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The Philippines had long been used as a trading port in Asia, and this led to their colonization by the Spanish and later by the Americans. The Spanish converted most of the population to Catholicism and the religion remains the dominant one in the country.

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Spanish claim the islands
Article for students to read: https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/721/today-in-philippine-history-november-1-1542-ruy-lopez-de-villalobos-started-his-expedition-to-the-philippines

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Spain cedes the Philippines to the US
Article for students to read: https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1898/12/10/treaty-of-peace-between-the-united-states-of-america-and-the-kingdom-of-spain-treaty-of-paris-signed-in-paris-december-10-1898/

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The US establishes civil government to replace military rule

Article for the student to read: https://uca.edu/politicalscience/dadm-project/asiapacific-region/united-statesphilippines-1898-1946/

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The Commonwealth of the Philippines is established under President Manuel Quezon and the US promises independence in 10 years.
Facts: President Manuel L. Quezon is the President under the Commonwealth Constitution of the Philippines.

Article for students to read: https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/the-commonwealth-of-the-philippines/

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Japanese forces invade the islands
Article for students to read: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pacific-War/The-invasion-of-the-Philippines

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The US retakes the islands
Article for student to read:
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/macarthur-philippine-islands-liberated-1945

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MacArthur’s July 5, 1945 Communique’ “The entire Philippine Islands are now liberated…” | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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On July 5, 1945 General Douglas MacArthur released a communique announcing that major combat operations in the Philippine Islands had concluded.

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"The US grants the new Republic of the Philippines full independence"
Article for students to read: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/july-4-1946-philippines-independence

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The 4th of July used to be considered an important national holiday in the Philippines. Not because it was the United States' birthday, but because it was Philippine Independence Day in 1946. Seventy five years ago, the Philippines was recognized as an independent, sovereign country by the United States, which withdrew its authority over the archipelago as colonizer.

Pre-Independence History of the Philippines

The road to July 4, 1946 was long and tenuous. The Philippines had been a Spanish colony since 1565, and since that time numerous revolts broke out challenging Spanish rule. These revolts were disunited, however, until the nineteenth century when nationalism brought forth a more united anti-colonial movement. This culminated in a revolution that broke out in 1896. After much fighting, a stalemate ensued, leading to a ceasefire agreement between Filipino and Spanish leaders.

The outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 brought Commodore George Dewey and the US Asiatic Squadron to Manila Bay, where they defeated the Spanish Asiatic fleet. The Philippine Revolution resumed in earnest, led by General Emilio Aguinaldo who established a revolutionary government. At the height of its military successes against Spain, the revolutionary government proclaimed independence on June 12, 1898. Aguinaldo became president and the Philippine Republic was formally inaugurated in Malolos, Bulacan, in January 1899.

The Spanish-American war was concluded by the Treaty of Paris which decreed that Spain would give up the Philippines, but in turn the archipelago would become a colony of the United States. Filipinos had not been consulted, and as a result the war for independence turned against the United States.

After over two years of fighting, Aguinaldo was captured and President Theodore Roosevelt declared the end of the Philippine-American War. The campaign for independence continued on the political front, even as sporadic violent resistance against American rule continued to break out.

In August 1916, the Jones Law, more formally known as the Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916, was passed, promising independence to the Philippines once Filipinos were able to prove that they could govern themselves. No timetable was set, but once the United States declared war on Germany in World War I, Philippine political leaders offered a division of Filipinos to fight on the side of the United States. Filipinos were given great leeway in running the government at that time, but once the Great War ended, the US government reexamined Philippine conditions and strengthened American control of the insular government. Filipinos sent regular independence missions to Washington to call for concrete steps towards independence, which were rebuffed by the prevailing Republican administrations.

The advent of the Great Depression made Congress rethink US-Philippine relations, and passed the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act in 1933, over President Herbert Hoover's veto. The Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act (HHC) envisaged a 10 year transitory period during which time the Philippines would establish a semi-autonomous government under an elected Filipino president. The act was rejected by the Philippine Legislature later that year, after much debate and political wrangling. Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Philippine Senate, proceeded to Washington immediately after to negotiate a more advantageous law, citing among others issues relating to the continuance of US bases in the Philippines after independence, the limits of authority of the Philippine president in the transitory government, and the abrupt end of Philippine preferential trade relations with the United States.

1934 Philippine Independence Act

Quezon, the dominant political leader in the Philippines at that time, believed he could influence the new American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Democratic congress to rectify his main objections in a new Philippine independence bill. Roosevelt and the congress were busy with New Deal policies and were only willing to resuscitate the HHC with very minor changes. Quezon accepted these and returned to Manila. The ensuing act, the Tydings-McDuffie Law, was accepted by the Philippine legislature in May 1934, thus setting the stage for Philippine independence in 1946.

Under the Tydings-McDuffie Law, the Philippines would establish a government to be known as the Philippine Commonwealth, which would steer the Philippines through a 10-year transition period. After completing 10 years of nearly autonomous governance, the United States would withdraw its sovereignty over the islands on July 4 of the succeeding year, and would recognize the Philippines as an independent republic.

Prior to the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth, a constitution had to be drafted. A constitutional convention was thus elected, and finished its draft in February 1935. Roosevelt approved this document, which was to become the legal framework not only of the Philippine Commonwealth, but also of the future Philippine Republic. It was approved in a nationwide plebiscite, and national elections for the new government were held in September 1935. The Philippine Commonwealth was formally inaugurated on November 15, 1935, an unprecedented world event in which the United States, a colonial power, was preparing to let go of its colony. The ramifications were keenly felt among other colonial governments and colonized people. Quezon was predictably elected as president.

The Philippine Commonwealth government had to resolve major problems during the 10-year transition period, among them national defense, social justice, economic development, national integration, and cultural identity. During the over three decades of American colonial rule, the Philippines had become dependent on the US economically, and had no armed forces of its own. These and major agrarian and labor problems had to be resolved. A Philippine Army was formed, and government enterprises in business were launched.

The Philippine Commonwealth was an untried experiment, and the Tydings-McDuffie Law appointed a representative of the US president in the form of a High Commissioner. Gone was the Governor General of earlier years. The High Commissioner would report on the progress of the Philippine experiment, and the US government had oversight functions over legislative, executive, and judicial actions of the Commonwealth. Furthermore, the US government held on to foreign affairs and currency matters. In case the experiment failed, the transition could be scrapped and it would be back to square one. Neither Quezon nor Roosevelt wanted this, so despite much power granted him, Quezon held back where he could.

World War II and the Filipino Guerrilla Movement

Halfway through the experiment, World War II broke out in Europe. Trade was disrupted, and the reality of war reaching the Philippines loomed. The gravity of some problems delayed enforcement of various plans, and some began to ask whether 10 years were enough. Quezon, however, attempted to advance independence at least privately, although this did not bear fruit.

The outbreak of war between Japan and China in 1937 also brought forth the specter of war, through refugees and news of defenseless cities being bombed. But it was the war in Europe that seemed closer: The European capitals were better known to most Filipinos, and the Blitzkrieg and the Battle of Britain became household words.

War did reach the Philippines in December 1941, although strenuous last-minute preparations were made. The US Army Forces in the Far East was created, placing under one command the US Army forces in the Philippines and the mobilized Philippine Army forces. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was placed in command, and modern aircraft and weapons were rushed to the Philippines. It was too late.

The Japanese struck before the defense preparations were completed, decimating the US air forces and naval facilities in the first days of the war. Beach defenses were unable to hold against the Japanese juggernaut, but a fighting withdrawal to Bataan and Corregidor was successful and held against all odds. Realizing the hopelessness of the situation, Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to Australia; the Philippine Commonwealth government, which had moved to Corregidor to save Manila from bombing, was itself also removed. Quezon would establish the Commonwealth government in exile in Washington as Bataan and Corregidor were forced to surrender. Roosevelt had, in the meantime, promised to redeem Philippine freedom and to pay for war damages,

For three years the Philippines was in the hands of the Japanese, who set up a military administration. Wanting to win Filipino loyalty, the Japanese declared the Philippines independent in 1943, ahead of the US promise. A government was set up, but most Filipinos saw through the Japanese aims and instead supported the guerrilla resistance movement. The guerrillas remained loyal to the Philippine Commonwealth and the United States, and were a major threat to the Japanese occupation forces.

Liberation of the Philippines from the Japanese

Gen. MacArthur, who had promised to return, landed in Leyte in October 1944, thus commencing the military campaign to liberate the Philippines from the Japanese. In the ensuing struggle, Manila and most of the major Philippine cities suffered grievous damage. MacArthur declared the military campaign on Luzon closed on July 4, 1945, but the bulk of the Japanese ground forces were still intact in the mountains. Fighting continued in Mindanao. And Japan had not yet surrendered.

The Philippine Commonwealth government returned with Gen. MacArthur. Quezon had died while in the United States, and Sergio Osmeña, the vice president, automatically took over. Osmeña landed with MacArthur on Leyte, and as the Battle of Manila neared its end, restored the government to Malacañang Palace in Manila. While in Washington, the Commonwealth government did all it could to hasten the return of American forces to the Philippines. It also sought to ensure that war damage would be rehabilitated by the US government. The Philippines actively participated in the early meetings that would result in the United Nations.

Upon his return to Manila, Osmeña pledged a Philippine Army division to participate in the assault landings on Japan. Guerrillas, now part of the army, trained accordingly. The atomic bombs negated the need for such action, and Japan accepted the Allied terms on August 15, 1945.

Post-war Rehabilitation

As the war ended, the Philippines counted the cost. Over a million Filipinos had died or were killed, out of a population of 18 million. Manila and most of the major cities were in ruins. Severe inflation had set in as a result of the Japanese occupation, and farms were fallow; farm animals too had died because of the war. Industries, transportation, and communication facilities were destroyed.

Should the original timetable for independence be kept? The tasks facing Osmeña and the Commonwealth government were daunting; none of this had been foreseen when the Tydings-McDuffie Act had become law.

Apart from the physical destruction and the loss of lives, the Philippines was divided: there had been those who had collaborated with the Japanese, while most had resisted either directly or indirectly. The country was split on whether the collaborators were to be dealt with harshly or not. Many key government officials from before the war had-willingly or not-served in the Japanese-controlled administration.

There was an immediate need for relief. People had to be fed, clothed, and given shelter. All the basic necessities were initially provided by the US Army-water, clothing, food, power, communications, and jobs. Other assistance came in from the United States and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration as the piers were restored, and ships arrived.

Peace and order problems were serious-some stemming from the pre-war social and agrarian issues, others because of loose firearms. Guerrilla units were plenty, but not all were legitimate, and there was an upsurge of crimes. Morality was in tatters, as people had to survive in whatever ways they could. Inflation was rampant, even as the government strove to bring prices down with newly printed currency and price controls. Besides, after having been away for three years, it was a difficult task to win back the people's confidence in the government.

The Philippine Congress was convened in June 1945-the first time it sat since the elections of November 1941. Some of its members had died during the war; others were tainted by charges of collaboration. It began its work of legislating, but was hampered by the unstable postwar conditions.

Osmeña travelled to the United States three times in 1945-a last meeting with FDR in April and two meetings with President Harry S. Truman, to negotiate aid and assistance for the Philippines-as well as assurances that independence would come as scheduled.

