugated island.

With the intensification of colonial rule and intercultural interaction, Spanish colonial
administrators treated Moros with tolerance. That led them to fight for their own rights to the
land. The ties between the Moros and the Baranganic Natives faded. They distance themselves
from the Christian people and instead call themselves Bangsamoro people rather than Filipinos.
They began to close their doors to most people in an attempt to defend their territory that they
had established.

I grew up with the idea that Moro people are bad people who kill too many soldiers while
terrorizing the people they encounter. That is the result of having no knowledge of why they are
doing it. whereas in reality, they were only defending their land against the soldiers who invaded
it. The papers of Jun Valila, "The Bangsamoro Question and the National Democratic Option,"
and the papers of Rizal G. Buendia, "The State-Moro Armed Conflict in the Philippines:
Unresolved National Question or Question of Governance," wherein both papers talked about
the conflict and self-determination of the Moros in establishing their own governance in order to
improve and give fair attention to the Muslims, non-Muslims, and non-Christians who live in
Mindanao. The majority of people lacked knowledge. Until now, only a small number of people
understood them, and the vast majority continued to judge them negatively. When you try to
educate them, they simply say that we are bragging about our education how incorrigibles.

Have you ever wondered what religion would have emerged if the Spanish had not
managed to reach the Philippines? Well, if you can see, one of the biggest influences on the
Spanish is Catholicism. So, the possible answer is Islam. By that time, a large population of
Muslim people were living in the Philippines. Because of the influence of neighboring countries,
such as Malaysia and Brunei, which are known as Muslim countries, even at the early times
when there were no Spanish colonizers, the early Filipinos were already trading with Muslim
people, and by that we will certainly be influenced in our way of living.

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 Going back to the topic, with their strong self-determination, the Moros continued to
repel the Spanish for decades. So, the Spanish regard Mindanao as a different country, distinct
from the land they conquered. But unfortunately, when the U.S. entered the scene, our Moro
brothers and sisters were eventually subdued.

We see how the Moros defend their land through rebellion and as well as their will to
fight for their people, but why? It is because of the dispossession of the ancestral domain. Who
would be pleased if an immigrant came uninvited and imposed their rules just like that? That's
why the Spanish hated Muslims because they didn't give a damn about such foolishness. Because
the rest of the Philippines has already been Christianized, Muslims who follow the different
practices of the Spanish invaders feel isolated. The Spaniards are already doing this because they
are unable to penetrate with Moros troops, so they have barred Moros from entering the
Philippines.

Despite their hatred for one another, the Spanish and Moros manage to come to an
agreement. To avoid further casualties, the two factions agreed to a ceasefire. These treaties were
halted after the Jabidah massacre, which took the lives of defenseless Muslim recruits under the
dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The government, on the other hand, had the audacity to deny the
incident and refuse to investigate it. The government's actions infuriated the Muslim community,
leading to the cancellation of peace treaties and the formation of the Mindanao Independence
Movement, led by Datu Udtog Matalam. for the purpose of launching a secessionist movement.
Despite this, a secessionist movement arose on October 11, 1968, when he met President
Ferdinand Marcos, who appointed Matalam as his Muslim Affairs adviser. Matalam stated in a
statement released by the MIM secretariat that he "accepted the position as a gesture of
sportsmanship on his part as the leader of the Philippines' more than four million Muslims."

The failed MIM movement, is followed by Banga Muslimin Islamic Liberation

Organizations, founded by a member of the House of Representatives, Raschid Lucman, who
aims for the complete separation of Mindanao from the other regions and the establishment of a
Muslim state. but eventually failed because of the betraying actions of some leaders by
cooperating with Ferdinand Marcos.

After the internal problems, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a secular
movement, was unable to achieve its goals. When some of its leaders attempted to negotiate with

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President Marcos, they were met with contempt by the younger members. Raschid Lucman, a
member of the House of Representatives, founded Banga Muslimin Islamic Liberation
Organizations, the next organization.

After leaving the MNLF, Salamat Hashim founded the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF), which from the start advocated for autonomy rather than independence and was based
on an Islamic ideology. Then came the ASG, a brutal organization founded by Hashim and
Janjalani that advocated for a purely Islamic government but committed crimes.

"Salamat" evolved into "Raschid" and then became "Raschid" in his fight for
independence, while those in the MNLF and ASG quickly changed their names to suit the idea of
Islamic terrorism, while Salamat and Janjalani each spent time in prison for crimes committed
while members of the MNLF and ASG. Raschid served six years in prison before being released
into his mother's custody and working in Marawi City for the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC) International Monitoring Team as Hashim. Under the supervision of an OIC
office, Hashim led a multi-national investigation team of military and police officers that
investigated terrorist activities of the MILF and ASG.

