The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao and Majority-Minority Relations in the Philippines:  Religion, Education, Community, and Political Process

A Program Funded through the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and International Training Office of Northern Illinois University

by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State

by

Dr. Susan Russell and Dr. Lina Davide-Ong, Project Investigators

Project Director, Dr. Susan Russell, Professor, Anthropology; Faculty Associate, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University

Project Administrative Director:  Dr. Lina Davide-Ong, Director, International Training Office, Northern Illinois University

In-country Coordinator:  Atty. Marilen Ramiro, International Visitors Program-Philippines Alumni Foundation, Inc., Manila, Philippines

Regional Coordinator:  Atty. Suharto Ambolodto, Director, Caucus on Muslim Mindanao Affairs; Director, Policy Research and Program Development, Institute for Strategic Initiatives, Notre Dame University, Cotabato City, Philippines

Regional Coordinator:  Dr. Susana Salvador-Anayatin, Chief, Tchnical Management Service, Department of Trade & Industry-ARMM Regional Office, Cotabato City, Philippines

Regional Coordinator: Dr. Domingo Aranal, Silsilah Dialogue Institute, Zamboanga City, Philippines

I. Introduction and Rationale:  The Philippines is an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country that has struggled with a 400 year armed rebellion in Mindanao, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and Sulu.  The country’s largest concentration of Muslim peoples are in this region, which has an alarming poverty incidence of 82%, compared with an overall poverty rate of around 40%.  The poor infrastructure, lack of schools, books and qualified teachers, and the on-going land conflicts of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) are startlingly paralleled by the fact that Muslims are a majority in this region, which was established in 1996 through peace negotiations between the Moro National Liberation Front and the government of the Republic of the Philippines, but only a 5-10% minority in the larger nation.  While scholars and knowledgeable journalists all argue that the causes of conflict in this region are very complex, most recognize that the ethno-linguistically diverse Muslim, or Bangsamoro, and other indigenous peoples have been marginalized by the larger Christian majority due to their religious distinctiveness.[1] Historically, they have been dealt with erratically both by the Spanish and American colonial states, and more recently by the Manila-centric independent Philippine state.  Since World War II, state-sponsored schemes to relieve population pressure in the central and northern Philippines led millions of Christians to migrate to Mindanao, creating a lopsided inversion in the ethno-political and religious landscape.

The history of what are currently classified as “less developed” and “developed” countries is testimony to the failure of many pre-colonial, colonial and modern independent states to “arrange” their ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse populations into loyal subjects that would pay taxes and in turn receive some symbolic, protective, or concessionary demands.  In the modern era and before, the state seeks to rationalize and standardize complex social landscapes into transparent, legible and administratively simple units that are hopeful, but often disastrous, experiments that fail their local residents.  Political scientist James Scott has written of the fiascos that have followed from these well-intended efforts of states through time to instill discipline and prevent rebellion among their ethnic, religious and linguistically diverse groups so as to turn them into loyal subjects.[2]  He notes that the most tragic state-engineered schemes have four characteristics:  1) the administrative ordering of nature and society; 2) a high modernist ideology predicated on the simplistic assumptions of a controlled micro-order, and promoted by powerful officials and entrepreneurs allied with the state; 3)  an authoritarian state apparatus willing and able to use their full coercive power to enforce their plans, typically in times of war and revolution; and 4) a weak or inactive civil society that is susceptible to alternative, sometimes radically different visions of their future.

In the southern Philippines, the history of failed state schemes to “map” a homogenous ethnic and administrative plan testify to the strength of resistance by indigenous peoples who once ruled Mindanao through various independent Sultanates and federated states allied with local tribal groups in enormously complex and evolving ways.  Since the 1970s, Bangsamoro outrage over the loss of their original political autonomy and  ancestral lands has grown, and a chaotic situation wherein cattle-rustling, illegal logging, drug trafficking, kidnap-for-ransom gangs, separatist and communist movements among the many indigenous, or Muslim and Lumad  peoples, flourishes.  Tragically, the 1996 establishment of the ARMM has not led to peace or development, and the area is in desperate need of humanitarian aid.  Since the 1970s, more than 120,000 people have died in this long-running conflict.  The leadership of the 12,000 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front are set to resume peace negotiations with the national government soon, while an international monitoring team composed of members of various Muslim states (including Malaysia) watch over an uncertain military situation in Mindanao.

    Corruption abounds at both local and national levels, and the resilient desire of the Bangsamoro people for self-determination speaks to the limits of state power to forcibly transform diversity at the periphery into a homogenous, desired, and compliant conformity.  The fear over the loss of cultural identities, the lack of trust, and the feeling of unconnectedness to the national regime among the peoples within the Bangsamoro social mosaic suggest that complexity and open-endedness will be the hallmarks of any sustained peace in the region.  In this kind of impoverished, alienated and neglected environment, as well as throughout similar areas of Southeast Asia, externally funded or educated Muslim missionaries that propagate a religious ideology promoting hate, intolerance and other human rights violations toward non-Muslims and moderate Muslims have found an audience.  Domestic mutations of international terrorism, from Abu Sayyaf to the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiya, have developed that threaten peace and stability in the entire Southeast Asian region.[3]