For a while an earlier independence date was broached, but this would have required legislation which was not a priority. There were mutterings that Philippine independence be delayed, owing to the unsettled conditions after the war, but this would mean political suicide to those seeking office. And so independence would take place as planned, on July 4, 1946.

The post-war Philippine Commonwealth faced severe problems not anticipated before the war. Land reform, reopening of schools, reconstruction, trials of suspected collaborators with the Japanese, recognizing and compensating veterans, restarting the economy, restoring trade, attracting investment-these and more had to be dealt with in the last months of the Philippine Commonwealth government.

The government was now more strongly reliant on the United States, more so than before the war. The Philippine Army was totally dependent on the US Army for equipment and weapons, and relief only coming from the United States. External defense would now be too costly for the cash-strapped government. Thus the presence of US bases could be seen as mutually beneficial.

The last American High Commissioner was Paul V. McNutt, who had served in that position in the late 1930s. He advised Osmeña on various matters. Secretary of State Harold Ickes insisted that the Philippines take a hard line on alleged collaborators-something that would be difficult to do due to the many issues involved. Ickes threatened to withhold assistance if the government did not punish those who had reneged on their oaths of loyalty to the United States.

An ally of the Philippines in Washington was Senator Millard Tydings, co-author of the pre-war Philippine Independence Act. He sponsored a bill granting what he felt were sufficient funds for rehabilitation. On a personal visit to the Philippines, however, he found out that earlier estimates had been underestimated, and that more funds were needed. His bill did allot a generous $620 million-later raised to $800 million-to the Philippines.

The Rehabilitation Bill was, however, tied to a trade bill, authored by Representative Jasper Bell. The Bell Trade bill sought to extend the free trade relations between the United States and the Philippines for another eight years, after which tariffs would be gradually imposed for 20 years. Bell insisted that to convince Americans to invest in the Philippines they had to be given the same rights as Filipinos. This necessitated amending the 1935 Philippine constitution, which limited land ownership, access to natural resources, among others, to Filipino citizens and majority Filipino-owned corporations. The parity amendment would thus become a requisite for receiving the bulk of the rehabilitation aid in the Tydings bill. The Bell Trade Bill also tied the Philippine peso to the US dollar and could not be independently revalued.

Other issues that emerged on the eve of independence. In February 1946, President Truman signed the Rescission Law, which denied most Filipino veterans of benefits due them, voiding their service in the US armed forces.

A strong US military presence remained in early 1946, with the 86th Infantry Division in full strength, prepared to protect American interests. With World War II over, many of its members felt their duty was done and rallied to be sent home. But there was discontent brewing in the provinces, with long agrarian issues remaining unsolved. Many military bases were still in US hands, and negotiations as to which would be kept after Philippine independence were begun. As set in the Tydings-McDuffie Act, the United States would maintain bases even after Philippine independence to protect American interests in the region.

Philippine Commonwealth Election of 1946

As the date of independence approached, a multitude of problems had to be solved. Amidst the disunity, tension, and uncertainty of the immediate post-war Philippines, there had to be a final election for the Commonwealth. Osmeña chose to run for reelection; Manuel Roxas, ambitious contender and also Quezon's own choice as successor, ran against him. While Roxas had participated in the defense of the Philippines, he had also served in the Japanese-sponsored government under Jose P. Laurel. To some he was tainted with collaboration and might bring other collaborators back to power. Osmeña was the guerrillas' choice, and also the peasants; Osmeña leaned left of center. But Roxas was backed by McNutt and General MacArthur.

Roxas won the election of April 1946, but by only a slim margin, garnering some 54 percent of the votes cast. He took his oath of office on May 28, 1946, in a temporary stage built in front of the ruins of the Legislative Building, as the third and last president of the Philippine Commonwealth.

Prior to his assumption of office, Roxas went to the United States via Tokyo, where he paid a visit to MacArthur. Roxas' Washington visit was a frenzied week-long one, meeting with President Truman and ranking American officials to discuss Philippine affairs and concretize plans for US assistance to the Philippines.

As Roxas took office, conservative congressmen ousted more liberal legislators on unfounded charges. It marked a split between peasant leaders who were open to pursuing change in the government and conservatives who felt threatened by them. On the eve of Philippine independence, left-leaning peasant and labor groups threatened to secede and launch a rebellion, reacting to the blatant politicization of the congress.

Philippine Independence Day 1946

This was a big international event, but the Philippines did not yet have a Department of Foreign Affairs. It had to rely on the US government for much of the preparations.

May 1946 saw the start of a flurry of events to plan out the final days of the Commonwealth and prepare for Independence Day. A joint Filipino-American committee was formed to iron out details. The Manila Hotel, which had been gutted during the Battle of Manila, was cleaned up and prepared for gala events. Invitations were issued to distinguished guests from the United States and various countries. President Truman was invited, but he declined, owing to pressure of work. Independence related contests were launched-for an appropriate poster, essay, poem, and hymn. A US flag was to be hand-sewn by past and present Philippine first ladies, to be presented to President Truman. Commemorative postage stamps, medals, and other souvenirs were issued.

The venue for the independence rites was chosen and a stage shaped in the form of a ship's prow (symbolizing the ship of state) was built with towering pillars behind it. The stage and grandstand were built in front of the iconic memorial of the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal, in Luneta Park. A large arch was erected near it, in front of the Manila Hotel, to welcome visitors.

As the month of July 1946 began, so did the numerous events and preparations to climax in Philippine Independence on July 4. Private homes and government buildings were decorated. Bands paraded and gave concerts. The University of the Philippines' Conservatory of Music held a gala concert at the Rizal Coliseum, where numerous international sports matches were held. Distinguished visitors from the US and other countries arrived. The US Navy's Task Force 77 anchored in Manila Bay to salute the birth of the republic. It consisted of the flagship USS Bremerton, two aircraft carriers, two cruisers, and seven destroyers.

Among the Very-Important-Persons who arrived in the first days of July was General MacArthur, who flew from Tokyo. Representing the US government was High Commissioner McNutt, now destined to be the first US Ambassador to the Republic of the Philippines. From the United States were Senator Tydings, Representative Bell, US Postmaster General Robert E. Hannegan, former Governor General Francis B. Harrison, and others. Representatives from 27 nations arrived, among them the French WWI hero Lt. Gen. Zinovi Peckoff (at that time serving with the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Tokyo) and Lt. Gen. Sook Chatinakrob, Thailand's Chief of Staff. In Manila Bay were Australian, Portuguese and Thai warships.

All these activities were taking place as the Cold War began: the United States tested an atomic bomb in Bikini Atoll on July 1. Communist-linked movements were beginning to threaten the post-war order.

On July 3, the Philippine Congress accepted the Bell Trade Act and authorized President Roxas to sign an executive agreement with the US laying the groundwork for formal negotiations and mutual recognition. That same day, Roxas and McNutt visited the commander of Task Force 77 on his flagship; later they recorded messages to be broadcast nationwide and to the United States. McNutt hosted a reception at his official residence and capped the day with a formal dinner in honor of Roxas at the Manila Hotel.

Thursday, July 4 1946, was a cloudy, sunless day. It was the rainy season in the Philippines, but this did not dampen the excitement building up towards the Philippine independence ceremony. Religious services were held in the various churches of Manila and provincial capitals, cities, and towns. Guests began arriving at the venue shortly before 7:00 in the morning. Dignitaries arrived from 7:20; the crowd craned their necks to get a glimpse of Gen. MacArthur. A bugle sounded, and the audience rose to welcome President Roxas and his wife at 7:55. He was followed by Vice President Elpidio Quirino and finally High Commissioner McNutt, accompanied by their respective wives.

With McNutt serving as emcee, the program began at precisely 8:00 am. The Rt. Rev. Robert F. Wilmer, ranking Protestant in the Philippines, gave the invocation. McNutt then introduced the speakers; there were wild cheers for Senator Tydings and Gen. MacArthur. Tydings reviewed the events which led to this day, and then wished the new republic "Godspeed." MacArthur reviewed the "special relationship" between the Philippines and the United States.

The highlight of the program was McNutt's reading of President Truman's Proclamation of Independence. As he began speaking, a heavy downpour drenched the audience, but they braved the rain. The downpour lifted in time for McNutt to read the proclamation, which first laid out the legal basis for the United States' acquisition of the Philippines, the United States' desire to grant the Philippines independence, and the provisions of the Tydings McDuffie Act. Truman, as president of the United States, then withdrew all "rights of possession, supervision, jurisdiction, control or sovereignty" exercised by the United States over the territory and people of the Philippines, and recognized the independence of the Philippines.

McNutt ended with his own words:

At 9:15 am, the US Army band played the US National Anthem as McNutt began lowering the American flag. President Roxas, pulling on the same cord, began raising the Philippine flag, to the accompaniment of the Philippine National Anthem, played by the Philippine Army Band.

As the United States and Philippine flags passed each other, they touched-"as if in a last caress, a last kiss," wrote one witness. As the Philippine flag fluttered from the top of the flagpole, United States, Australian, Portuguese, and Thai warships in the bay fired a 21-gun salute. Church bells throughout the Philippines rang and a whistle announced that the Philippines was now independent.

Vice President Quirino then took his oath, followed by President Roxas. These were administered by Chief Justice Manuel V. Moran of the Philippine Supreme Court. Roxas proceeded with his inaugural address: "As we are masters of our own destiny, so too must we bear all the consequences of our actions," he announced. The Philippines was no longer protected by the mantle of American sovereignty and thus "we must find our own way... [but in the atomic age] we cannot retreat within ourselves... On all fronts the doctrine of absolute sovereignty is yielding ground... But we have yet a greater bulwark today... the friendship and devotion of America... Our safest course is in the glistening wake of America whose sure advance with mighty prow breaks for smaller craft the waves of fear."

The future direction of the Philippines under President Roxas was thus charted, and to highlight this orientation he and McNutt signed an agreement for the establishment of diplomatic relations and an interim trade agreement. Roxas now signed as president of the Republic of the Philippines, and McNutt as first US ambassador.

A chorus of one thousand voices-college students all-then sang the Philippine Independence Hymn. This had been the winner of the independence hymn contest composed by acclaimed composer Restie Umali. The official program ended with a closing Invocation by Most Reverend Gabriel Reyes, Filipino archbishop of Cebu.

As the program ended, a bugle call sounded at 11:00 am to signal the start of the civic-military parade. Units from the Philippine and US armed forces marched in splendor, followed by Filipino veterans of the 1890s revolution and WWII guerrilla members. As the aged revolutionary war veterans marched past the grandstand, US bombers and fighters flew overhead, spelling first a V for Victory, and then the letters P and R, representing the Philippine Republic.

The military contingents were followed by several floats from different government offices and schools. Of note was that of the General Auditing Office, represented by a bulldog watching over a safe. The last float contained figures of Filipinas (representing the Philippines) and Miss Columbia, representing liberty.

By noon the ceremony was over, and the dignitaries and audience retired. The day was not yet over, however. At 4:30 pm a tree symbolizing Philippine independence was planted in front of the Manila City Hall. At 7:00 pm President Roxas hosted a formal dinner, reception, and ball at the presidential palace. The historic day was capped by a grand fireworks display at the Sunken Gardens just outside the old Walled City of Intramuros, as US Navy ships put up a searchlight display and pyrotechnics show in Manila Bay.

