The events and circumstances that gave rise to the armed conflict in Mindanao are multiple and complex. Some scholars, the popular media and protagonists alike have described the conflict as a “religious war”. This perception may have been fed by the way the Spaniards framed and justified their colonization campaign in the past that resulted in deeply ingrained prejudices held between the Christianized natives and the indigenous followers of Islam. The perception was bolstered with the rise of communal conflicts in parts of Mindanao in the early 1970s involving vigilante groups among the settler and indigenous communities, often arising from land-related disputes or contestation over political and/or territorial control.

Seeds of Discontent

The hostility draws on historical antecedents that saw the Islamic population in the south marginalized from the centre of politics and society located in the northern capital on Luzon island. Moreover, policies undertaken by the American colonial regime and the Philippine Republic significantly changed the demographic composition and social structure of Mindanao. Notably, the series of resettlement programmes of populations from Luzon and the Visayas to Mindanao initiated by the American colonial regime transformed many segments of the indigenous population into minorities. The succeeding Philippine government pursued the same policies. Mindanao thus developed into a settler colony from the early to the mid-1900s. Homestead arrangements for migrants and the infusion of American capital for the plantation economy in the region hastened the loss of control over land and tribute collection in the hands of the original inhabitants.