In the ARMM of the southern Philippines, far from the capital of Manila, decades of war, rebellion and government indifference toward the plight of the indigenous Bangsamoro and Lumad peoples have created a blueprint for human disaster.  Despite the fact that the ARMM consists of the five poorest provinces in the entire country, the national government appropriates only 5.6 billion of the 980 billion annual Philippine budget to this region. The rehabilitation and rescue of the ARMM requires massive international and national assistance in the areas of religion, education, community development and political process.  While the conventional approaches of the Philippine state to resolving conflict in Mindanao have failed, capacity building and the strengthening of public institutions, civil rights, and democratic political processes can assist in the rehabilitation process.  Foreign and national funds for poverty alleviation, development and educational building blocks can help answer the Bangsamoro desire for social justice and national recognition of all that has happened and why, in ways that may help forge stronger majority-minority state relations in the future.   In order for there to be a lasting peace in Mindanao, it is critical that community and government leaders in the ARMM be given an opportunity to devise new ways to effectively and constructively interact with the Roman Catholic Philippine government and with each other.

The project we propose here focuses on training in inter-ethnic dialogue and conflict resolution; majority-minority political relations, solutions and problems; and capacity building for NGO, government leaders, and others with established networks of support so as to empower civil society in the ARMM in ways that will greatly assist in a larger and much-needed rehabilitation effort.  It is a first step in building a culture of tolerance and respect for the ARMM’s unique religious and ethnic diversity, and seeks to improve core-periphery political engagement and dialogue.  National reconciliation between Manila and the Bangsamoro peoples, and between the diverse peoples within Mindanao, requires a potential re-imagining by all actors of the Bangsamoro nation as part of a larger plural nation, one with a very different past.  This project will be a springboard for that effort. 

II. Goals and Objectives:  The major goals of this project are to (a) build the capacities of local leaders in the ARMM (Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao) to face new challenges and opportunities for strengthening the foundation of peace and development in Mindanao; and (b) promote a better understanding of the United States--its people, culture, values, and civic institutions. The specific objectives are to: 1) sharpen the participants’ skills in conflict resolution and management, peace leadership, respect for diversity, and community activism; 2) provide core skills for forging partnerships among local government units, peace and development organizations, and national government agencies; 3) develop in the participants an appreciation of the cultural and ethnic diversity of the ARMM through a comparative understanding of majority and minority cultures in the U.S.; 4) provide opportunity for participants to engage in dialogue with their U.S. counterparts on civic participation, human rights and justice, tolerance, participatory development and grassroots empowerment; 5) set up vertical and horizontal partnerships with private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and NGOs in the U.S. and in the Philippines to share lessons learned and to leverage resources and knowledge; 7) sharpen the participants’ skills in designing concrete cooperation and action plans on religion, communities, education and political processes.

III. The U.S.-based Professsional Development Program (PDP)  -- May 31 – June 22, 2006

The PDP provided a rich and varied, but at the same time coherent and carefully structured agenda to give the participants (1) substantial knowledge and enhanced understanding of how religion, education, community, and political leaders interact in the U.S., (2) an enriched appreciation for cultural and religious diversity, understanding and cooperation, and (3) core skills and tools in peace leadership, community activism, human rights and justice, civic participation, and building linkages. The program had two major types of activities:  (a) academic sessions such as workshops, lectures and facilitated discussions, and (b) study tour/visits to Salt Lake City (Utah), Chicago and Springfield (Illinois) to interact and dialogue with government officials, community, interethnic and inter-religious leaders.  It also provided them with a clear understanding of American institutions of tolerance, diversity, and exposed them to the culturally and religiously plural social life of rural and urban America. 

The curriculum for the PDP was as follows:

The participants at the end of the training institute put together a basic strategic plan for the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao and a set of action plans for a six month period. In December, 2006, the group will reconvene in Tawi Tawi to discuss additional plans.  

[1] John Sidel, “Other Schools, Other Pilgrimages, Other Dreams:  the Making and Unmaking of Jihad in Southeast Asia”, in Southeast Asia Over Three Generations, ed. James Siegel and Audrey Kahin.  2003.  Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University; Abinales, Patricio N.  2000  Making Mindanao:  Cotabato and Davao in the Formation of the Philippine Nation-State.  Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University; Thomas McKenna,  Muslim Rulers and Rebels.  1998.  Berkeley, Ca: University of California Press; Cesar Majul, The Contemporary Muslim Movement in the Philippines.  1985.  Berkeley, CA: Mizan Press; Peter Gowing and Robert McAmis, eds.  The Muslim Filipinos: their History, Society and Contemporary Problems.  1974.  Manila: Solidaridad; Patricio Diaz, Understanding Mindanao Conflict.  2003.  Davao: MindaNews Publications;  Marites Danguilan Vitug and Glenda Gloria, Under the Crescent Moon; Rebellion in Mindanao.  2000.  Quezon City:  Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and the Institute for Popular Democracy.

 

[2] James Scott, Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed.  1998.  New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press.

[3] Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror.  2003.  Boulder, CO:  Lynne Reiner; . Kit Collier, “”A Carnival of Crime”:  the Enigma of the Abu Sayyaf”.  2004.  Paper presented at the 56th annual Association for Asian Studies conference, San Diego, CA.; R.J. May,  The Moro conflict and the Philippine experience with Muslim autonomy.  2002.  Paper for CCPCSAP Workshop, Canberra, Australia.