Celebrations continued for two more days: in the afternoon of July 5, a Philippine sports exhibition was held at the University of Santo Tomas Gymnasium. That evening, a Gala Symphony Concert by the Manila Symphony Orchestra, was held at the Rizal Coliseum. The final celebration of the momentous week was a Barrio Fiesta-a dinner feast-in the evening of July 6 at the Manila Hotel.

1946 to Present Day

It was a time of great rejoicing. But as the new era dawned, there were numerous sticking points-the US bases, the Bell Trade Act, Philippine war damage claims, and discriminatory treatment of Filipino WWII veterans. The Military Bases Agreement was to last for 99 years, during which period there was no clear cut guarantee that these bases would protect the Philippines. The bases agreement was shortened in 1966, and finally lapsed in 1991. The Bell Trade Act extended free trade and required the granting of parity rights to American nationals, which in turn required amending the 1935 Constitution, which had reserved numerous rights to only Filipino citizens. Free trade, with quota limitations, would continue on until 1954, after which gradual tariffs would be applied for a period of 20 years, ending in 1974. Parity rights were granted American citizens after stormy debates which almost cost President Roxas his life. The Bell Trade Act also tied the peso to the US dollar until 1955.

July 4, 1946 thus saw the birth of the Philippine Republic, but with lots of unfinished business. And this amidst the backdrop of the developing Cold War, a civil war, and deep rooted problems.

The independence that was gained (restored, according to some pundits, referring to the 1898 declaration) was questioned-was it a real, total independence? In addition, Philippine Independence Day celebrations coincided with US Independence Day, resulting in some confusion in the Philippines and abroad. In 1962, President Diosdado Macapagal moved Philippine Independence Day to June 12, commemorating the 1898 Filipino proclamation. Aguinaldo was then still alive and was happy to see the change. July 4 had been an afterthought, opined some, with June 12 the real Filipino act.

July 4 became Republic Day, still a national holiday, in 1964. During the period of Martial Law under President Ferdinand Marcos, July 4 was changed to Philippine-American Friendship Day, and relegated to a working holiday. President Corazon Aquino did away with Philippine-American Friendship Day altogether, but President Fidel V. Ramos restored it on the occasion of the 50th anniversary.

The event 75 years ago was much welcomed at the time and did see the end of formal aspects of colonial rule. There was no longer direct US oversight, no more American High Commissioner, the Philippine flag flew alone (except in the US bases) and the Philippine National Anthem was played alone. But critics argued that it ushered in a neo-colonial relationship. Some trumpeted the Philippine-American relationship as a "special relationship," but it did not seem so to others.

July 4, 1946 was overshadowed by the events of World War II. Commemorations of the 75th anniversary of key WWII events were many and well publicized, but were suddenly stymied by the Covid-19 pandemic. The 1946 independence ceremonies have also been overtaken by rites commemorating the 500th anniversary of Magellan's arrival-and the bringing in of Christianity to the Philippines, which was given full support by the Philippine Government and the Spanish government. Given the importance of July 4, 1946, however, it is sad to see the day not recognized for what it was.

Meet the Author

Ricardo Trota Jose is professor of history at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in history at U.P., and his PhD from the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. He specializes in military and diplomatic history, with focus on the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Jose has published widely in various journals and books. Among his major publications are The Philippine Army, 1935-1942 (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992) and Volume 7 (on the Japanese occupation of the Philippines) of the multi-volume Kasaysayan set (Reader's Digest, 1998). He was awarded the Metrobank Foundation Outstanding Filipino in teaching in 2019.
This article is part of a series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible by the Department of Defense.

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asian americans and pacific islanders in world war ii

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July 4, 1946: The Philippines Gained Independence from the United States | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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In WWII's aftermath, July 4 also became Independence Day for the Philippines in 1946.

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"Ferdinand Marcos becomes President"
article for student to read: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/marcos-inaugurated

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Marcos is reelected despite allegations of elections fraud, Vietnam protests begin, Muslim separatists, begin guerrilla war in the south.

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Marcos declares martial law, suspends parliaments, arrests opposition leaders, and imposes censorship regulations.
Video for student to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7VbTrjuihA

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SYND 28-9-72 PRESIDENT MARCOS PRESS CONFERENCE ON THE STATE OF MARTIAL LAW

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New constitution adopted granting Marcos broad powers.
Article for students to read: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/02/world/marcos-said-to-plan-a-new-governmental-structure.html

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Credit... The New York Times Archives

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

When President Ferdinand E. Marcos seeks a new mandate in May, it will be for a job quite different from that he currently holds, according to high Government officials.

The new presidential position, now being worked out through amendments to the Constitution, would give Mr. Marcos as much control over the government as he had under martial law but will leave the burden of running the government to a prime minister who will be answerable both to him and Parliament and subject to a no-confidence vote.

President Marcos has already announced he is running next May for a new six-year presidential term. At this point, he seems sure to win it since the opposition does not want to enter a candidate unless it is given specific assurances of a fair contest.

In a conversation with Manila-based foreign correspondents last week, Defense Minister Juan Ponce-Enrile said that the constitutional changes on the form of the presidency and the Government in general had been approved by the seven-member body named by Mr. Marcos in January. The interim Parliament, controlled by supporters of Mr. Marcos, is currently discussing the proposals and approval is expected sometime this week, according to an officer of Parliament. Parliament's Powers Questioned

Opposition leaders, led by former President Diosdado Macapagal, have protested that the present Parliament has no powers to amend the Constitution and that any changes should be undertaken by reconvening the charter convention elected in 1971 which adjourned under martial law in 1972.

In his talk with the correspondents, Mr. Enrile said of the proposed charter changes, ''The new formulation will combine the merits of both presidential and parliamentary forms. It will insulate the presidency from political conflicts. We feel it will stabilize the country.''

Under the new system, a prime minister nominated by the president and elected by the present Parliament will run the day-to-day functions of government, responsible both to the president and to Parliament.

The new president will be responsible for defense, security and foreign affairs and for choosing the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the five-member Advisory Council that will serve as temporary successor in the event of death or incapacity of the president. A Reduced Work Load

In response to a question, Mr. Enrile acknowledged that the new system will significantly reduce the work load of President Marcos, but he denied that this was being done because the chief executive was ill, as persistently rumored.

He said the new governmental form, which he described as similar to the French presidential system, was devised to avoid the adversary nature of the American system or the instability of the pure parliamentary form.

President Marcos now rules under provisions of the 1973 Constitution that make him both President and Prime Minister with broad powers for an indefinite period while the country is supposed to adjust to a parliamentary style of government.

Under these provisons, if Mr. Marcos wanted to rule after the transition, he would have to seek the post of prime minister and would be subject to no-confidence motions in Parliament. The presidency would be merely a ceremonial job.

Most of Mr. Marcos's opponents are on record as desiring a return either to the American-style presidency or the pure parliamentary form, to be determined by a plebiscite supervised by a neutral body after President Marcos leaves office.

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MARCOS SAID TO PLAN A NEW GOVERNMENTAL STRUCTURE (Published 1981)

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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

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Marcos wins reelection, martial law lifted.
Article to read: https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/featured/the-fall-of-the-dictatorship/

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Opposition leader Benigno Aquino killed as he returns to the Philippines from exile.
Article for student to read: https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/look-back-ninoy-aquino-assassination

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Jodesz Gavilan is a writer and researcher for Rappler and its investigative arm, Newsbreak. She covers human rights and also hosts the weekly podcast Newsbreak: Beyond the Stories. She joined Rappler in 2014 after obtaining her journalism degree from the University of the Philippines.

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Jodesz Gavilan is a writer and researcher for Rappler and its investigative arm, Newsbreak. She covers human rights and also hosts the weekly podcast Newsbreak: Beyond the Stories. She joined Rappler in 2014 after obtaining her journalism degree from the University of the Philippines.

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Marcos opposed in elections by Aquino’s widow Corazon, mass protests of election results in favor of Marcos forces him into exile.

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New Constitution passed
article for student to read: https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/constitutions/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-the-philippines/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-the-philippines-article-xviii/

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Aquino replaced as President by defense minister Fidel Ramos.
Article for students to read: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fidel-Ramos

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Philippines, OIC agree to review 1996 peace pact with Muslim rebels - Philippines

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The peace agreement was signed with the Muslim separatist group.
Article for students to read: https://reliefweb.int/report/philippines/philippines-oic-agree-review-1996-peace-pact-muslim-rebels

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Joseph Estrada | Biography, Presidency, & Facts

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Joseph Estrada, former film star, elected President
Article for students to read: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Estrada

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Impeachment trial against Estrada suspended, leading to mass protests which replace Estrada with Vice-President Gloria Arroyo.
Article for students to read: https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/look-back-edsa-ii-joseph-estrada-gloria-arroyo

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In 1998, Estrada - a popular actor-turned-politician - won the presidential race with his slogan, " Erap para sa mahirap" (Erap for the poor). His political troubles started shortly two years later, when then Ilocos Sur governor Chavit Singson, his longtime friend, went public with accusations that Estrada and his cronies received millions of pesos from illegal operations of jueteng.

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Looking back at EDSA II: The political paths of Estrada and Arroyo

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In 1998, Estrada - a popular actor-turned-politician - won the presidential race with his slogan, " Erap para sa mahirap" (Erap for the poor). His political troubles started shortly two years later, when then Ilocos Sur governor Chavit Singson, his longtime friend, went public with accusations that Estrada and his cronies received millions of pesos from illegal operations of jueteng.

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Estrada found guilty of stealing more than 80 million dollars of state funds during Presidency, but later pardoned.
Article for student to read: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-estrada-idUSMAN8545820070912

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MANILA (Reuters) - Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday after an anti-graft court found him guilty of plunder.

Fears that a guilty verdict could trigger widespread street protests and possible riots in Manila seemed misplaced. Pro-Estrada activists staged scattered low-key demonstrations in the city of 12 million people but all were peaceful.

The 70-year-old movie star, ousted from power in an army-backed revolt in 2001, listened to the judgment impassively but showed a flash of spirit afterwards.

"I thought the role of justice would prevail here but really it's a kangaroo court," Estrada, wearing a traditional Filipino dress shirt and his trademark wristband, told reporters. "This is a political decision."

The verdict also barred the former president from ever holding public office again.

Estrada was not immediately jailed. The court allowed him to return to his villa, east of Manila, to remain under house arrest until further orders. He is to appeal against the verdict, and the case will also come up for automatic Supreme Court review.

Outside the courthouse, around 300 supporters waved banners and made anti-government speeches but remained peaceful.

The crowd was far smaller than the thousands predicted and riot police sent to guard against them snacked and chatted. Some sat down, their shields by their sides.

"We pity him but what can we do?" asked a woman who was among the protesters.

Analysts and oppositions groups said the show of police force was an overreaction by a government fearful of a repeat of 2001, when pro-Estrada mobs tried to storm the presidential palace.

Investors were relieved that the verdict was out and the reaction muted.

"It seems like there was no violent reaction so far so that is why investors are taking advantage of the bargain prices in the market," said Astro del Castillo, director of the Association of Securities Analysts of the Philippines.

"This is one thorn off our back."

The peso strengthened to 46.70 against the dollar from its close of 47.12 on Tuesday. It had fallen more than 1 percent earlier in the week amid uncertainty over the judgment.

