Datu Udtug Matalam and the Muslim Independence Movement

In May of 1968 the establishment of the Muslim Independence Movement (MIM) was announced by its founder and chairman, the newly retired governor of Cotabato, Datu Udtug Matalam. The MIM had as its formal goals the secession of Muslims "from the Republic of the

Philippines in order to establish an Islamic State" (MIM Manifesto quoted in Glang 1969, 103). A contemporaneous editorial in the Cotabato City newspaper (Mindanao Cross , June 1, 1968) noted the irony in the fact that Datu Udtug, the former governor of the province and prominent advocate of Muslim-Christian political harmony in the region, had now founded a Muslim secessionist movement. The proximate cause for the sudden political transformation of Datu Udtug may be found in the circumstances of his retirement from the governor's office. In 1967, Datu Udtug became a political casualty of the national party politics about which he cared so little. Following the lead of his brother-in-law, Congressman Salipada Pendatun, Datu Udtug had been aligned for some years with the Liberalista Party. After an exceedingly bitter presidential election campaign in 1965, won by the Nacionalista Party challenger Ferdinand Marcos, Marcos led a Nacionalista push to unseat Liberalista officeholders in the 1967 local elections. One of the targeted provinces was Cotabato, previously considered the unassailable territory of Pendatun and Matalam. Marcos personally selected a Muslim Nacionalista candidate for the governorship of Cotabato, Datu Abdulla Sangki. Sangki was a member of the Ampatuan clan,^[8] which was closely aligned with the Sinsuats, the persistent political rivals of Pendatun and Matalam. The Sinsuats and Ampatuans had, that year, affiliated en masse with the Nacionalistas.

Datu Udtug, who disdained electioneering, was unimpressed by this challenge, but Pendatun, a modern campaigner, took it quite seriously. Presumably, he was also aware that were a Nacionalista to attain the governorship of Cotabato, his own position as congressman for the province would become untenable. Pendatun persuaded the sixty-eight-year-old Udtug to withdraw from the election by offering to run for governor himself in his stead.^[9] Pendatun chose Simeon Datumanong, a political protégé, as his running mate for vice-governor. Datumanong was a member of the Ampatuan clan and was chosen at least partly as a counterweight to the Nacionalista candidate. Pendatun won the governor's race by a slender margin but decided not to give up his seat in Congress after all. He never took the oath of office and Datumanong automatically became governor.

Datu Udtug thus found himself in 1968 involuntarily retired from public office and far from the reins of provincial power, which were now held by a youngster closely related to his political foes. He reportedly felt abused by his old comrade Pendatun and more disgusted than ever with national party politics. His resentment was intensified as the

result of a separate incident. In August of 1967 his eldest son, Tuting, was shot and killed by an off-duty agent of the National Bureau of Investigation. Datu Udtug was anguished at this loss and then deeply offended when none of the newly elected provincial officials (with the exception of Pendatun) visited him to pay their condolences. The compounded frustration of Datu Udtug at his sudden powerlessness apparently led to his willingness to attempt a dramatic gesture to seek renewed respect and recognition. In his effort to be once again taken seriously he was successful beyond his expectations, at least in the short term.

Datu Udtug's MIM was never a popular secessionist movement. Its only public political actions were pronouncements in the form of manifestos and declarations of policy publicized in the national and international press and disseminated to politicians and Muslim leaders in the Philippines and abroad. There was little apparent public support for the secessionist goals of the movement among ordinary Muslims (George 1980, 152; McAmis 1974), and Datu Udtug himself eventually retreated publicly from his initial positions.^[10] Nevertheless, the published statements of the Muslim Independence Movement were taken more seriously by Cotabato Christians, the national media, and the state than they were by Cotabato Muslims and, evidently, more seriously than intended by Datu Udtug. In the months following the initial manifesto, the national press carried headlines announcing that "War Brews in Cotabato." Christian settlers left some towns in anticipation of a Muslim uprising, and the national government transferred combat-ready troops to the province (George 1980, 135).^[11]

The manifestos of the MIM also drew the prompt attention of those who controlled the state. President Marcos met with Datu Udtug publicly in October of 1968. Marcos acknowledged Datu Udtug's self-proclaimed role as "the leader of the more than four million Muslims in the Philippines," presented him with his gold watch as a token of friendship, and appointed him presidential adviser on Muslim affairs (Mindanao News-Bulletin October 25, 1968, quoted in Glang 1969, 28–29). The apprehension induced by Datu Udtug's essentially notional movement appears clearly related to its timing, coming just six weeks after the disclosure of the Jabidah Massacre. From the perspective of Manila, MIM appeared to be "a spontaneous southern backlash against the notorious Jabidah shooting" (George 1980, 133). Despite appearances, and notwithstanding Datu Udtug's implications to the contrary, the evidence suggests that the Jabidah Massacre was less

an impetus for Datu Udtug's movement than were his own personal motivations. As George (1980) has argued, any provincial Muslim reaction to the Jabidah Massacre would have emanated first from Sulu, the home province of the recruits, rather than from Cotabato. By referring to the incident, Datu Udtug was, in all likelihood, merely making use of media attention and Muslim anger generated by Jabidah, for personal ends.

