The Separatist Movement inthe Southern Philippines

ERNST UTRECHT

ERNST UTRECHT is a Fellow of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam.

For over two years the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) andthe Philippine Constabulary (PC) have been waging an unavailingwar against the Moslem separatists in the southern Philippines.Each time the AFP and the PC seem to have beaten the separatistsdecisively, as for instance in Jolo,l Midsayap Town,’- and Basilan,3the rebels have pushed them back, forcing them to try yet again torecover lost territory. It is becoming all too evident that theMarcos regime will never be able to win the war in Mindanao,Basilan and Sulu by force of arms alone. The Moslem freedomfighters enjoy the full support of the local population, who feeldiscriminated against economically, socially and politically by theleaders in Manila. The separatist movement in the southernPhilippines is primarily of economic and social origin; religion isonly a secondary concern.

THE ORIGINS OF THE CONFLICT

The principal causes of the conflict between the predominantlyCatholic government in Manila and the 4 million Moslems in thesouth (the total population of the Philippines is about 40 million)are the absence of any affinity, historically developed or otherwise,between the rulers in the north and their subjects in the south, andthe ruthless exploitation of the south by the north and by themultinational corporations. The Philippine Minister of Information,S. Tatad, pictures the war in the south as a ’religious war’, a fightbetween Christians and Moslems, and he criticizes the latter forbeing ’intolerant’, for waging an ’insane jihad’ (religious war of

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conquest), and for having no other purpose than to break awayfrom the Philippine Republic. Mr. Tatad, however, does not givethe full picture. A proper investigation into the total setting andbackground of the conflict shows that the war in the south, inparticular in the island of Mindanao, is in the first place a stl1lgglefor laiid. In some regions even Christian landless peasants are sidingwith the Moslems.4

The animosity between Christians and Moslems in the .

Philippines has a long history,5 more than four centuries, and atvarious times there have been different grounds for it. The firstMoslems to come to the Philippines arrived in the tenth century.6It was not until February 1564 that Miguel de Legaspi and the firstSpanish colonists reached the island of Samar. After warfare withthe islanders of Cebu it was to this island, in the heart of theVisayas, that the first Spanish settlers came to stay. The Spaniards,attracted by the rich natural resources, wanted to bring the islandsunder their direct control. Working on the principle that theycould rely only on people who shared their faith, the Spanishcolonists immediately set out to convert all the islanders to RomanCatholicism. They succeeded with the ’pagans’ living in the low-lands of the northern islands? But the Moslems in the south .

successfully resisted the Spanish oppressors in a long series of wars,the so-called ’Moro wars’. The Spaniards have never been able toconquer some tens of thousands of Moslems in Mindanao and Sulu,whom they called ’Moros’ after their arch-enemies in North Africa.However, an unfortunate consequence of the Spanish influence onthe Filipinos in the north, incorrectly called the ’Filipinos proper’by some, has been that the northern Catholics to this day considertheir southern Moslem fellow countrymen as inferior humanbeings.

Under the American colonial administration of the Philippines,1899-1946, conditions for the Moslem minority were considerablybetter than under the previous Spanish rule, if only because theAmerican administrators immediately put an end to the efforts ofthe Catholic priests to christianize the Moslems. For the rest, theAmericans left the south virtually alone, at least from the point ofadministration. When in 1935 the Government in Washingtonpromised the Philippines national independence within ten years,the Moslem leaders in the south became restless. They sent adelegation to the then President of the United States, FranklinDelano Roosevelt, asking him to exclude Mindanao and the SulkArchipelago from a possible transfer of sovereignty to the _~

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Philippines, because the Moslems did not wish to be placed underthe rule of the Christian majority in Manila.

Since 1930 relations between Christians and Moslems have beenworsening. In 1930 the first Christian Filipinos from the over-populated areas in Central Luzon migrated to the sparselypopulated islands in the south. They proceeded to buy land fromthe Moslems and settled down. During the 1930s there was a flowof Christian migrants coming from the north into the south, andtheir numbers continued to increase after the Second World War.

By the end of the 1950s the situation was such that the best plotsof land in the south had fallen into the hands of the Christiansettlers, many of the new landlords becoming owners of largeestates. As a consequence the Christians came to hold a more andmore dominant position in economic life in the south over theirMoslem fellow-citizens.

Moslem peasant leaders and small traders protested and calledon the Government in Manila to protect the impoverished Moslemrural population against the ruthless offensive launched by theChristian migrants in their moves to grab land. But the majority ofthe cabinet ministers in Manila consisted, and still consists today,of Christians and representatives of rich Christian Filipino families,who personally benefited from the prevailing situation. So, theChristian landlords in the south had nothing to fear. And today theGovernment in Manila continues to back them, since largelandownership in the south lends considerable financial benefits toa number of rich families in the north and to a number ofmultinational corporations.8

In the last half-century Moslems have been superseded from thefew agricultural industries they still held by American andJapanese enterprises. American and, in later years, Japanesecompanies obtained land for estates, cattle ranches and otheragrarian industries owned by foreigners. Japanese investors,granted licences for lumber exploitation, were given theopportunity to carry away huge quantities of timber out of thecountry. American companies such as Delmonte and DolePineapple (of Dolefile) make ample use of cheap labour and lowin situ prices for locally-grown fruit, such as bananas andpineapples, and they are also given various special tax exemptions.It is known that the present Minister of Defence, Juan PonceEnrile, has retained his position as legal adviser to Dole Pineapple.Ennie is also a big shareholder of Standard Fruit and SteamshipCo., which mainly employs Christians in its banana estates in

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Davao, on the ground that Moslems are ’unreliable and lazy’.