The stock exchange closed 1.21 percent up.

"VICTORS' JUSTICE"

"It's victors' justice. It's ruling class justice. The special division (of the court) was programmed to convict. We never had a chance," said Estrada's lawyer, Rene Saguisag.

"While the other countries are moving forward and developing, we're not. Look at our justice system," Estrada told reporters.

Earl Parreno, a Manila-based political analyst, said Estrada's core supporters could yet whip up trouble when he is sent to prison.

"If Estrada will be handcuffed, brought to prison, wearing an orange suit and that is shown on national television, that will have a very big impact on the Filipino people emotionally," he said. "It is the calm before the storm."

Estrada was charged with plunder, made up of four counts of corruption, involving diversion of funds amounting to about 4 billion pesos ($85 million).

Lawyers said he was found guilty on two counts, of receiving payoffs from illegal gambling and taking commissions in the sale of shares to government pension funds. He was cleared of two charges of maintaining a bank account in a false name and of diverting tobacco taxes to his own use.

Estrada was also charged with perjury, related to an alleged misrepresentation of earned income, but was found not guilty.

His son Jinggoy, a senator, was found not guilty of plunder.

Estrada was impeached for corruption in 2000 and was ousted after the impeachment trial collapsed in the Senate.

One of the most colorful characters in the rambunctious world of Philippine politics, Estrada's term in office was marked by reports of policy decisions taken after late-night drinking bouts, millions of pesos won or lost in gambling sessions and innumerable tales of mistresses and their lavish lifestyles.

The reports horrified the middle class and the powerful Catholic Church, but Estrada's long career as a matinee idol playing Robin Hood-style heroes and his down-to-earth manner continue to endear him to poor voters.

"Erap (Estrada's nickname) is a symbol of the dreams and aspirations of the Filipino masses. We will continue to struggle for democracy and justice," said one supporter, Ver Tustauuio.

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Philippines' Estrada guilty of plunder, gets life

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MANILA (Reuters) - Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday after an anti-graft court found him guilty of plunder. Fears that a guilty verdict could trigger widespread street protests and possible riots in Manila seemed misplaced.

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Gloria Macapagal Arroyo | Biography, Achievements, & Facts

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Arroyo elected to Presidency
article for students to read: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gloria-Macapagal-Arroyo

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Arroyo survives impeachment attempt - CNN.com

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Arroyo resists attempt to impeach her under allegations of vote-rigging, declares a state of emergency in response to an alleged military coup.
News article for students to read: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/26/arroyo.vote/index.html

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Ethnic tensions mount between Islamic separatist groups and the Christian majority.
Article for students to read: https://asiasociety.org/origins-muslim-separatist-movement-philippines

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by Thomas M. McKenna

The American Colonial Administration of "Moros"

The remote causes of the Muslim separatist rebellion that engulfed much of the southern Philippines in the 1970s and continues in parts of the South today may be found in the policies and practices of the Philippine colonial and national states. Early American rule in the Muslim Philippines followed a pattern quite similar to American governance of the rest of the colony--pious paternalism punctuated by brutal pacification operations. In the Muslim South, however, pacification took longer to achieve, requiring even harsher methods, while paternalism was also more pronounced. By 1914, "Moroland", as it was most commonly termed by the Americans, was considered fully pacified and civilian colonial rule was finally inaugurated 13 years after its establishment in the rest of the colony. Moroland soon came under the primary administrative supervision of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes. Philippine Muslims were grouped together with tribal Filipinos for administration because both were thought to need special attention to advance to the level of civilization of Christian Filipinos.

There were at least two ways, however, in which Philippine Muslims were viewed as distinct from tribal groups by American colonial administrators. For one, although regarded as barbaric, Muslims were not considered savages as were tribal groups. This was due principally to their possession of both a world religion and an aristocracy. In line with the popular orientalism of the time and drawing on the experiences of earlier European colonizers in Muslim Southeast Asia, American colonizers often exhibited a certain respect for the "Mohammedanism" they found in the Philippines and did not encourage Christian proselytization among Philippine Muslims. Tribal groups on the other hand became a principal target for American Protestant missionaries. As one consequence of this attitude, American colonial administrators tended to conglomerate various Muslim ethnolinguistic groups under the single label "Moro" rather than focusing on the "tribal" divisions among them.

Secondly, unlike tribal Filipinos, Philippine Muslims were overwhelmingly lowlanders and were not exempted from the land registration and individual land ownership policies of the American colonial government. The Bureau of Lands conducted land surveys throughout Muslim areas and processed homestead applications. While there is some evidence to suggest that American colonial administrators believed that land registration would improve economic security for Muslim commoners, the actual application of American land policy led to the loss of traditional land rights for a great many Muslims (Thomas 1971).

With the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935, government policy toward Philippine Muslims shifted significantly. The Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes was abolished in 1936 and with it the presumption that Muslims should be governed any differently, or afforded more protections, than any other citizens of the Commonwealth. This change in attitude was accompanied by a new policy priority: the economic development of Mindanao for the benefit of the nation, especially by means of Christian migration into traditionally Muslim regions.

Philippine Muslims and the new Philippine Republic

In 1946, a severely war-damaged Philippines received its formal independence and the new Philippine Republic continued to pursue the primary policy goal of its predecessor in Mindanao with far greater vigor. Independence brought a tremendous expansion of government-sponsored Christian Filipino immigration from northern provinces to the Muslim South. Demographic data from a single municipality--Kapatagan-- in the province of Lanao del Norte in central Mindanao illustrate the scale of the post-war influx of Christian migrants. There were about 24 Christian settlers in the Kapatagan area in 1918. By 1941 their number had risen to 8,000 and by 1960 there were a total of 93,000 immigrants. By 1960, Christian immigrants vastly outnumbered the 7,000 indigenous Muslims still living in the area (Hausherr 1968/69 quoted in Thomas 1971:317). The demographic shift throughout Muslim Mindanao in the post-war years, while not as dramatic as in Kapatagan, was equally momentous. The population of Central Mindanao, the area which saw the highest overall Christian immigration, soared from 0.7 million persons in 1948 to an estimated 2.3 million persons in 1970; representing a growth rate of 229 per cent as compared with the national figure of just under 100 per cent (Burley 1973).

While the scale of Christian immigration to Muslim Mindanao caused inevitable dislocations, the manner of its occurrence also produced glaring disparities between Christian settlers and Muslim farmers. From 1935 onward, the successive administrations of the Philippine Commonwealth and Republic provided steadily more opportunities and assistance to settlers from the North. By contrast, the government services available to Muslims were not only meager compared to those obtained by immigrant Christians but were also fewer than they had received under the colonial regime. The land laws of the postcolonial government defined all unregistered lands in Mindanao to be public land or military reservations (Gowing 1979). Unfamiliar with the procedures or deterred by the years of uncertainty, the steep processing fees, and the requirement to pay taxes during the interim, many Muslims neither applied for the new lands opened up by government-funded road construction nor filed for legal title to the land they currently occupied (Thomas 1971). For their part, officials and employees of the Bureau of Lands (virtually all of them Christians) were at best inattentive to Muslims. By contrast, Christian settlers regularly obtained legal ownership of the best newly opened lands as well as crop loans and other forms of government assistance. The new Christian communities became linked to trade centers and to one another by networks of roads while Muslim communities remained relatively isolated.

Most rural Muslims found themselves peripheralized in place as a result of the maneuverings of Christian settlers and speculators. Others, however, were physically dispossessed of their lands. The Bureau of Lands recognized land rights on the basis of priority of claim filed, not priority of occupation. It was not unusual for individuals to obtain legal titles, either intentionally or unintentionally, to already-occupied lands. In such cases, the legal owners were mostly (but not always) Christians and the previous occupants ordinary Muslims. Poor Muslim "squatters" would usually be offered small amounts of money to vacate the land and would often accept it and leave. If the occupants refused to move and the titled owner was sufficiently wealthy or influential, he would gain possession of the land by use of armed might, most often supplied by local units of the Philippine Constabulary. A 1963 survey commissioned by the Philippine Senate Committee on National Minorities concluded that the prinicipal problem in Mindanao was land (Gowing 1979). By 1970, differential access to both land and government resources had produced a profound economic gap between Muslim and Christian communities throughout Mindanao. In 1971 the same Philippine Senate Committee reported that until that year there were no irrigation projects in any municipality in Mindanao where Muslims were a majority (Gowing 1979).

State Efforts at Integration and the Generation of Muslim Separatism

As early as 1954 the economic disparities between Philippine Muslims and Christians generated by Christian migration to the Muslim South were already becoming conspicuous. The Philippine Congress, prompted by an intensification of Muslim "banditry" in Mindanao and Sulu, appointed a Special Committee to investigate the causes of those disparities and their possible solutions. The committee adopted the colonial discourse of Muslim backwardness and guided integration in its report. The report acknowledged the poverty plaguing Philippine Muslims but ignored the evidence linking the relative impoverishment of Muslims to Christian in-migration and blamed only Muslim culture for Muslim poverty: "In their ignorance and in their trend toward religious fanaticism, the Muslims are sadly wanting in the advantages of normal health and social factors and functions" (Congress of the Philippines, House of Representatives, 1955 quoted in Glang 1969:35). The Special Committee recommended the creation of the CNI (above). By relying on the CNI's college scholarship program as the principal policy instrument to effect integration, the postcolonial Philippine government continued the practice first established during the American period of "developing" Philippine Muslims not by providing them the material resources of the West but by endeavoring to remove (by the selective provision of university educations) the cultural disabilities perceived to be impeding their advancement and, indirectly, that of the Philippine Nation.

It should not be surprising that such efforts at integration by means of removing alleged deficiencies were mostly failures. In the case of Muslim CNI scholars, those efforts actually appear to have backfired. To illustrate the perverse effects of the CNI scholarships we need look no further than the most famous of the CNI alumni, Nur Misuari, the founder of the MNLF and presently governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Misuari was not the only young Philippine Muslim politicized by his time spent as a university student on a CNI scholarship. The shared experiences of the more than 8,000 Muslim CNI scholars studying in Manila between 1958 and 1967 profoundly affected Muslim politics after 1968. Much of their political education was gained outside university lecture halls from observing and participating in campus political activism. They also experienced at first hand the magnitude of popular anti-Muslim bias in the national capital and, after the election of Ferdinand Marcos as President of the Republic in 1965, witnessed an increasing antagonism toward Muslims by the same Christian-dominated state that had provided them scholarships. By 1968, the CNI scholarship program had unintentionally created a group of young Muslim intellectuals schooled in political activism and able to articulate the frustrations both of Muslim students disaffected by their encounters with Christian cultural hegemony in Manila and of peripheralized Philippine Muslims in general. Their political efforts eventually led, in 1971, to the formation of the underground Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) headed by Nur Misuari. With the declaration of martial law by President Marcos in 1972 the MNLF began an armed separatist insurgency against the Philippine state.

