4 - The Moro and the Cordillera Conflicts in the Philippines and the Struggle for Autonomy

Summary

The Philippines is a country of 7,100 islands around 82 million people, divided into various ethno-linguistic groups, several migrant communities and four major religions, including an indigenous church. Although its characteristic as a pluralistic society did not in itself create the conditions for ethnic conflict, there are indeed a wide range of ethnic issues and conflicts that have arisen. The most prominent of such conflicts is the Moro resistance in the southernmost part of the country, in the major island grouping of Mindanao where the majority of the approximately three to seven million Philippine Muslims from 13 ethno-linguistic groups live. At the height of this resistance in the early 1970s, an estimated 50,000 people were killed. The second locus of ethnic mobilization is in the Cordillera in Northern Philippines where a struggle for autonomy emerged in the late 1970s. While “ethnic” or “identity” issues in the country include the integration of the ethnic Chinese and other inter-ethnic dynamics among the country's provinces, regions, and ethno-linguistic groups, the ethnic mobilizations in the Southern Philippines and the Cordillera stand out for their nature as armed resistance movements.

This paper will thus focus on these two cases. It will trace the evolution and dynamics of ethnic mobilizations in Mindanao and the Cordillera by examining the nature and formation of the Philippine state; the “trigger” events that gave rise to the resistance; the revolutionary counter-elites; and the resistance ideologies. It will then discuss the state's response and conflict management strategies. Finally, it will assess ongoing efforts at peacefully resolving the conflicts, significantly through the setting up of viable autonomous governments. It will also look briefly at civil society actors and external actors who have played roles in the search for negotiated solutions. The paper will conclude by emphasizing the need to reform and reorient the Philippine state through more thorough democratic reforms in order to enhance the prospects for peaceful settlement of the Moro and Cordillera conflicts.

Explanations for ethnopolitics/ethnic mobilization

Increasingly, the view that ethnic mobilization arises purely or merely as an expression of primordial ties or needs is on the decline. Instead, modern ethnic mobilization is currently attributed to changing socioeconomic and political factors and to the post-colonial restructuring processes in the context of global capitalism, which have aggravated existing social and economic disparities and communal rivalries.