Generally, growth in Mindanao has been without any significant contributionto the building of a long-run stable base for balanced regional growth. Theproblems of the indigenous economy have been compounded by relativelypoor infrastructure - social and economic - by administrative bottlenecks,and by the lack of systematic information on all aspects of the region. Inrecent years the deterioration in the peace and order situation due to socialstrife has adversely affected agricultural production and imposed a heavyfinancial burden on the national government.9

_

Barbara Cort comments: .

These are serious problems. Yet if the TImes Jounial is any indication of the ’government’s response to these problems, it is clear the Marcos governmentis ignoring them. According to the article, everything is going well. New’agro-based and resource-based’ extractive industries will be geared for export.Mining will be encouraged and tourism will bring in thousands of preciousdollars more each year.

But who will collect these dollars? Who will own the plantations, minesand forests? Who will own the hotels and tourist beaches? What will happento the millions of the poor people of Mindanao in the meantime? Will roadsbe built? Will medical and educational services people can afford beprovided? Will the environment be protected?

Will local citizens have a say in how their resources are developed? Willthey be trained to run the industries themselves? Will they have a share of theprofits?

Silence from the New Society indicates a probability that they will not.l0

When the Moslems discovered that no adequate protection couldbe expected from the Government in Manila, they decided toarrange matters for themselves. Under the guidance of some youngmilitant leaders they formed a number of well-armed mobilefighting squads, which molested Christians and launched attackson their possessions. All kinds of controversies in daily life -disputes in the coffee shops, competition in the market place,conflicts over family affairs, and numerous other trivial and moreserious causes - could easily trigger off fights between Moslemsand Christians, which often enough resulted in killings and .

destruction of houses. Well-known Moslem armed bands were theBlackshirts and the Barracudas. The Blackshirts were financiallysupported by the opportunist feudal Moslem leader Datu UdtogMatalam, and the Barracudas enjoyed the political protection ofAli Dimoporo, a member of Philippine Congress.ll

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The Christians formed their own armed group, the Ilagas orRats. These were secretly backed up by the PC. The many bloody

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encounters between Barracudas, Blackshirts and Ilagasin the two years before martial law (23 September 1972), resultedin an estimated 1,000 innocent citizens murdered, 2,000 armedMoslem and Christian youth killed and about half a million personsrendered homeless or landless. Most of the homeless victimsmoved from the countryside to the cities. Early in 1972 a meretwelve of the thirty-five municipalities in the Cotabato provincewere under the effective control of the PC. The remaining districtswere exposed to terrorism by the rival armed bands, and 34,000inhabitants - Moslems, Christians and ’pagans’ alike - managed toescape from those battle-ridden districts to the cities that werecontrolled by the PC.12

In July 1970 bloody fights for landownership took placebetween Moslems and Christians in the districts of Marawi andManobos in southern Cotabato - Moslem landless peasants triedto take land from Christian landowners. 3 In September 1970 anattempt was made on the life of Salipada Pendatun, a Moslemmember of Congress, when he was on his way to Cotabato.14 Inthe early months of 1971 the Blackshirts launched a ’total war’ ,

against the Christians and the PC. For the first time mention wasmade of Moslem secessionist groups, supported by Datu UdtogMatalam, the Moslem landowner mentioned earlier. It wasrumoured that young militant Moslems crossed to Sabah in NorthKalimantan (East Malaysia) to be given special military training.15

According to Juan Razon Verdad, Marcos himself organized anarmed group in Mindanao and placed it under the control of agangster, a certain Elizalde.16 This squad, named PANAMIN(Verdad fails to give a further explanation of this acronym), is saidto have been organized along the same lines as the Monkees inManila, a gang of bandits, also created by Marcos, which seems tohave been responsible for the murder of Carlos del Rozario, one ofthe foremost leaders of the students’ Movement for a DemocraticPhilippines (MDP), the arrest of Nilo Tayag, chairman of theleftist student organization Kabataaug-Makabayarr, and the murderof the two Kabataang-A1akabayan members, Benilda Macalde andEduardo Dasmarinas. PANAMIN’s main task was to removeMoslems as well as Christians from land which was needed for the

operations of a multinational corporation or capitalistic under-taking. It may be assumed that PANAMIN had a hand in themurder of sixty-five Moslem men, women and children in a mosquein the barrio of Manalili near Cotabato. The murderers weredressed in red-striped military uniforms, which had been made in