The Muslim Separatist Rebellion

From 1972 through 1976 a ferocious war between Muslim separatist rebels and the Philippine military raged throughout the southern Philippines . An estimated 120,000 people died in the fighting, which also created one million internal refugees and caused more than 100,000 Philippine Muslims to flee to Malaysia. The war was also extremely costly to the Marcos government. It was reported that, by 1975, as much as three-fourths of the Philippine Army was deployed in Muslim areas of Mindanao.(Ahmad 1982:2; Noble 1976:418). By 1976 the fighting was stalemated, with neither side able to inflict a critical defeat on the other. The war was also contested on diplomatic and ideological fronts. Ferdinand Marcos realized early on that an exclusively repressive response to the rebellion in the South was far too costly financially and politically. The MNLF had international support from various Muslim states and also from an influential international body, the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers. The Islamic Conference threatened to suspend oil deliveries to the Philippines from Arab oil producers should Philippine policy towards its Muslims not take a visibly more benevolent turn.

Marcos responded with a campaign to convince Muslims in the Philippines and, more importantly, heads of Muslim states abroad, of his sincere desire to solve the "Moro problem". A large mosque was built in the center of Manila, important Muslim holy days were officially recognized by the government, an Islamic Studies Institute was established at the University of the Philippines and a code of Muslim personal laws was drafted and approved by the President, though never effectuated while he held power. At the same time he stepped up diplomatic efforts to end the separatist war.

The Tripoli Agreement: A Charter for Philippine Muslim Autonomy

Those efforts led eventually to a diplomatic agreement that seemed, at least initially, to be an enormous victory for the MNLF. In the last weeks of 1976, representatives of the Philippine Government and the MNLF met in Tripoli, Libya to negotiate an end to the war in the South. Those meetings culminated with an agreement on a cease-fire and tentative terms for a peace settlement (Noble 1983). That peace settlement, known as the Tripoli Agreement, "provided the general principles for Muslim autonomy in the Philippine South" (Majul 1985:73). It provided for "the establishment of autonomy in the southern Philippines within the realm of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of the Philippines" (Ministry of Muslim Affairs 1983). The Tripoli Agreement was hailed as a breakthrough in the Mindanao war by all sides--the government, the MNLF, the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers and Libya, the latter two having jointly sponsored the Tripoli conference. The agreement implicitly recognized the MNLF as the official representative of Philippine Muslims and accorded it belligerent state status. The terms of the agreement were also quite favorable to MNLF demands. The cease-fire went into effect in late January, 1977 and was generally successful for about nine months. Talks were begun in February on the implementation of the peace settlement, and very soon broke down over widely divergent interpretations of the key terms of the agreement. Marcos then proceeded to "implement" the Tripoli Agreement on his own terms, principally by creating two special "autonomous" regions, one for Central Mindanao and the other for Sulu. The Marcos administration gained substantial benefits from signing the Tripoli Agreement; it obtained a much needed breathing spell from the economic drain of the war and from the considerable diplomatic pressure for settlement coming from the Middle East. In retrospect it seems clear that President Marcos never sincerely intended to implement the agreement as signed.

Although the cease-fire collapsed in much of the South before the year was out, the fighting never again approached the level of intensity experienced before 1976. After the signing of the agreement, the rate of defections from the MNLF accelerated, its support from foreign sources was reduced, and dissension intensified in its top ranks, eventually leading to a schism and the creation of a second separatist organization, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The armed Muslim separatist threat to the martial law state remained significant but was no longer an immediate one. The "autonomous" regional governments devised by the Marcos administration in the South have been aptly described as "essentially hollow, and productive of cynicism, frustration, and resentment" (Noble 1983:49). The governing bodies of the nominally autonomous regions were cosmetic creations with no real legislative authority and no independent operating budget. They were headed by martial law collaborators and rebel defectors. By 1983, the regional governments had developed a layer of bureaucracy that employed a number of college-educated Muslims, but the great majority of Muslims were completely unaffected by the new regional administrations. For the first nine years of its formal existence, Muslim autonomy in the Philippine state had virtually no political reality.

Constitutional Reform and the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao

It was only with the removal of Ferdinand Marcos from office in 1986 and his replacement by Corazon Aquino that Philippine Muslims saw any possibility for a genuine implementation of the Tripoli agreement and the establishment of a single Muslim autonomous region covering all the traditionally Muslim areas of the South. Their hopes were raised by the resumption of peace talks between the Philippine government and the MNLF and the drafting of a new Philippine Constitution in 1987 that provided for the creation of an autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao. They were dashed again in 1989, however, with the passage of the enabling legislation that actually established the single Muslim autonomous region. The formal autonomy that had been won in a hard-fought war was recast by the Philippine Congress as something granted to the Muslim minority by the Christian majority and implemented by means of majority rule. The enabling legislation required ratification by a plebiscite in each of the 13 provinces and nine cities included in original autonomous areas described in the Tripoli agreement. Only those areas voting in favor would be included in the new autonomous region. Because of the massive Christian in-migration of the previous 40 years, most of the affected provinces and cities now had Christian majorities. The MNLF broke off peace negotiations with the government over the majority-rule requirements of the organic act and called for a boycott of the plebiscite. When the plebiscite was held only four of the 13 provinces and no cities voted for inclusion in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). That small number was not only the result of Christians opting out of ARMM. Basilan and Marawi City, both majority Muslim areas, voted against inclusion in ARMM primarily as a result of MNLF opposition to the plebiscite. The new Muslim autonomous region was established in 1990. Despite the announced goal of the new administration to create something more substantial than the meaningless autonomy implemented by Ferdinand Marcos, the new autonomous region looked very similar in size and structure to the former ones and still very far away from the autonomy envisioned by the Muslim signatories to the Tripoli Agreement.

The 1996 Peace Agreement

The 1992 national election brought a new president to power. As a former military man, President Fidel Ramos was well aware of the potential costs of a continued state of war with the MNLF, which was still receiving substantial diplomatic support from the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers. He also had much firmer control over the Philippine military than did his predecessor and thus was better able to offer incentives to the MNLF even against the wishes of some military officers. Ramos convinced the MNLF to reopen peace talks by offering to move closer to the Tripoli agreement through exploring means to enlarge both the boundaries and the authority of the autonomous region (Ramos 1996).

Peace negotiations were held between 1993 and 1996 and resulted in a comprehensive peace agreement that managed both to hew closely to the Tripoli Agreement signed 20 years earlier and to stay within the formal bounds of the 1987 Constitution and the congressional bill establishing the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. The 1996 agreement arranged for the implementation of the Tripoli agreement in two phases. First, it created a transitional administrative structure known as the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD). This body substituted for the provisional government that was called for in the Tripoli agreement but was not allowed under the 1987 Constitution (Ferrer 1997). The role of the SPCPD was to supervise the implementation of the agreement during a three-year trial period. Most significantly, the SPCPD covered all 14 provinces and nine cities envisioned in the Tripoli agreement. Nur Misuari, the founder and chairman of the MNLF, was made chairman of the SPCPD and won election as governor of the ARMM. The agreement also provided for thousands of MNLF fighters to be integrated into the Philippine armed forces and national police. The "development" component of the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development was viewed as key to the agreement. During the three-year trial period, the SPCPD was to demonstrate both to Muslims supporters and suspicious Christian residents the economic benefits of peace under an autonomous region by channeling national and international development funds into the region as well as by attracting foreign investment.

The second phase of the 1996 Peace Agreement, which was originally scheduled to begin in September 1999, called for the establishment of a new Regional Autonomous Government with its own executive council, a legislative assembly, and representation in the national government. It would also have tax raising powers, a regional security force, an educational system that would incorporate the madaris (Islamic schools), and a system of Shariah (Islamic) courts (Muslim 1999). The boundaries of this new Regional Autonomous Government were to be determined by a plebiscite. However, the agreement allowed for the redrawing of provincial boundaries "to cluster predominately Muslim municipalities", thus making it likely that the new Regional Autonomous Government would be significantly larger than the current ARMM and would include most Muslim communities in Mindanao (Gutierrez 1999).

Despite the initial promise of the 1996 Peace Agreement, it too has stalled badly in its implementation and is in imminent danger of unraveling altogether. The September 1999 deadline for initiating the second phase of the agreement has come and gone. The autonomy agreement is stuck in its initial transition phase and has made very little progress in achieving either peace or development in the Muslim South. While the reasons for the failure of the most recent attempt to achieve meaningful autonomy for Philippine Muslims are complex, two particular (and indirectly related) problems stand out. First, as with the previous failed attempts at crafting an autonomous government for Muslim Mindanao, this latest version was also provided entirely inadequate levels of power and resources. Not only was the SPCPD deprived of any internal taxation authority, its overall authority was severely restricted. It could neither initiate development planning in the region nor direct national government agencies to address the development priorities it had established. It could only make recommendations to the Philippines president (Gutierrez 1999). Furthermore, the extremely weak financial support provided by the national government has meant that the budget of the SPCPD, like that of its predecessors, has been mostly expended on salaries and operating costs for its officials and personnel, with very little left for development purposes. Specifically, there has been only the most minimal progress made in poverty alleviation, employment and the provision of basic services to poor Muslim communities. As one writer has remarked, "SPCPD is functioning much like the ARMM and the defunct Regional Commissions [under Marcos]: as a mechanism for co-option and conflict regulation, not conflict resolution" (Muslim 1999).

The second particular problem is that the 1996 Peace Agreement has not brought peace to Muslim Mindanao. As with the 1989 negotiations, the Philippine government decided to negotiate only with the main Muslim separatist faction--the MNLF led by Nur Misuari, a signatory to the original Tripoli Agreement. In the years since the 1996 agreement, two other armed separatist factions--the Muslim Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf (Sword of the Father)--have clashed militarily with the Philippine army and those clashes have recently escalated tremendously. Although the Philippine government tends to promote the view that these two factions are interchangeable, they are in fact quite distinct geographically and politically. The Abu Sayyaf faction is of relatively recent origin, appearing only in 1993, and is centered on the island of Basilan. They are a small, loosely organized, and rather mysterious group that has had limited popular support (although recent events may have increased that support somewhat). . The MILF dates from 1984 as a separate organization but can trace its roots to the beginnings of modern Muslim separatism (McKenna 1998). It is centered on the large island of Mindanao, is well-organized and has thousands of fighters and broad popular support in rural villages. While the Abu Sayyaf faction has garnered more headlines with its killings and kidnappings, the MILF (which has condemned the activities of the Abu Sayyaf) is the only rebel group with sufficient military might and civilian support to wage a protracted war once again against the government. After some initial armed encounters with government troops shortly after the 1996 agreement was signed, the MILF signed a cease-fire agreement with the government in 1997 and entered into peace talks. Negotiations proceeded slowly and were punctuated by occasional skirmishes. Since late 1999, however, fighting has intensified and in early 2000 the MILF withdrew from peace talks. At this writing (September 2000), fighting between the MILF and government troops is more intense and widespread than at any time since the signing of the Tripoli Agreement.