Under the leadership of the former chief of staff of Misuari, Melham Alam, he gave birth
to the National Islamic Command Council with the purpose of creating an autonomous Islamic
state in Mindanao by mutual destruction, similar to the ASG method, and concluded that these
two organizations were working together or separately to sow greater strife through terrorist
attacks against Christians and Muslims. As a consequence of Salamat's negotiations with the
Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), leaders of the organization, who are now at war with
the Armed Forces of the Philippines, created their own group and formed an Islamic State in
Mindanao. Salamat later became Raschid, and then, in his fight for independence, he quickly
changed his name to suit the idea of Islamic terrorism. Despite their different ideas about Islam,
Salamat and the MNLF are united in the goal of separatism. As the chief of staff of Abubakar
Shekau, Melham Alam planned to follow a different path in building a state than Salim and his
contemporaries did. As the leaders of an Islamic terrorist organization, Salamat, Melham Alam,
and other members used bombings, assassinations, and violence to pursue their separate goals.

Despite their differences, ethnic groups banded together to achieve a shared goal: the
right to self-determination. However, the difficulty arose because, for whatever reason, some

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group leaders are unwilling to receive commands from others or unite under one leadership,
which creates an obstacle to attaining their goal.

The Moros' valiant resistance against the Spaniards allowed them to maintain their
practices and human rights for 300 years. The Americans encouraged the residents of Luzon,
primarily the Christians, to relocate to Mindanao after successfully controlling the territory
through coercion and monetary incentives. Muslims resisted and sought to instigate a battle,
killing thousands of Moros. Even though it was stated that people have the right to self-
determination, the state could not help prevent using the sovereignty to suppress and silence the
rights of the Moros. They were first successful in entering trades and commerce but after
forcefully grabbing their lands by the migrants there developing country had slowed down
making the people live in poverty till now.

The Muslim population of Mindanao, Philippines, shrank by 40% when Christian

immigrants compelled them to give up their lands. Christians and companies have exacerbated
and exploited Muslims' land ownership. Even though it was claimed that individuals have the
right to self-determination, the state was unable to prohibit the use of sovereignty to crush and
quiet the Moros' claims to self-determination rights.

The failure of Misuaris' leadership and its autonomous government left some Moros
gloomy about their future and constantly embroiled in a rebellion that resulted in many
individuals dying prematurely. The bigger question is whether the Bangsamoro Law (BOL) will
succeed in improving the lives of the Bangsamoro people, despite Prof. Jun Valila's dispute and
prediction that it would fail in his study. Given how the Muslim people of Mindanao joyfully
celebrated in the hope of a new change, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, at least 1%.

The Moros' fortitude in the face of Western colonizers is admirable, but the island
nation's decline in land ownership and tenancy status reflects a historical trend of "vanishing
land-ownership rights, land title disputes, conversion and concessions for new economic
enterprises; exploitative-sweat equity and leases, urbanization of Moro communities, and
concentration in open spaces (shantytowns) with no right to buy or own, thus leading to the
obliteration of Moro individual and collective land rights."

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 To summarize, there is no doubt that Mindanao's Moros are patriotic and self-determined
to defend their territory rather than allow it to fall to Spain, which is a fantastic notion in my
opinion. Despite the many casualties, there was one thing they avoided from the Spanish settlers:
total exploitation, particularly by the friars. However, even after the colonizers have left the land,
the old relations between the two, the Muslim and the Christianized land, have never been fully
restored. It resulted in fighting amongst Filipinos, which resulted in numerous deaths and a
deepening chasm between the two. Perhaps because of the residual influence of the conquerors
who conquered the Philippines and largely divided them.

Citations:

Valila, J. (2018). The Bangsamoro Question and the National Democratic Option

Buendia, R. (2005). The state-Moro armed conflict in the Philippines Unresolved national
question or question of governance?

Wikipedia contributors. (2022, March 18). Spanish–Moro conflict. Spanish–Moro

Conflict. Retrieve from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spanish%E2%80%93Moro_conflict&oldid=1077765
839

Rappler. (2015, July 12). ANIMATION: War came to Mindanao [Video]. Retrieve from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoEi5-ezOxU&list=LL&index=20&t=169s

Wikipedia contributors. (2022, January 9). Muslim Independence Movement. Muslim

Independence Movement. Retrieve from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Muslim_Independence_Movement&oldid=10646774
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