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Ilocos Sur, stronghold of the Marcos clique.In September 1971 there was an outburst of fighting between

Moslems and Christians throughout Cotabato province, includingthe areas which until then had been known for being ’quiet’. Thefiglts spread to the adjoining provinces of Lanao del Norte, Lanaodel Sur and Davao. Salipada Pendatun has stated that the Ilagas atone time planned to exterminate all the Moslems in the south. 17According to a report in National Liberation Fortnightly of 15December 1971,18 Marcos had in November of that same yearbeen guilty of systematic genocide in the southern Philippines: on22 November forty innocent and defenceless Moslem citizens hadbeen coldbloodedly murdered by units of the AFP; on 27November the National Union of Moslem Youth and studentsstated that in Lebak, in the province of Cotabato, forty-sixunarmed Moslems were killed by the Ilagas in cooperation with thePC; on 30 November sixty-seven Moslems were slaughtered inKisolon, in Bukidnon.The political campaigns for the November 1971 senate election

had a further negative impact on the general situation of unrest. 9A short period of relative peace in the early months of 1972 wasfollowed by a new outburst of violence in the summer. During askirmish between Ilagas and Barracudas in Zamboanga del Surprovince on 1 1 June 1972, seventeen people were killed and twoseriously wounded.20 On the same day a group of Ilagas attackedanother village in the same province, killing fourteen people.21The Moslem fighting squads, too, were constantly guilty ofmanslaughter. In the Irzternational Heralci Tribune of 8 July 1972the Barracudas were held responsible for the murder of seventyChristian citizens. Other Moslem armed groups reportedly killedsixty-three Christians in three villages in Zamboanga del Sur. TheBangkok Post gave figures that differed somewhat from those inthe International Herald Tribune: it told its readers that the threevillages in question were totally burnt out, fifty-three Christianskilled and approximately 100 wounded.22 The next day it was theIlagas’ turn to take revenge. They made a ferocious assault on aMoslem village.23 In early September 1972 tens of villages werehit by intermittent attacks from Moslems and Christians. In spiteof the fact that the villagers had acquired a certain degree ofexpertise in knowing when and where to flee, sixteen werereportedly killed and eight injured during the September frights. 24The wild killings and repeated arson by the Blackshirts, Barracudasand Ilagas aroused feelings of deep hatred among Moslems and

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Christians alike. In Mindanao many a Christian held to theconviction that ’the only good Moslem was a dead Moslem’.25

During 1972 Moslem separatism in the southern Philippinesgained in strength and influence. Some Moslem leaders began tomake public statements on the ’bitter necessity for the Moslempopulation to break away from the north and establish a separateMoslem republic’. In September 1972 there were in the southernPhilippines four Moslem secessionist groups or movements: AnsarEl Islam. founded in 1969 and counting approximately 2,000members; the Mindanao Independent Movement, founded in 1968and also counting about 2,000 members; the Moro NationalLiberation Movement, which was modelled after the PalestineLiberation Organisation (PLO); and the Sabah RevolutionaryMovement, with an estimated 5,000 participants, which wasaffiliated to Federal State of Malaysia’s Sabah.26

THE STRUGGLE FOR MORO INDEPENDENCE

On 23 September 1972 Marcos proclaimed a state of martial lawfor the whole territory of the Philippines, with a treble aim: (1) toretain the possibility of prolonging his presidency for an indefinitenumber of years; (2) to safe-guard the American economicinterests in the Philippines; and (3) to ensure that the Philippineswould remain available as a military base for American agressionagainst liberation movements in Southeast Asia. 27

Immediately after the proclamation of martial law Marcosdispatched fresh troops to Isabela in northern Luzon to destroythe bulwark of the Maoist New People’s Army (NPA) in thatprovince. Against the Moslems in the south, too, he had plansready for a hard line. However, before embarking on an expeditionto eliminate the Moslem rebels, Marcos decided to try persuasionagain. For that purpose he called a number of compradore Moslemleaders to Manila and staged dialogues with them on the Philippinetelevision. Congressman Indanan Anni told Marcos and theaudience: ’We welcome martial law. It has stopped the increasingtide of subversive elements in the country and we pledge tocooperate with President Marcos.’ Similarly, Sulu GovernorMurphy Sangkula announced: ’We are now living peacefully’;while Jolo Mayor Aminkadra Subakar said: ’Our people nowrealise how beautiful it is to live within the law.’ On 3 OctoberMarcos had a highly publicized meeting with a delegation ofMoslem political leaders who pledged to ’live peacefully’ under