Two factors seem to be at work in the escalating failure of the 1996 Peace Agreement to bring about peace in the Muslim Philippines. For one, the largest Muslim population concentrations in the Philippines are in Central Mindanao, the stronghold of the MILF. The political strength gained by the MNLF in Central Mindanao since the late 1980s seems to be dissipating somewhat with the failure of the 1996 agreement to produce any tangible economic benefits for the large majority of Muslims there. Growing disillusionment with the peace agreement made by the MNLF has led to increased support for the MILF, especially among young men of fighting age. At least as significant, however, is the increasingly antagonistic stance of the current Philippine president, Joseph Estrada, toward Muslim separatists. Since taking office in 1998, Estrada has been lukewarm at best toward the 1996 Peace Agreement, and his lack of consistent support for its implementation has certainly contributed to the failure of the SPCPD. He has also taken an unusually intransigent stance in negotiations by demanding that the MILF "lay down its arms", threatening massive retaliation, and imposing absolute deadlines for the conclusion of peace talks. This tough talk from the Estrada administration prompts the impression that it has not yet learned the lesson so well understood by the three previous administrations; there is no genuine military solution to the Philippines' "Moro problem." Almost 25 years have passed since the signing of the original peace agreement between the MNLF and the Philippine Government, an agreement that provided for Muslim autonomy. Yet, despite its enshrinement in the Philippine constitution and the guarantees of consecutive national governments, genuine Muslim autonomy has yet to be realized and, consequently, a stable peace in Muslim Mindanao has yet to be obtained.

Impediments to Peace and the Current Crisis

Turning to the impediments to improvement in the circumstances of Philippine Muslims, the two most prominent appear from opposite directions. First is the extreme reluctance on the part of the Philippine government to transfer any real power to the autonomous region it has authorized. Second is the armed resistance on the part of certain Muslim separatists to the autonomous region as currently constituted. These two problems are clearly related in that continued armed separatist resistance is a response in part to the ineffectiveness of the present autonomy arrangement. It would be a mistake, however, to view continued armed separatist resistance as simply an impediment to a stable peace. The demonstrated capacity of Muslim separatists to mobilize armed force is better seen as the key symptom of the Philippine government's predicament in respect to its Muslim minority.

Armed separatist mobilization is the price the Philippine government continues to pay for its past mistakes (and those of its colonial predecessors) in Muslim Mindanao. By marginalizing Philippine Muslims in their own homeland through massive government-sponsored in-migration, the government created a relatively impoverished regional minority resentful of the benefits provided to Christian migrants and highly suspicious of government motives. Even so, the Muslim separatist rebellion begun in 1972 was by no means inevitable. It was the highly aggressive actions of the martial law regime that transformed Muslim suspicion into organized armed antagonism toward the central state. Armed separatist resistance, and the international support it attracted, led to the signing of the Tripoli Agreement and it is continued armed resistance (actual or threatened) that has brought about all subsequent autonomy agreements, including the most recent. It is difficult or impossible to imagine any government offer of Muslim autonomy without the armed challenge.

The Philippine government has thus found itself caught between its desire to end a costly armed separatist challenge that has proved impervious to military suppression and the significant pressures placed upon it by various interest groups, especially Mindanao Christians, not to make any substantive concessions to Muslim separatists. This has resulted in the creation of a succession of formally autonomous entities that are extremely limited in both their power and scope. It has also caused the Philippine government to ignore to the greatest extent possible the MILF--the Muslim separatist front based in Central Mindanao and operating most closely to concentrations of Christian population. Since 1987, the MILF has engaged in offensive action only to force the government to the negotiating table with a show of its armed capacity. In 1987 it turned to offensive armed action after a peaceful mass demonstration in Cotabato City drew absolutely no government response (McKenna 1998). It is likely also that the MILF changed its announced goals from its original demand from autonomy to a call for a separate state primarily to gain the government's attention.

If the experience of the past 28 years of armed conflict in Muslim Mindanao teaches anything, it is that the current administration's "get tough" policy will have the opposite of its intended effect. It will energize the MILF and increase its popular support while undermining what is left of the 1996 Peace Agreement. There is an untried alternative to an attempted military solution to the continued armed separatist challenge in Muslim Mindanao--genuine regional development. After more than 25 years of Philippine government claims to be "developing" Muslim Mindanao, recent national statistics illustrate the sad reality. In virtually all measures of physical and economic well-being, the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is found at or near the bottom of the national rankings (National Statistics Office 2000). In government-supplied services ranging from access to prenatal care to availability of college scholarships for low-income students, ARMM ranks last (National Statistics Office 1998). As found with separatist movements elsewhere, ordinary Philippine Muslims are most likely to fight for or support an armed separatist front when they perceive no alternative means to overcome discrimination and better their living conditions. Rather than empty autonomy arrangements or further military offensives, the Philippine government might substitute a genuine commitment to both protect the cultural heritage of Philippine Muslims and provide them with tangible means to improve their livelihood. Those provisions are, after all, what Philippine Muslims most require from the Philippine government.

References Cited

Ahmad, Aijaz
1982 Class and Colony in Mindanao. Southeast Asia Chronicle No. 82:4-11.

Burley, T.M.
1973 The Philippines: An Economic and Social Geography. London: G. Bell and Sons Ltd.

Costello, Michael A.
1992 "The demography of Mindanao." In Mark Turner, R.J. May, and Lulu Respall Turner, eds., Mindanao: Land of Unfulfilled Promise. Quezon City, Philippines: New Day Publishers.

Ferrer, Miriam Coronel, ed.
1997 The SPCPD (Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development): A Response to the Controversy. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies.

by Thomas M. McKenna

The American Colonial Administration of "Moros"

The remote causes of the Muslim separatist rebellion that engulfed much of the southern Philippines in the 1970s and continues in parts of the South today may be found in the policies and practices of the Philippine colonial and national states. Early American rule in the Muslim Philippines followed a pattern quite similar to American governance of the rest of the colony--pious paternalism punctuated by brutal pacification operations. In the Muslim South, however, pacification took longer to achieve, requiring even harsher methods, while paternalism was also more pronounced. By 1914, "Moroland", as it was most commonly termed by the Americans, was considered fully pacified and civilian colonial rule was finally inaugurated 13 years after its establishment in the rest of the colony. Moroland soon came under the primary administrative supervision of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes. Philippine Muslims were grouped together with tribal Filipinos for administration because both were thought to need special attention to advance to the level of civilization of Christian Filipinos.

There were at least two ways, however, in which Philippine Muslims were viewed as distinct from tribal groups by American colonial administrators. For one, although regarded as barbaric, Muslims were not considered savages as were tribal groups. This was due principally to their possession of both a world religion and an aristocracy. In line with the popular orientalism of the time and drawing on the experiences of earlier European colonizers in Muslim Southeast Asia, American colonizers often exhibited a certain respect for the "Mohammedanism" they found in the Philippines and did not encourage Christian proselytization among Philippine Muslims. Tribal groups on the other hand became a principal target for American Protestant missionaries. As one consequence of this attitude, American colonial administrators tended to conglomerate various Muslim ethnolinguistic groups under the single label "Moro" rather than focusing on the "tribal" divisions among them.

Secondly, unlike tribal Filipinos, Philippine Muslims were overwhelmingly lowlanders and were not exempted from the land registration and individual land ownership policies of the American colonial government. The Bureau of Lands conducted land surveys throughout Muslim areas and processed homestead applications. While there is some evidence to suggest that American colonial administrators believed that land registration would improve economic security for Muslim commoners, the actual application of American land policy led to the loss of traditional land rights for a great many Muslims (Thomas 1971).

With the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935, government policy toward Philippine Muslims shifted significantly. The Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes was abolished in 1936 and with it the presumption that Muslims should be governed any differently, or afforded more protections, than any other citizens of the Commonwealth. This change in attitude was accompanied by a new policy priority: the economic development of Mindanao for the benefit of the nation, especially by means of Christian migration into traditionally Muslim regions.

Philippine Muslims and the new Philippine Republic

In 1946, a severely war-damaged Philippines received its formal independence and the new Philippine Republic continued to pursue the primary policy goal of its predecessor in Mindanao with far greater vigor. Independence brought a tremendous expansion of government-sponsored Christian Filipino immigration from northern provinces to the Muslim South. Demographic data from a single municipality--Kapatagan-- in the province of Lanao del Norte in central Mindanao illustrate the scale of the post-war influx of Christian migrants. There were about 24 Christian settlers in the Kapatagan area in 1918. By 1941 their number had risen to 8,000 and by 1960 there were a total of 93,000 immigrants. By 1960, Christian immigrants vastly outnumbered the 7,000 indigenous Muslims still living in the area (Hausherr 1968/69 quoted in Thomas 1971:317). The demographic shift throughout Muslim Mindanao in the post-war years, while not as dramatic as in Kapatagan, was equally momentous. The population of Central Mindanao, the area which saw the highest overall Christian immigration, soared from 0.7 million persons in 1948 to an estimated 2.3 million persons in 1970; representing a growth rate of 229 per cent as compared with the national figure of just under 100 per cent (Burley 1973).

While the scale of Christian immigration to Muslim Mindanao caused inevitable dislocations, the manner of its occurrence also produced glaring disparities between Christian settlers and Muslim farmers. From 1935 onward, the successive administrations of the Philippine Commonwealth and Republic provided steadily more opportunities and assistance to settlers from the North. By contrast, the government services available to Muslims were not only meager compared to those obtained by immigrant Christians but were also fewer than they had received under the colonial regime. The land laws of the postcolonial government defined all unregistered lands in Mindanao to be public land or military reservations (Gowing 1979). Unfamiliar with the procedures or deterred by the years of uncertainty, the steep processing fees, and the requirement to pay taxes during the interim, many Muslims neither applied for the new lands opened up by government-funded road construction nor filed for legal title to the land they currently occupied (Thomas 1971). For their part, officials and employees of the Bureau of Lands (virtually all of them Christians) were at best inattentive to Muslims. By contrast, Christian settlers regularly obtained legal ownership of the best newly opened lands as well as crop loans and other forms of government assistance. The new Christian communities became linked to trade centers and to one another by networks of roads while Muslim communities remained relatively isolated.

Most rural Muslims found themselves peripheralized in place as a result of the maneuverings of Christian settlers and speculators. Others, however, were physically dispossessed of their lands. The Bureau of Lands recognized land rights on the basis of priority of claim filed, not priority of occupation. It was not unusual for individuals to obtain legal titles, either intentionally or unintentionally, to already-occupied lands. In such cases, the legal owners were mostly (but not always) Christians and the previous occupants ordinary Muslims. Poor Muslim "squatters" would usually be offered small amounts of money to vacate the land and would often accept it and leave. If the occupants refused to move and the titled owner was sufficiently wealthy or influential, he would gain possession of the land by use of armed might, most often supplied by local units of the Philippine Constabulary. A 1963 survey commissioned by the Philippine Senate Committee on National Minorities concluded that the prinicipal problem in Mindanao was land (Gowing 1979). By 1970, differential access to both land and government resources had produced a profound economic gap between Muslim and Christian communities throughout Mindanao. In 1971 the same Philippine Senate Committee reported that until that year there were no irrigation projects in any municipality in Mindanao where Muslims were a majority (Gowing 1979).

State Efforts at Integration and the Generation of Muslim Separatism

As early as 1954 the economic disparities between Philippine Muslims and Christians generated by Christian migration to the Muslim South were already becoming conspicuous. The Philippine Congress, prompted by an intensification of Muslim "banditry" in Mindanao and Sulu, appointed a Special Committee to investigate the causes of those disparities and their possible solutions. The committee adopted the colonial discourse of Muslim backwardness and guided integration in its report. The report acknowledged the poverty plaguing Philippine Muslims but ignored the evidence linking the relative impoverishment of Muslims to Christian in-migration and blamed only Muslim culture for Muslim poverty: "In their ignorance and in their trend toward religious fanaticism, the Muslims are sadly wanting in the advantages of normal health and social factors and functions" (Congress of the Philippines, House of Representatives, 1955 quoted in Glang 1969:35). The Special Committee recommended the creation of the CNI (above). By relying on the CNI's college scholarship program as the principal policy instrument to effect integration, the postcolonial Philippine government continued the practice first established during the American period of "developing" Philippine Muslims not by providing them the material resources of the West but by endeavoring to remove (by the selective provision of university educations) the cultural disabilities perceived to be impeding their advancement and, indirectly, that of the Philippine Nation.

