SIDEBAR: Historical Roots of Muslim Conflict in Southern Philippines

Before the Spanish colonial period, Muslim sultans reigned over the islands of Mindanao. Invading Spanish explorers usurped the sultans’ power, then in 1898 the Spanish handed the islands to the United States, which in 1946 turned them back to the Philippines’ newly formed republican government.

During the colonial period, the Bangsamoros or Muslim people of the islands felt increasingly marginalized. Irritation grew as the government encouraged Christians from other parts of the Philippines to migrate to the resource-rich islands of Mindanao in the 1950s and ‘60s. The Muslim Moros, as they are known colloquially, now make up just 20 percent of the population in the south, while Christians (both Catholic and Protestant) make up 75 percent. A third group, the tribal Lumads, follow their own ancestral religions and form just 3 percent of the total.

Muslim resentment over loss of political sovereignty, ancestral lands and economic resources grew until the first Muslim Independence Movement was formed, calling for jihad to defend the Moro homeland.

The Moro National Liberation Front followed in 1972. When the MNLF called for help from Islamic states in the Middle East, the Philippine government agreed to grant limited political autonomy to Muslims within the Philippine state, through an agreement signed in December 1976. But the two sides failed to agree on the implementation of the agreement, and this led to further tension, with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front splitting from the MNLF and declaring all-out war.

According to an article by Philippine news agency ABS-CBN, Christians have formed at least 30 armed vigilante groups in response to the violence. Bishop Antonio Ledesma of Ipil, Mindanao, quoted in the article, said these groups were not truly representative of the Christian community. Muslim clerics hold that the same is true for Muslim rebel groups.

Unfortunately for both sides, “Religious extremism … is a reality that people in the islands live with daily,” Ledesma said.

Copyright 2008 Compass Direct News