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martial law.28Such meetings and statements did not reflect the reality of the

situation in the liberation movements in the south, however, andthe guerrillas were not impressed by the alliance between Marcosand a number of their reactionary and feudal chieftains and otherleaders. The liberation movements continued their stmggle formore autonomy or even independence. Then, in an effort to put adefinite end to the ’Moro insurgency in the south’, the ManilaGovernment sent more troops and artillery units to Mindanao andSulu. Press reports, even from the censored Manila press,indicated the degree to which Moslem ’dissidence’ had grownduring the first three months after the proclamation of martiallaw. On 22 October 1972, Information Minister Tatad told a newsbriefing in Manila that the AFP had ‘cmshed an uprising staged byabout 400 predominantly Moslem insurgents in Marawi City inMindanao’.29 The latter had occupied the only bridge leading tothe city, hoisted a red flag of ’Maoist character’, burnt twobuildings in Marawi’s commercial centre, occupied the MindanoState University and had begun broadcasting on its radio station.The Japanese ambassador, Toshio Urabe, who was visiting Marawi,was trapped inside the university during the fighting betweengovernment troops and Moslem guerrilla fighters. The president ofthe university provided the ambassador with a Moslem disguise,including a fez and batik sarong, so that he could leave the areasafely. Immediately military reinforcements of about 300 men .

from the Army and the Marines were flown from Manila to theembattled city to end the fighting. The next day the Governmentregained ’complete control’ over Marawi City. According toNational Defence Minister Juan Ponce Enrile ’the outlaws hadsuffered very heavy casualties, much more than 50’.30

One week after the Marawi incident, another battle betweenMoslems and government troops took place in the vicinity of abridge near Parang town. ’Casualties on the government side werelisted as one dead and two wounded.’31 At the same time, inanother part of Mindano, a PC detachment, backed by a helicoptergunship, engaged guerrilla fighters in a four-hour battle. On 6November, a military spokesman disclosed that government troops’had repulsed an attack by 500 Moslem outlaws in CotabatoProvince killing 12 of the raiders’.32 Three weeks later, on 29November, Marcos admitted publicly that fierce fighting hadbroken out in Basilan Island. One of the government detachmentshad been ’completely wiped out by the enemy’.33

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By the end of 1972 it was becoming clear to Marcos that itwould be impossible to end the war against the Moslems by brutalforce alone. The shelling of Moslem villages by the PhilippineArmy’s artillery had strengthened the position of the Moslemmovement for independence considerably and the south was onthe verge of breaking away. In particular the Tausugs, a bellicosetribe in the Sulu island of Jolo,34 had already made preparationsto wage a real independence war. According to the military,dissidence in Mindanao had taken a toll of 1 10 Moslems killedsince the proclamation of martial law. Thirty-six governmentsoldiers had been killed in the same period.

So Marcos had to seek an end to dissidence in the Moslemregions by offering selective amnesty and a package of economicbenefits. He made these pledges on 3 January 1973, during alengthy conference with some 300 Moslem leaders, whom he hadinvited to the presidential palace. Present were Moslem membersof the Philippine Congress and the Philippine ConstitutionalConvention, governors and mayors, and representatives ofprominent Moslem clans, including the Udtog Matalam faction,which supported the movement for independence in the south.Marcos emphasized to the Moslem leaders that the situation was’serious and urgent’. Government information, he said, indicated’intervention of foreign-trained and foreign-arnied troops’. Marcosrefused to name the country, but Mayor Lincoln Tulawie of Talipuin Sulu told the conference that there were in his area ’about 200young Moslem activists who have been trained in Malaysia’.’Government troops went to Mindanao, not for the purpose offighting Moslems but for identifying and segregating foreigninsurgents, if any’, said Marcos, apologizing for his brutalintervention in the south. Datu Udtog Matalam, however, suddenly

- disclaimed any secessionist aims, although he had earlier told’ Marcos of other Moslem groups that desired separation and were

actively pursuing it ’with the help of foreign-trained troops’! Thusthe treacherous datii, who for a couple of years had opposed theManila Government, suddenly exchanged pledges of cooperationwith Marcos after the latter had sent fresh troops to Cotabato.

At the conference Marcos admitted that land disputes had beena major factor in creating tensions in the region between theMoslems, who had lived there for centuries, and the settlers fromthe north. His ’solution’ to the land problem was to order hisMinister for Agriculture to set aside land on Basilan Island forMoslems who have been driven out by the Christian settlers. Other

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Marcos proposals to spur economic development in the southincluded the extension of the Zamboanga Airport runway toaccommodate jets in order to promote tourism. He also orderedthe National Economic Development Authority to disperseindustry from the typhoon-prone northern areas to the south.This would benefit both the local area and the industries them-

selves, he assured the quite astonished Moslem leaders at theconference. Marcos also promised to lift customs restrictions in theregion and offered credit facilities.35