It should not be surprising that such efforts at integration by means of removing alleged deficiencies were mostly failures. In the case of Muslim CNI scholars, those efforts actually appear to have backfired. To illustrate the perverse effects of the CNI scholarships we need look no further than the most famous of the CNI alumni, Nur Misuari, the founder of the MNLF and presently governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Misuari was not the only young Philippine Muslim politicized by his time spent as a university student on a CNI scholarship. The shared experiences of the more than 8,000 Muslim CNI scholars studying in Manila between 1958 and 1967 profoundly affected Muslim politics after 1968. Much of their political education was gained outside university lecture halls from observing and participating in campus political activism. They also experienced at first hand the magnitude of popular anti-Muslim bias in the national capital and, after the election of Ferdinand Marcos as President of the Republic in 1965, witnessed an increasing antagonism toward Muslims by the same Christian-dominated state that had provided them scholarships. By 1968, the CNI scholarship program had unintentionally created a group of young Muslim intellectuals schooled in political activism and able to articulate the frustrations both of Muslim students disaffected by their encounters with Christian cultural hegemony in Manila and of peripheralized Philippine Muslims in general. Their political efforts eventually led, in 1971, to the formation of the underground Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) headed by Nur Misuari. With the declaration of martial law by President Marcos in 1972 the MNLF began an armed separatist insurgency against the Philippine state.

The Muslim Separatist Rebellion

From 1972 through 1976 a ferocious war between Muslim separatist rebels and the Philippine military raged throughout the southern Philippines . An estimated 120,000 people died in the fighting, which also created one million internal refugees and caused more than 100,000 Philippine Muslims to flee to Malaysia. The war was also extremely costly to the Marcos government. It was reported that, by 1975, as much as three-fourths of the Philippine Army was deployed in Muslim areas of Mindanao.(Ahmad 1982:2; Noble 1976:418). By 1976 the fighting was stalemated, with neither side able to inflict a critical defeat on the other. The war was also contested on diplomatic and ideological fronts. Ferdinand Marcos realized early on that an exclusively repressive response to the rebellion in the South was far too costly financially and politically. The MNLF had international support from various Muslim states and also from an influential international body, the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers. The Islamic Conference threatened to suspend oil deliveries to the Philippines from Arab oil producers should Philippine policy towards its Muslims not take a visibly more benevolent turn.

Marcos responded with a campaign to convince Muslims in the Philippines and, more importantly, heads of Muslim states abroad, of his sincere desire to solve the "Moro problem". A large mosque was built in the center of Manila, important Muslim holy days were officially recognized by the government, an Islamic Studies Institute was established at the University of the Philippines and a code of Muslim personal laws was drafted and approved by the President, though never effectuated while he held power. At the same time he stepped up diplomatic efforts to end the separatist war.

The Tripoli Agreement: A Charter for Philippine Muslim Autonomy

Those efforts led eventually to a diplomatic agreement that seemed, at least initially, to be an enormous victory for the MNLF. In the last weeks of 1976, representatives of the Philippine Government and the MNLF met in Tripoli, Libya to negotiate an end to the war in the South. Those meetings culminated with an agreement on a cease-fire and tentative terms for a peace settlement (Noble 1983). That peace settlement, known as the Tripoli Agreement, "provided the general principles for Muslim autonomy in the Philippine South" (Majul 1985:73). It provided for "the establishment of autonomy in the southern Philippines within the realm of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of the Philippines" (Ministry of Muslim Affairs 1983). The Tripoli Agreement was hailed as a breakthrough in the Mindanao war by all sides--the government, the MNLF, the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers and Libya, the latter two having jointly sponsored the Tripoli conference. The agreement implicitly recognized the MNLF as the official representative of Philippine Muslims and accorded it belligerent state status. The terms of the agreement were also quite favorable to MNLF demands. The cease-fire went into effect in late January, 1977 and was generally successful for about nine months. Talks were begun in February on the implementation of the peace settlement, and very soon broke down over widely divergent interpretations of the key terms of the agreement. Marcos then proceeded to "implement" the Tripoli Agreement on his own terms, principally by creating two special "autonomous" regions, one for Central Mindanao and the other for Sulu. The Marcos administration gained substantial benefits from signing the Tripoli Agreement; it obtained a much needed breathing spell from the economic drain of the war and from the considerable diplomatic pressure for settlement coming from the Middle East. In retrospect it seems clear that President Marcos never sincerely intended to implement the agreement as signed.

Although the cease-fire collapsed in much of the South before the year was out, the fighting never again approached the level of intensity experienced before 1976. After the signing of the agreement, the rate of defections from the MNLF accelerated, its support from foreign sources was reduced, and dissension intensified in its top ranks, eventually leading to a schism and the creation of a second separatist organization, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The armed Muslim separatist threat to the martial law state remained significant but was no longer an immediate one. The "autonomous" regional governments devised by the Marcos administration in the South have been aptly described as "essentially hollow, and productive of cynicism, frustration, and resentment" (Noble 1983:49). The governing bodies of the nominally autonomous regions were cosmetic creations with no real legislative authority and no independent operating budget. They were headed by martial law collaborators and rebel defectors. By 1983, the regional governments had developed a layer of bureaucracy that employed a number of college-educated Muslims, but the great majority of Muslims were completely unaffected by the new regional administrations. For the first nine years of its formal existence, Muslim autonomy in the Philippine state had virtually no political reality.

Constitutional Reform and the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao

It was only with the removal of Ferdinand Marcos from office in 1986 and his replacement by Corazon Aquino that Philippine Muslims saw any possibility for a genuine implementation of the Tripoli agreement and the establishment of a single Muslim autonomous region covering all the traditionally Muslim areas of the South. Their hopes were raised by the resumption of peace talks between the Philippine government and the MNLF and the drafting of a new Philippine Constitution in 1987 that provided for the creation of an autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao. They were dashed again in 1989, however, with the passage of the enabling legislation that actually established the single Muslim autonomous region. The formal autonomy that had been won in a hard-fought war was recast by the Philippine Congress as something granted to the Muslim minority by the Christian majority and implemented by means of majority rule. The enabling legislation required ratification by a plebiscite in each of the 13 provinces and nine cities included in original autonomous areas described in the Tripoli agreement. Only those areas voting in favor would be included in the new autonomous region. Because of the massive Christian in-migration of the previous 40 years, most of the affected provinces and cities now had Christian majorities. The MNLF broke off peace negotiations with the government over the majority-rule requirements of the organic act and called for a boycott of the plebiscite. When the plebiscite was held only four of the 13 provinces and no cities voted for inclusion in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). That small number was not only the result of Christians opting out of ARMM. Basilan and Marawi City, both majority Muslim areas, voted against inclusion in ARMM primarily as a result of MNLF opposition to the plebiscite. The new Muslim autonomous region was established in 1990. Despite the announced goal of the new administration to create something more substantial than the meaningless autonomy implemented by Ferdinand Marcos, the new autonomous region looked very similar in size and structure to the former ones and still very far away from the autonomy envisioned by the Muslim signatories to the Tripoli Agreement.

The 1996 Peace Agreement

The 1992 national election brought a new president to power. As a former military man, President Fidel Ramos was well aware of the potential costs of a continued state of war with the MNLF, which was still receiving substantial diplomatic support from the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers. He also had much firmer control over the Philippine military than did his predecessor and thus was better able to offer incentives to the MNLF even against the wishes of some military officers. Ramos convinced the MNLF to reopen peace talks by offering to move closer to the Tripoli agreement through exploring means to enlarge both the boundaries and the authority of the autonomous region (Ramos 1996).

Peace negotiations were held between 1993 and 1996 and resulted in a comprehensive peace agreement that managed both to hew closely to the Tripoli Agreement signed 20 years earlier and to stay within the formal bounds of the 1987 Constitution and the congressional bill establishing the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. The 1996 agreement arranged for the implementation of the Tripoli agreement in two phases. First, it created a transitional administrative structure known as the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD). This body substituted for the provisional government that was called for in the Tripoli agreement but was not allowed under the 1987 Constitution (Ferrer 1997). The role of the SPCPD was to supervise the implementation of the agreement during a three-year trial period. Most significantly, the SPCPD covered all 14 provinces and nine cities envisioned in the Tripoli agreement. Nur Misuari, the founder and chairman of the MNLF, was made chairman of the SPCPD and won election as governor of the ARMM. The agreement also provided for thousands of MNLF fighters to be integrated into the Philippine armed forces and national police. The "development" component of the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development was viewed as key to the agreement. During the three-year trial period, the SPCPD was to demonstrate both to Muslims supporters and suspicious Christian residents the economic benefits of peace under an autonomous region by channeling national and international development funds into the region as well as by attracting foreign investment.

The second phase of the 1996 Peace Agreement, which was originally scheduled to begin in September 1999, called for the establishment of a new Regional Autonomous Government with its own executive council, a legislative assembly, and representation in the national government. It would also have tax raising powers, a regional security force, an educational system that would incorporate the madaris (Islamic schools), and a system of Shariah (Islamic) courts (Muslim 1999). The boundaries of this new Regional Autonomous Government were to be determined by a plebiscite. However, the agreement allowed for the redrawing of provincial boundaries "to cluster predominately Muslim municipalities", thus making it likely that the new Regional Autonomous Government would be significantly larger than the current ARMM and would include most Muslim communities in Mindanao (Gutierrez 1999).

Despite the initial promise of the 1996 Peace Agreement, it too has stalled badly in its implementation and is in imminent danger of unraveling altogether. The September 1999 deadline for initiating the second phase of the agreement has come and gone. The autonomy agreement is stuck in its initial transition phase and has made very little progress in achieving either peace or development in the Muslim South. While the reasons for the failure of the most recent attempt to achieve meaningful autonomy for Philippine Muslims are complex, two particular (and indirectly related) problems stand out. First, as with the previous failed attempts at crafting an autonomous government for Muslim Mindanao, this latest version was also provided entirely inadequate levels of power and resources. Not only was the SPCPD deprived of any internal taxation authority, its overall authority was severely restricted. It could neither initiate development planning in the region nor direct national government agencies to address the development priorities it had established. It could only make recommendations to the Philippines president (Gutierrez 1999). Furthermore, the extremely weak financial support provided by the national government has meant that the budget of the SPCPD, like that of its predecessors, has been mostly expended on salaries and operating costs for its officials and personnel, with very little left for development purposes. Specifically, there has been only the most minimal progress made in poverty alleviation, employment and the provision of basic services to poor Muslim communities. As one writer has remarked, "SPCPD is functioning much like the ARMM and the defunct Regional Commissions [under Marcos]: as a mechanism for co-option and conflict regulation, not conflict resolution" (Muslim 1999).

