The War of Representations

As noted above, the ideological and diplomatic strategies of the MNLF were as important for directing the insurgency as were its military efforts. The diplomatic contest between the MNLF and the Marcos administration is the best-documented element of the war and has received prominent and comprehensive treatment in the literature on the rebellion (see, e.g., Majul 1985; Noble 1983; George 1980). For that reason, and because diplomatic maneuvers bore little direct relation to events in Cotabato, I will treat them only superficially. The ideological struggle of the rebellion, which impinged more immediately on the course of the fighting in Cotabato, has received less careful attention.

Although specifically religious appeals in the form of calls for Islamic renewal and jihad (struggle in defense of the faith) played an instrumental role at various points in the Bangsamoro Rebellion

(especially in Cotabato, see below), the central theme employed by the MNLF was a cultural-historical appeal to the concept of Philippine Muslim nationalism. That theme was articulated by Nur Misuari in a 1977 speech given in Algeria: "In keeping with the desires of the broad masses of our people, the MNLF adopted a political programme which called for the complete liberation of our people and national homeland from all forms and vestiges of Filipino colonialism, to ensure our people's freedom and the preservation of our Islamic and indigenous culture and civilization" (quoted in Majul 1985, 139).

The rebellion as conceived by Misuari was a nationalist struggle that had as its goal the establishment of a single independent homeland for the three major and ten minor ethnolinguistic groups that comprise the Muslim peoples of the Philippines. It was therefore necessary to place primary emphasis on preexisting bases for political unity and political competence—foundations that transcended ethnolinguistic boundaries. The search for the fundament of a modern Philippine Muslim nation motivated the development of the myth of Morohood—the account of a concerted, persistent Muslim resistance to Spanish aggression. The term "Bangsamoro" ("Moro nation") was a distillation of the core nationalist theme.^[26] "Bangsa," which may be glossed as "descent group," "tribe," or "race" as well as "nation" (Fleischman et al. 1981, 10), is a term connoting descent, corporateness, and shared heritage. "Moro" was, as we have seen, the term used by Spanish colonizers to refer to the local Muslim societies that resisted Spanish attempts to establish hegemony in the southern Philippines. That term survived as a pejorative among Christian Filipinos primarily through the cultural institution of the "moro-moro," a form of folk theater in which Christian heroes battled Moro villains, who were depicted as cruel and barbarous pirates. Rebel ideologues, led by Nur Misuari, transformed the epithet into a positive symbol of national identity. Moros were depicted as the first nationalists of the Philippines, an entity whose very name denotes a colonized people. "Moro not Filipino" became a slogan of the rebellion. Moro culture heroes such as Sultan Kudarat were rediscovered and the unity and continuity of the Moro anticolonial struggle reestablished. The Moro nation was imagined as a sovereign republic composed of the descendants of those freedom fighters and their supporters.^[27]

A logical correlate of the Muslim nationalist appeal was renewed emphasis on traditional Philippine Muslim political institutions, particularly the long-defunct sultanates, which were, it was pointed out, the

first indigenous states in the Philippines. Because their aim was to focus attention on a glorious past, rebel leaders were understandably ambivalent about the living descendants of the rulers who led past Moro resistance to alien domination. Although both Misuari and Salamat, in their pre-MNLF days, had held as a top priority the reform or elimination of datu leadership, the official ideology of the MNLF hardly addressed issues of internal social transformation. In official communiqués, contemporary datus were chided for slipping from the high standards of their heroic forefathers, but in the process their status as hereditary leaders was reaffirmed. The existence of aristocratic, autocratic leadership was retained, at least implicitly, as an intrinsic component of Moro political culture.

There were practical considerations in the hesitation to criticize the institution of datuship. First, the MNLF, especially in the early days, relied on the help of certain prominent traditional leaders and, even though relatively little assistance was forthcoming, could not afford to risk its loss through political condemnation. Second, strong criticism of traditional leadership might have alienated some ordinary Muslims, especially in areas, such as Lanao, where traditional datuship (in a form in which power was distributed much more diffusely than in Cotabato) was still very strong. Third, a call for the abolition of the datu system would have undercut the rebellion's symbolic claims to continuity with past anticolonial struggles and, moreover, would have sustained the critical opinions of Christians who advanced the view that the "datu system" was the single cause of Muslim underdevelopment.^[28]

In the war of representations, the MNLF faced a formidable foe in Ferdinand Marcos, a consummate manipulator of political symbols. With the assistance of certain collaborating datus, Marcos quickly moved to ensure that the central symbols of the Bangsamoro Rebellion were dislodged from the exclusive control of the MNLF and employed for the purpose of advancing the legitimacy of the martial law regime among Muslims.