But Marcos’s pledges of 3 January 1973 failed to reduceguerrilla activity in the south. Most of the feudal and reactionarydatus had themselves become targets of attacks by the liberationmovements. Around October 1973 the Moro National LiberationMovement (MNLF) founded an independent Moslem state, theBangsa Moro Republik (BMR, Republic of the Moro Nation). TheAFP and PC, meanwhile, had succeeded in pushing back theMNLF and other liberation forces from the coastal areas ofMindanao into the mountainous interior of the island. The MNLF,therefore, shifted its frontlines to Basilan and Jolo. In thebeginning of 1974 Jolo became the main stronghold of Moslemresistance in the south on account of its strategic position and alsobecause of what is called ’Tausug tradition’. The militant Tausugtribe of Jolo have for centuries successfully resisted oppressionand domination from outside. Ninety years ago the Spaniards, in alast bid to bring the Sulu archipelago under colonial rule, sent offfrom Zamboanga a large expedition of warships, including elevengunboats, to Jolo, the main island of the practically independentkingdom of Sulu. The capital of Jolo with the sultan’s palace wasrazed to the ground. But the sultan and his Tausugs continued toharass the Spanish intruders from their dugouts in the interior,dealing them heavy losses. In the end the Spaniards had noalternative but to offer the sultan and the Tausugs far-reachingautonomy. In 1885 Sulu became an international protectorate ofSpain. For that reason, the peoples of Sulu argued at a later stagein history, the Spaniards were not entitled to transfer sovereigntyover Sulu to the Americans (in 1898). In line with this view theTausugs never recognized American colonial authority. When in1946 the Philippines became an independent republic, the peoplesof Sulu decided to accept incorporation of Sulu into the independ-ent Republic of the Philippines only under ’certain conditions’.When in January 1973 it had become clear that Marcos intendedto misuse martial law to wage an all-out war against the Moslems,

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the Tausugs unhesitatingly joined the MNLF.According to some Philippine authorities the separatists in the

south had been given money and weapons by President Gadhafyof Lybia and enjoyed the moral support of nearly all Moslemcountries in the world. The last part of this statement is doubtlesstrue. It was, among other things, clearly demonstrated by theinvitation the BMR received to send observers to the Moslemsummit conference held in Lahore, Pakistan, in February 1974.36Four months later, in June 1974, a meeting of the foreignministers of thirty Moslem countries convened in Kuala Lumpursharply criticized Marco’s policy in the southern Philippines)7

The Information Service of the Philippine Government is goingout of its way to blur the impression of a forceful subjection of aMoslem minority by a Christian majority, and to make it appear asif the Moslem liberation movement is a ’Maoist uprising’. Marcosalleges that the leader of the BMR in Jolo, Nurullaji Misuari, aformer professor of the University of the Philippines, ’is anotorious Maoist’. It is true that when Misuari was a universitystudent he was one of the leaders of the leftist students’

organization, Kabataang-Makabayan. but he has never maintainedany contacts with the Philippine Communists. The following state-ment by Kasim Abdullah, a government official in Jolo loyal to theMarcos regime, proves the absurdity of Marcos’s accusation:There are only good Moslems in Jolo. And a good Moslem cannot possibly bea good communist at the same time, for communism runs straight counter toMoslem religious principles. Neither are the rebels Maoists. Anotherincongruous allegation is that the Moslems are waging a holy war against theChristians. When during the fights between rebels and government troops,here in Jolo, at one time a Catholic priest and three nuns ran into trouble, I

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was able to save their lives and then took them to the interior, where nowthey are safe and in good hands. They are being treated well by the insurgents,far better than they would have been treated by Marcos’s soldiers.After the big battle of February 1974 (see below) Kasim Abdullahhas resumed his duties as far as the present conditions allow him todo so.

Benhur Dandan, Secretary of MNLF, sees as the real cause ofthe war in Jolo ’the greed of Marcos and his American and c <

Japanese masters for the rich natural resources of Sulu’. Oil hasbeen struck in the seabed of the Philippine territorial waters.

Quite a number of officials are cooperating secretly with theMoslem freedom fighters. One of them was, until recently, theMayor of Jolo Town, Aminkadra Subakar, nicknamed Barlie. After

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the fighting of February 1974 Subakar suddenly ’disappeared’, butthree weeks later he was back on the scene and at his post. Nobodycould tell the ins and outs of the affair. Subakar’s opponents keptsaying that he had returned to his post ’with the permission of therebels’. Subakar himself, on the other hand, declared in March1974 to the then visiting Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, OmarSakaff, that ’the rebels were Maoist-minded’. According toSubakar’s opponents this statement only served as ’tactics’ toprevent his dismissal as mayor by the Marcos regime.

In February 1974 the guerrillas in Jolo committed what manyhave called a ’big strategic blunder, a kind of suicide’. About 500men, half of the guerrillas on the island, moved out of the interiorto take and occupy Jolo Town. They penetrated the townunhindered and occupied the harbour area and the Chinesebusiness centre which is called Chinese pier. Apparently they hadthe support of the police. The small detachment of the Armystationed i7i Jolo was completely surprised and had to take refugein Notre Dame College, the biggest building of the town, east ofthe airport. From this entrenchment the Army called in assistancefrom the military in Zamboanga in Mindanao, and in Lamitan andIsabela on Basilan island. The next day the military reinforcementlanded on the airbase of Jolo, which, surprisingly, was notoccupied by the freedom fighters. The Army made its way to thetown, while artillery units and fighter aircraft shelled the town.Heavy fighting in the streets of the burning town between guerrillaand government troops ensued. Finally the Army managed toforce the freedom fighters out of the town, but it was not in aposition to pursue them any further. The guerrillas resorted to theinterior of Jolo island, where they started to regroup andreorganize their forces. The battle in and around Jolo lasted foreleven days. According to Colonel Alcoseba, who was in charge ofthe military operation, the death toll was sixty insurgents, thirty-two civil servants and twenty-six military, and fifty civilians werewounded. A timely escape by the inhabitants of Jolo Town keptthe number of victims low.