The second particular problem is that the 1996 Peace Agreement has not brought peace to Muslim Mindanao. As with the 1989 negotiations, the Philippine government decided to negotiate only with the main Muslim separatist faction--the MNLF led by Nur Misuari, a signatory to the original Tripoli Agreement. In the years since the 1996 agreement, two other armed separatist factions--the Muslim Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf (Sword of the Father)--have clashed militarily with the Philippine army and those clashes have recently escalated tremendously. Although the Philippine government tends to promote the view that these two factions are interchangeable, they are in fact quite distinct geographically and politically. The Abu Sayyaf faction is of relatively recent origin, appearing only in 1993, and is centered on the island of Basilan. They are a small, loosely organized, and rather mysterious group that has had limited popular support (although recent events may have increased that support somewhat). . The MILF dates from 1984 as a separate organization but can trace its roots to the beginnings of modern Muslim separatism (McKenna 1998). It is centered on the large island of Mindanao, is well-organized and has thousands of fighters and broad popular support in rural villages. While the Abu Sayyaf faction has garnered more headlines with its killings and kidnappings, the MILF (which has condemned the activities of the Abu Sayyaf) is the only rebel group with sufficient military might and civilian support to wage a protracted war once again against the government. After some initial armed encounters with government troops shortly after the 1996 agreement was signed, the MILF signed a cease-fire agreement with the government in 1997 and entered into peace talks. Negotiations proceeded slowly and were punctuated by occasional skirmishes. Since late 1999, however, fighting has intensified and in early 2000 the MILF withdrew from peace talks. At this writing (September 2000), fighting between the MILF and government troops is more intense and widespread than at any time since the signing of the Tripoli Agreement.

Two factors seem to be at work in the escalating failure of the 1996 Peace Agreement to bring about peace in the Muslim Philippines. For one, the largest Muslim population concentrations in the Philippines are in Central Mindanao, the stronghold of the MILF. The political strength gained by the MNLF in Central Mindanao since the late 1980s seems to be dissipating somewhat with the failure of the 1996 agreement to produce any tangible economic benefits for the large majority of Muslims there. Growing disillusionment with the peace agreement made by the MNLF has led to increased support for the MILF, especially among young men of fighting age. At least as significant, however, is the increasingly antagonistic stance of the current Philippine president, Joseph Estrada, toward Muslim separatists. Since taking office in 1998, Estrada has been lukewarm at best toward the 1996 Peace Agreement, and his lack of consistent support for its implementation has certainly contributed to the failure of the SPCPD. He has also taken an unusually intransigent stance in negotiations by demanding that the MILF "lay down its arms", threatening massive retaliation, and imposing absolute deadlines for the conclusion of peace talks. This tough talk from the Estrada administration prompts the impression that it has not yet learned the lesson so well understood by the three previous administrations; there is no genuine military solution to the Philippines' "Moro problem." Almost 25 years have passed since the signing of the original peace agreement between the MNLF and the Philippine Government, an agreement that provided for Muslim autonomy. Yet, despite its enshrinement in the Philippine constitution and the guarantees of consecutive national governments, genuine Muslim autonomy has yet to be realized and, consequently, a stable peace in Muslim Mindanao has yet to be obtained.

Impediments to Peace and the Current Crisis

Turning to the impediments to improvement in the circumstances of Philippine Muslims, the two most prominent appear from opposite directions. First is the extreme reluctance on the part of the Philippine government to transfer any real power to the autonomous region it has authorized. Second is the armed resistance on the part of certain Muslim separatists to the autonomous region as currently constituted. These two problems are clearly related in that continued armed separatist resistance is a response in part to the ineffectiveness of the present autonomy arrangement. It would be a mistake, however, to view continued armed separatist resistance as simply an impediment to a stable peace. The demonstrated capacity of Muslim separatists to mobilize armed force is better seen as the key symptom of the Philippine government's predicament in respect to its Muslim minority.

Armed separatist mobilization is the price the Philippine government continues to pay for its past mistakes (and those of its colonial predecessors) in Muslim Mindanao. By marginalizing Philippine Muslims in their own homeland through massive government-sponsored in-migration, the government created a relatively impoverished regional minority resentful of the benefits provided to Christian migrants and highly suspicious of government motives. Even so, the Muslim separatist rebellion begun in 1972 was by no means inevitable. It was the highly aggressive actions of the martial law regime that transformed Muslim suspicion into organized armed antagonism toward the central state. Armed separatist resistance, and the international support it attracted, led to the signing of the Tripoli Agreement and it is continued armed resistance (actual or threatened) that has brought about all subsequent autonomy agreements, including the most recent. It is difficult or impossible to imagine any government offer of Muslim autonomy without the armed challenge.

The Philippine government has thus found itself caught between its desire to end a costly armed separatist challenge that has proved impervious to military suppression and the significant pressures placed upon it by various interest groups, especially Mindanao Christians, not to make any substantive concessions to Muslim separatists. This has resulted in the creation of a succession of formally autonomous entities that are extremely limited in both their power and scope. It has also caused the Philippine government to ignore to the greatest extent possible the MILF--the Muslim separatist front based in Central Mindanao and operating most closely to concentrations of Christian population. Since 1987, the MILF has engaged in offensive action only to force the government to the negotiating table with a show of its armed capacity. In 1987 it turned to offensive armed action after a peaceful mass demonstration in Cotabato City drew absolutely no government response (McKenna 1998). It is likely also that the MILF changed its announced goals from its original demand from autonomy to a call for a separate state primarily to gain the government's attention.

If the experience of the past 28 years of armed conflict in Muslim Mindanao teaches anything, it is that the current administration's "get tough" policy will have the opposite of its intended effect. It will energize the MILF and increase its popular support while undermining what is left of the 1996 Peace Agreement. There is an untried alternative to an attempted military solution to the continued armed separatist challenge in Muslim Mindanao--genuine regional development. After more than 25 years of Philippine government claims to be "developing" Muslim Mindanao, recent national statistics illustrate the sad reality. In virtually all measures of physical and economic well-being, the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is found at or near the bottom of the national rankings (National Statistics Office 2000). In government-supplied services ranging from access to prenatal care to availability of college scholarships for low-income students, ARMM ranks last (National Statistics Office 1998). As found with separatist movements elsewhere, ordinary Philippine Muslims are most likely to fight for or support an armed separatist front when they perceive no alternative means to overcome discrimination and better their living conditions. Rather than empty autonomy arrangements or further military offensives, the Philippine government might substitute a genuine commitment to both protect the cultural heritage of Philippine Muslims and provide them with tangible means to improve their livelihood. Those provisions are, after all, what Philippine Muslims most require from the Philippine government.

References Cited

Ahmad, Aijaz
1982 Class and Colony in Mindanao. Southeast Asia Chronicle No. 82:4-11.

Burley, T.M.
1973 The Philippines: An Economic and Social Geography. London: G. Bell and Sons Ltd.

Costello, Michael A.
1992 "The demography of Mindanao." In Mark Turner, R.J. May, and Lulu Respall Turner, eds., Mindanao: Land of Unfulfilled Promise. Quezon City, Philippines: New Day Publishers.

Ferrer, Miriam Coronel, ed.
1997 The SPCPD (Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development): A Response to the Controversy. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies.

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The Origins of the Muslim Separatist Movement in the Philippines

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by Thomas M. McKenna The American Colonial Administration of "Moros" The remote causes of the Muslim separatist rebellion that engulfed much of the southern Philippines in the 1970s and continues in parts of the South today may be found in the policies and practices of the Philippine colonial and national states.

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Beningo “Noynoy” Aquino, son of Corazon Aquino, elected President.
Article for students to read: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benigno-Aquino-III

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Benigno Aquino III, in full Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, also called Noynoy, (born February 8, 1960, Manila, Philippines), Filipino politician who served as president of the Philippines (2010-16) and was the scion of a famed political family.

He was the son of Corazon Aquino, who served as president of the Philippines (1986-92), and political leader Benigno Simeon Aquino, Jr.-themselves the children of politically connected families. The elder Benigno, an opposition figure to Pres. Ferdinand Marcos who was imprisoned when the younger Benigno was a child, was released and allowed to go to the United States in 1980. The following year the younger Benigno, after graduating from Ateneo de Manila University with a bachelor's degree in economics, followed his family to Boston. His father returned to the Philippines in 1983 intending to challenge Marcos for the presidency but was assassinated immediately on arrival. The family nevertheless returned to the country soon afterward, and there the young Aquino worked for companies including Philippine Business for Social Progress and Nike Philippines.

He became vice president of his family's Best Security Agency Corporation in 1986, the same year that his mother was named president of the Philippines after her opposition party successfully charged incumbent President Marcos with voting fraud. Aquino left the company in 1993 to work for another family-owned business, a sugar refinery. Finally, in 1998, he made the move to politics as a member of the Liberal Party, serving the constitutional maximum of three consecutive terms as a representative of the 2nd district of Tarlac province. During this time he also served as deputy speaker of the House of Representatives (2004-06), but he resigned from the post in advance of joining other Liberal Party leaders in making a call for the resignation of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-10), who was accused of corrupt dealings including the rigging of the 2004 presidential election. From 2006 Aquino served as vice-chairman of the Liberal Party, and in 2007, at the end of his final term in the House of Representatives, he made a successful bid for a Senate seat.

In September 2009 Aquino announced his candidacy in the 2010 presidential race. His mother, to many a symbol of democratic rule in the Philippines, had died the previous month, an event that heightened Aquino's profile and served as a catalyst for his seeking higher office. Though his opponents for the presidency included such seasoned politicians as Joseph Estrada, who had previously served as president of the Philippines (1998-2001), Aquino was considered the front-runner from the time that he entered the race. In the elections held on May 10, Aquino won the presidency by a wide margin.

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Aquino's chief domestic accomplishment was the conclusion of a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in October 2012. The deal promised a significant amount of autonomy to a Muslim-majority region of southern Mindinao and seemingly concluded four decades of deadly conflict. Economic growth in the Philippines was strong during Aquino's administration, but unemployment remained high, and opposition politicians argued that the benefits chiefly accrued to the country's elite. Aquino also faced criticism over his government's slow response to Super Typhoon Haiyan, which killed some 8,000 people and displaced more than 800,000 when it hit the Philippines in November 2013. The most significant foreign policy issue of Aquino's term in office was China's increasingly assertive posture in the South China Sea. The Philippines sought a judgment from the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague to clarify the ownership of a reef that was claimed by China despite the fact that it lay within Philippine territorial waters. Although the court later ruled that China had no claim to the reef and that China's actions had constituted a violation of the Philippines' sovereignty, China dismissed the decision. Limited to a single six-year term, Aquino supported Manuel ("Mar") Roxas to succeed him in 2016. Roxas, the grandson of Pres. Manuel Roxas, represented the mainstream political establishment at a time when voters were clearly frustrated with the status quo, and he finished a distant second to inflammatory populist Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte succeeded Aquino as president on June 30, 2016.

Melissa Albert The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

born

February 8, 1960 (age 60)
Manila, Philippines

title / office

political affiliation

notable family members

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Benigno Aquino III | president of Philippines

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Benigno Aquino III, Filipino politician who served as president of the Philippines (2010-16) and was the scion of a famed political family. He was the son of Corazon Aquino, who served as president of the Philippines (1986-92), and political leader Benigno Simeon Aquino, Jr.-themselves the children