Peace in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is under threat as a horizontal form of violence has increased in Maguindanao and in Lanao provinces, the heartland of the autonomous region in the southern island of Mindanao.
After the once-separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed a peace deal with the government in 2014, embracing autonomy, fighting between state security forces and the rebel group ceased.
There was a noticeable decline in the vertical form of violence although fighting with small and more violent Islamist militants continued to plague the region.
It culminated in the five-month siege of Marawi City, the only known Islamic city in the country when various Islamist militant groups banded together with the Maute group to occupy the lakeside city’s business and commercial district.
As a result of the conflict, Marawi City was left in ruins, displacing thousands and disrupting the local economy.
The city’s rehabilitation remained slow and more than seven years after the conflict, it remained a wasteland.
But Marawi was just a symptom of a bigger problem in Muslim Mindanao.
A more violent and bloody conflict might erupt as the 2025 mid-term elections draw near.
It might affect not just the Muslim region but the entire country as well, threatening the 10-year-old peace agreement with the MILF.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. certainly does not want a repeat of the Marawi conflict or the larger 1970s secessionist war during his late father’s administration.
The Philippines nearly lost Mindanao in the early 1970s as the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) nearly won on the battlefields in Cotabato.
In the last three years from 2021, the Council for Climate and Conflict Action Asia (CCAA), a local peacebuilding organization, has noticed a dramatic rise in horizontal violence fueled by a vibrant shadow economy, land disputes, competing local interests, and the MILF’s potential loss in the regional elections.
There has been a deadly pattern of violence every time an election takes place in BARMM – in the 2022 national and presidential elections and in the recent barangay elections.
There are fears there would be a spike in violence during the 2025 elections.
MILF-related violence went down after the 2014 peace deal and after the regional government was installed in 2019 with Ebrahim “al Haj” Murad as the region’s chief minister.
In 2022, the first regional elections were postponed and moved to May 2025, the first time Murad’s leadership would be tested by traditional politicians.
Former Sulu Governor and political kingpin, Sakur Tan, planned to contest Murad’s position.
The political contest could be an ingredient for regional violence.
However, more troubling are the identity-related and land disputes that has fueled the violence in BARMM’s heartland.
Muslims have been returning to lands they had lost during the conflict with the government, displacing indigenous groups that gained ownership by siding with the government during the secessionist war.
However, Muslim families and former rebel commanders have also started feuding among themselves, creating tension that have exacerbated land disputes and turf wars.
Control over the shadow economy – illegal drug trade and illicit gun trade – has also fueled violence.
Some of the local families and clans were engaged in these illegal activities as profits from the shadow economy rose.
Wealth and political power are related as clans and families fight for territories in Muslim Mindanao.
The internal revenue allotment was another source of potential violence as local politicians treat government subsidies as personal funds.
Moreover, Muslim Mindanao’s heartland is the center of gravity of extremist Islamist groups affiliated with the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and the regional Jemaah Islamiyah.
As long as these extremist groups exist and with the rising competition among local political families driven by political power and control of the shadow economy, there will be no peace in BARMM.
The central government must step in by imposing an honest campaign to dismantle private armed groups controlled by warlords and traditional politicians.
The MILF leadership must also show political will in disciplining erring local “commanders” and an honest-to-goodness program of decommissioning weapons and demobilizing combatants.
But these are easier said than done.
National politicians depend on local warlords to deliver votes in elections.
And the MILF will not surrender arms because they feel unsafe in their communities surrounded by their enemies.
But, perhaps, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur could learn a lesson from Sulu, Basilan, and Tawi-tawi to reduce violence.
Sulu could be a model although guns continue to proliferate in local communities.
Over the last three years, there was relative peace in these three island provinces after the Abu Sayyaf was decimated.
But this will not guarantee that Sakur Tan will prevail in next year’s balloting.
Sulu’s population is smaller than those in Lanao and Maguindanao. There are other factors, including support from the central government.
Let’s see who Marcos will support for the BARMM’s chief minister.
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