But the loss of houses and other possessions was staggering.Three-quarters of the town was burnt out. 40,000 of the 50,000inhabitants became homeless. Notre Dame College and the stateprison were the only public buildings to be saved. Of thePhilippine Amanah Bank, a credit bank for peasants and smalltraders established by Marcos, only the ground floor remained.Many police functionaries, among them the Chief Constable of

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Jolo, were arrested by the Army for alleged ’collaboration withthe rebels’.

So far only two measures taken by the Marcos administrationmay contribute a little to the reconstruction of Jolo. ThePhilippine Amanah Bank, which has resumed its activities, hasreceived US $1.5 million to be used solely for the reconstructionof Jolo-Town. This gift is, however, a mere drop in the ocean.

The second measure looks more promising. On 8 May 1974Marcos announced the nationalization of all private land in Jolo,as part of a plan to ’democratise’ Philippine society. ’All ourpatrimony and wealth shall belong to the nation. We are deter-mined to democratise all aspects of Philippine society, includingproperty ownership’, Marcos said. He added that ’property in Jolowill be titled in the name of the whole community and turned overto its residents’.38

However, the implementation of this measure has not yetstarted, and the economic situation in the south has furtherdeteriorated. The multinational corporations, supported by theirChristian compradores. are freely continuing their plunder of thecountry’s natural resources.39 Dick Vokey gives the followingdescription of the chaotic economic conditions:

Not surprisingly, the fighting does the economy no good. The Social WelfareDepartment estimated that by June 4, 1973, slightly less than one millionpeople had been driven from their homes, including at least 100,000 whowere directly engaged in agricultural production. How many more have beendisplaced since, or how many of these first-circle refugees have fled a secondtime after resettling their holdings, is not known.

What is fully realized, however, is the importance of Mindanao and Sulu tothe national economy. Mindanao produces all the Philippines’ rubber andrarW e, much of its timber, more than half of its corn, half of its coconuts andfish productions, a fifth of its rice and substantial portions.

Again, figures on production losses are suppressed.But, although the northern parts of Mindanao have not been directly

affected by the fighting, some areas, such as Cotabato, a prime rice andproduction area, have suffered tremendously. The battles that began in Juneand are still under way in the Cotabato City region coincided with theharvesting and planting season.

In Sulu and parts of the two Zamboangas, rubber, coconut and loggingoperations have been abandoned, either to be exploited by the rebels or leftto rot.

In an editorial that must set a new mark for boldness in the post-martiallaw press, the tiny Mindanao Cross in Cotabato City made the point in June:

’Once more may we appeal to all. By &dquo;all&dquo;, we mean ALL. ..

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The unrest has caused - and is causing - unnecessary losses. In lives. Ineconomy.How many prosperous barrios [villages] have been burnt? It will take yearsto restore them to economic prosperity.How many hectares of farms ready to harvest have been abandoned to rot?

; How many hectares of farms ready for planting have been abandoned? -

This is the same appeal from the vast majority of Muslims and Christians. :The unrest has cost them too much.’

Probably the most painful aspects of the southern situation for hopefulmen in the Marcos regime and for the President himself are the indications ,

that development plans for Muslim Mindanao and Sulu, so late in coming,now cannot be carried out and that the young Muslim activists whomMarcos was busy opposing when they were ready to work within the system,are now in the hills and seem determined not to talk before there is a newresident at Malacanan.~

As a result, the political interrelationships declined rapidly. ’ ’

Another report by Dick Vokey: ,

Blood feuds among these subgroups also lead to some strange alliances. ’

The man who led the attack on Jolo town last February is believed to havebeen a local smuggler-pirate-killer, renown for his courage and skill as aguerrilla, and a bitter enemy of one of the Balikbayan chiefs now fightingwith the AFP on the island. The bandit-cum-rebel has already lost one brotherto his rival and some people in the area believe he has little choice other thanto remain in insurgent-held territory if he wants to live.

It is not uncommon, military sources say, for the surrender of a disgruntledoutlaw gang to spark off a small exodus into the hills of young men who,because of personal feuds, cannot feel safe with the new Balikbayan grouponce it receives its cloak of loyalty and legality.

But, while the bandits, either in support of the rebels, or while takingadvantage of the unsettled situation, are often blamed for the more brutalacts of the fighting, especially those involving Christian civilians, the mainMNLA(F) base remains the rural Muslim population.

How great or enthusiastic is this support must be a matter of opinion, and,it is an indication of how much more serious the rebellion can become that

many feel the bulk of the Muslims have not yet had their loyalty put to thetest by either side.