The Muslim Independence Movement did, however, serve purposes and produce consequences quite apart from the intentions or actions of Datu Udtug. The MIM acted as a lightning rod, attracting mostly young, educated Muslims either disenchanted with or debarred from Muslim electoral politics. For a period of time Datu Udtug's homestead at Pagalungan again became a center of political activity.^[12] Udtug himself played a very limited role in MIM activities after his initial efforts. He appeared content with the recognition he had garnered by signing his name to manifestos and spent the rest of his life, until his death in 1983 at the age of eighty-four, farming his land.

While credible information on the covert political activities associated with the Muslim Independence Movement is hard to come by, enough data are available to indicate how the MIM, though never a broad-based movement, became a vehicle for the convergence of old and new, established and anti-establishment, Muslim interests. In 1969, Hashim Salamat established an organization, Nurul Islam, to promote Islamic renewal in Cotabato. By 1970 Salamat had aligned himself and his organization with the MIM. Presumably, Salamat was attracted to the MIM by Datu Udtug's break with party politics, his call for an Islamic state, and his willingness to associate himself with young and idealistic men. It is known that by early 1969, Nur Misuari had also made the acquaintance of Datu Udtug and, more important, had made common cause with the two most prominent Liberalista Muslim politicians of the day, Salipada Pendatun of Cotabato and Rashid Lucman of Lanao. Misuari most likely had cemented his relationship with these men as a result of the Jabidah protests in Manila, which received significant support from opposition Muslim politicians.

Misuari became most closely associated with Rashid Lucman, a prominent Muslim congressman and Pendatun's counterpart in Lanao. Lucman was also closely acquainted with Tun Mustapha, the chief minister of the Malaysian federal state of Sabah. Mustapha had been angry with the Philippine government since it first announced a claim to Sabah. Mustapha was also an ethnic Tausug with many relatives

living in Sulu and had become incensed both at the recruitment of Sulu Muslims to invade Sabah and at their subsequent treatment at the hands of Philippine agents (Noble 1983). The Jabidah Massacre served to confirm his worst suspicions of Philippine intentions. At some point in early 1969 a decision was made within this group to initiate a training program for Muslim guerrilla fighters. In late 1969, ninety young Muslim recruits, most of them Lucman's fellow Maranaos from Lanao—but also Magindanaons and Tausugs—began military training in the forests of Malaysia by professional instructors (Mercado 1984; Noble 1983). Nur Misuari was among the group, as was the son of Rashid Lucman and eight young Magindanaons. Although there is no evidence that Datu Udtug actively participated in the decision to train Muslim fighters, and although only a small percentage of the trainees were Magindanaon, this training has been referred to as an MIM program (see Mercado 1984; Noble 1983). The training was evidently financed as well as sanctioned by the government of Malaysia through the intercession of Tun Mustapha.

Misuari's intentions in taking part in (and probably initiating—see George 1980) the training program are rather easily discernible. It is apparent from his 1968 editorial quoted above that he had already accepted the inevitability of armed struggle to achieve Muslim secession. Given those convictions, Misuari's association with established Muslim politicians was pragmatic. With no resources of his own, and having disengaged himself from the campus-based Marxist nationalist opposition, he turned to those apparently sympathetic Muslims who had their own resources and, more important, access to potentially significant quantities of external resources.

The intentions of the Liberalista Congressmen, Pendatun and Lucman—both of whom publicly denied any association with the MIM or guerrilla training—are much less easy to discern. There is no evidence to suggest that their secret sponsorship of an armed force was a defensive response to any immediate threat to their persons, or even to their positions. It was more likely conceived as a new tactic in the evolving national party politics of the period. Both men found themselves in 1969 aligned as bitter foes of an increasingly aggressive national president who was actively strengthening (with money and arms) their Nacionalista Muslim rivals in their home provinces—in Cotabato, the Sinsuat-Ampatuan alliance; and in Lanao, Congressman All Dimaporo. Pendatun and Lucman most probably saw the creation of a welltrained armed force, whose instruction and supplies they did not have

to finance and whose existence they could deny, as a useful new resource in a mixed political strategy.

The Magindanaon recruits returned from Malaysia to Cotabato to train additional young men and form part of the nucleus of the MIM youth section—the only dynamic segment of the MIM. The rest of the active core was composed of Hashim Salamat and some of his fellow al-Azhar graduates. Datu Udtug pledged to finance arms purchases but, according to Datu Adil, spent most of the allocated funds on farm improvements.

Although never a popular secessionist movement, the MIM did have political consequence as both a notion and a provocation. By articulating the idea of Muslim separatism at an opportune time it galvanized a new non-datu and anti-establishment group into political action while offering established Muslim politicians a novel weapon for opposing an unusually aggressive ruling party.

The focus thus far has been entirely on the formation of new Muslim political elites and their relation to the beginnings of a movement for political separation from the Philippine republic. To understand how ordinary Muslims became inclined toward armed separatism requires the investigation of an unprecedented string of violent incidents in Cotabato beginning in 1970.