But in Jolo town, in the few refugee camps that have been built, youngMuslims of fighting age are notable for the absence. In Cotabato, registrationof Muslim boys in late secondary schools is down 80 per cent this year. Innearby Midsayap, when fighting was at a high point last month, the AFP washard pressed to find any Muslim youths to question among the 20,000displaced persons who had flooded into the town.

The estimated 16,000 fully-armed, full-time rebels in the embattled areasare drawn principally from this source. And when, as happened in mid-June

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in the regions around Cotabato City, hardcore rebel groups move in foroperations, local Muslim families are expected to contribute one son to thecause.

’We knew it was about to start again’, said one city resident. ’The patternis always the same. The refugees, the old, the young and the women, beganto move from their homes. The Muslim children of rural families were alltaken from school. Then, three days later, the fighting started.

You know, it’s funny. We are all Filipmos. The mothers come for theirchildren because if you are going to die, the family should be together.’

The son and daughter of a prominent Chinese family in Jolo; Christianyouths who went along with Muslim friends; possibly some activists and NewPeople’s Army members from the north who found escape and friendshipwith former fellow students and others with a common enemy. These oddsand ends also help strengthen the rebel forces in Mindanao and Sulu.

Most seek secession or federate status. Some are after personal power.Some may see this conflict as only the first step in a long battle for somethingcompletely different.

But however varied the rebel motives, the immediate problem facingPresident Marcos and his armed forces is clear: They have too many

’

opponents in the south who are willing to fight and die for what theybelieve.41

The Moslem freedom fighters are very well aware of thesympathy they enjoy from the Moslem world. Tun Mustapha ofSabah, for one, provides them with various kinds of materialsupport. It is generally expected that sooner or later Mustapha willintervene actively, although government circles in Kuala Lumpurand Mustapha himself vigorously deny this. It looks very probablethat in the end Mindanao, Basilan and the Sulu Archipelago willfollow the same path as once did East Pakistan, the presentindependent state of Bangladesh. Manila seems to be not totallyunaware of this, but is, of course, careful not to admit it.

References1. Extensive reports in Far Eastern Economic Review (25 February, 4, 11 and 18

March 1974).2. International Herald Tribune (29 June 1974).3. International Herald Tribune (20 September 1974). 4. Ligaya del Mundo, ’Mindanao: Strife in the Land of Promise’, Pahayag (Apnl

1973), pp. 3-6. 5. Najeeb M. Saleeby, Studies in Moro History, Laws, and Religion (Manila, 1905),

and The History of Sulu (1908, reprint Manila, 1963); chapters in George Farwell,Mask of Asia: The Philippines Today (New York, 1967), pp. 117-26, 107-8 and127-38; Alunan C. Glang, ’Modernizing the Muslim’, Solidarity (March 1969),and ’Cotabato Cnsis: Why the Shooting Won’t Stop’, Solidarity (April 1972);Ernst Utrecht, ’The War in the Southern Philippines’, in Jonathan Fast (ed.), ThePhilippines. End of an Illusion (Pambungad sa Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas) (London,

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1973), pp. 80-92; James C. Stewart, ’The Cotabato Conflict: Impressions of anOutsider’, Solidarity (April 1972), pp. 31-42; Felix Razon, ’Filipino Muslims andthe Revolution’, Philippines Information Bulletin (March-April 1973), pp. 17-25;Carol H. Molony, ’It’s still genocide even if they die by starvation’, Pahayag (July1973 ), pp. 8-12, 16, and The War Against the Moslems in the SouthernPhilippines, Paper (29 August 1973).

6. Usop K. Pendaliday distinguishes three different groups of Moslems in thesouthern Philippines: the Tausugs in the Sulu Archipelago; the Maranaos in Lanaodel Norte, the western part of Bukidnon, North Cotabato and part of Zamboangadel Sur; and the Maguindanaons in Cotabato and South Cotabato. The Maranaoshave their own language. Maguindanaon is a part of Cotabato that comprises allthe districts east of Rio Grande, from Libungan Turete to the south, andcomprising also Katidtuan. Salimbao, Bukana, Subpangan, Katuli and Simuay. Allthese areas lie in the territory of the sultanate of Kudarat, formerly called Nuling,which was in fact the site of the Old Moslem kingdom of Maguindanaon(’Problems and Prospects of Maguindanaon Economic Development’, Solidarity(April 1972), pp. 9-10).

7. The tribes in the more or less isolated interior and in the mountainous regions,such as the Ifugaos, Igorots and Kalingas, preserved their own religions. Duringthe Igorot wars in the eighteenth century the Spaniards tried to eliminate thismilitant tribe.

8. However, mention should be made of a number of Christian organizations whichundertake to raise the living conditions of the impoverished inhabitants of thebarrios, irrespective of creed and belief. They work in mixed villages, whereChristians and Moslems live together, and in predominantly Moslem villages withthe same dedication. These organizations base their activities on the Christianideal of fraternization. Since, however, they repudiate the Marxist doctrine ofclass struggle and refuse to direct their strategy and tactics to the necessarychanges in the social structure, their achievements so far have always proved to beof only a temporary nature. A well-known Christian champion of the cause of theMoslems is Eliezer D. Mapanao. See Portia R. Mapanao, ’Cotabato Rural UpliftMovement’, Solidarity (April 1972), pp. 10-2.

Alunan Clang writes: ’Private settlers who are backed up by these landlords orby powerful politicians also do the same &mdash; step upon a patch of land then claimit as theirs through legal documents. The Muslim farmers who are also thevictim of exploitation by their own political leaders, and the datus, seek redressin the courts; however, they do not get it. Justice is never on the side of theMuslim masses; besides being too poor, how could they afford to waste time andmoney following up a case which is hopeless anyway? So, the Muslim farmersresort to their own means &mdash; bolo and gun. The fight begins. This starts a chainreaction of more killings on each side as the "vendettas" rise. Muslim andChristian landlords who are politicians come to the scene. In fact, they are theones behind each bloody debacle in Cotabato &mdash; land disputes become a means bywhich they can persecute those who are not in their political camp &mdash; and thosewho pose as threats to their political supremacy in their districts’ (’CotabatoCrisis’, op. cit.).

9. Asian Development Bank, Economic Report on the Philippines, Vol. II (Manila,1972), pp. 1-2.

10. ’Mindanao: Investment and Underdevelopment’, Philippines Information Bulletin(February, 1974), p. 18.

11. Frank N. Hawkins Jr., ’Will the Southern Philippines ever see peace and harmony’,Bangkok Post (25 July 1972).

12. Manila Times (21 March 1972).13. Bernardino Ronquillo, ’Philippines: Land for Grab’, Far Eastern Economic

Review (23 July 1970).

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14. Bernardino Ronquillo, ’Philippines: Lethal at Local Level’, Far Eastern EconomicReview (3 October 1970).

15. Bernardino Ronquillo, ’Philippines: Disenchanted Isle’, Far Eastern EconomicReview (13 March 1971).

16. Far East Reporter, The Philippine Crisis. Background and Perspective (New York,1972), p. 19.

17. Bernardino Ronquillo, ’The Communal Backlash’, Far Eastern Economic Review(11 September 1971).

18. ’FM’s policy of massacre and terrorism teaches Muslims correct road to liberation.’19. Bernardino Ronquillo, ’Broken Promise’, Far Eastern Economic Review (18

November 1971); F. Starner, ’Blood and Ballots’, Far Eastern Economic Review(18 December 1971).

20. Bangkok Post (12 June 1972). 21. Ibid.22. Bangkok Post (6 July 1972).23. Bangkok Post (7 July 1972).24. Bangkok Post (4 September 1972).25. Lee Lescaze, ’The Winning of an Oriental West’, Guardian (29 August 1972).26. United States Senate, Korea and the Philippines. November 1972, A Staff Report

Prepared for the Use of the Committee on Foreign Relations (18 February 1973),p. 30.

27. See for the same conclusions Gabriel Kolko, ’The United States and thePhilippines: the Beginning of Another Vietnam’, Journal of Contemporary Asia(Vol. III, no. 1, February 1973), pp. 70-84.

28. Bangkok Post (4 October 1972).29. On the Marawi incident: ’Philippine uprising’, Guardian (23 October 1972); ’RP

crushes Muslim uprising: 26 killed’, Bangkok Post (23 October 1972); ’BlutigerAufstand auf den Philippinen’, S&uuml;ddeutsche Zeitung (24 October 1972); ’RPuprising "now under control" ’,Bangkok Post (24 October 1972); Ligaya delMundo, ’Marawi in Retrospect’, Pahayag (August 1973), pp. 3 and 12; Robert D.McAmis, ’Muslim Filipinos in the 1970s’, Solidarity (December 1973), pp. 3-16.

30. Bangkok Post (24 October 1972); S&uuml;ddeutsche Zeitung (24 October 1972).31. Bangkok Post (7 November 1972).32. Ibid.33. Guardian (30 November 1972); Bangkok Post (30 November 1972); De

Volkskrant (Amsterdam, 30 November 1972); S&uuml;ddeutsche Zeitung (7 December1972).

34. On the Tausugs, see Thomas M. Kiefer, The Tausug: Violence and Law in aPhilippine Moslem Society (New York, 1972).

35. International Herald Tribune (4 January 1973); Time (15 January 1973);Newsweek (15 January 1973).

36. ’Filipino Muslims have a man in Lahore’, Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur edition,22 February 1974).

37. ’Islamic Gathering Condemns Philippine Policy on Moslems’, International HeraldTribune (28 June 1974); Harvey Stockwin, ’Marcos gains time from the Muslims’,Far Eastern Economic Review (8 July 1974).

38. ’Jolo land nationalised by Marcos’, Guardian (9 May 1974).39. Bernard Wideman in Far Eastern Economic Review (8 July 1974); ’Japan in the

Philippines’, Ampo (Vol. VI, nos. 3-4, Summer-Autumn 1974), pp. 82-92.40. ’Filipino Muslim Rebellion Can Prove Fatal to Marcos Regime’, Association of

Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines, Report, no date (1974).41. ’Is Mindanao Burning?’, ibid.