President Marcos realized fairly early on that an exclusively repressive response to the rebellion in the South was far too costly financially and politically. By 1975 he had committed the bulk of his armed forces to counter the rebellion and had three-fourths of the Philippine Army deployed in the South. The annual budget of the Armed Forces of the Philippines had increased fivefold, to approximately $325 million, since martial law was declared (Ahmad 1982; Noble 1976). Military casualties were estimated to exceed one hundred per month in periods

of intense fighting. Most of the 1973 graduating class of the Philippine Military Academy was reportedly killed in the fighting (Noble 1976). There was a high level of dissension in the army and growing dissatisfaction with the military draft (Ahmad 1982; Noble 1976). Equally worrisome was the threatened suspension of oil deliveries to the Philippines from Arab oil producers should Philippine policy toward its Muslims not take a visibly more benevolent turn (Noble 1976).

Marcos quickly augmented the mailed fist with the outstretched hand of friendship to right-minded Muslims. He began a two-pronged campaign to convince Muslims in the Philippines and, more important, heads of Muslim states abroad, of his sincere desire to solve the "Moro problem." As one measure he began a highly publicized program of economic development for Muslim Mindanao. Plans included reconstruction projects to repair war damage, infrastructural improvements, relief and welfare projects, and the resettlement of refugees. The only projects actually implemented in Cotabato were airport, road, and harbor improvements—projects which, not incidentally, benefited the Philippine military more directly than ordinary Muslims (Noble 1976).

The second component of the government's public relations campaign was a concerted effort to symbolize its good intentions toward Muslims. A large mosque was built in the center of Manila, important Muslim holy days were officially recognized by the government, and President Marcos himself claimed Muslims as his ancestors (Majul 1985). With the assistance of cooperating Muslim scholars, 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. As part of the symbolic initiatives of the government, Moro culture heroes, originally resurrected by Muslim separatists, were incorporated into the national pantheon. Statues were erected, streets renamed, and national holidays declared by the government in honor of the apical ancestors of Moro nationalism.

In line with these iconic endeavors, collaborating datus and the martial law regime cooperated to enhance one another's claims to legitimacy among the Muslim population through the symbolic trappings of datuship. The frequency of investitures of traditional titles increased steadily throughout the martial law period. In 1974, at the height of the armed rebellion, the Christian military commander of Central Mindanao, Brigadier General Fortunato Abat, was "adopted as a son in the Sultanate of Maguindanao" by the collaborating datus

of Cotabato (Abat 1993, 98). The culmination of this series of proclamations was the 1977 investiture of President Ferdinand Marcos himself as Sultan Tinamuman (the Sultan Who Has Fulfilled the Prophecies) in a ceremony sponsored by the combined royal houses of Lanao.

Equivalent efforts were exerted by the government to delegitimize the MNLF and its leaders. From the outset of the insurgency the government labeled MNLF rebels as communists and "Maoist Muslims" (Imelda Marcos quoted in Schlegel 1978). Repeated efforts were made to associate Nur Misuari with the Communist Party of the Philippines in order to convince Muslims at home and abroad that he was a Marxist-Leninist disguised as a Muslim (Majul 1985). A related strategy promoted returned rebel commanders as legitimate spokesmen not only for Philippine Muslims in general but for the MNLF. These men, many of them from datu families, had surrendered to the government in exchange for incentives that included large cash payments, timber concessions or other special export licenses, and government positions. In July 1975, to counter MNLF advances on the diplomatic front, the government convened a highly publicized "peace talks" conference in Zamboanga. Two hundred or so "rebels," all of whom had already come to terms with the regime, were invited. The participants rejected Misuari as their leader and pledged loyalty to the government. A number of them were then ceremoniously sworn in as local officials or inducted into the regular army (Majul 1985).

In 1977, partly as a result of this skillful orchestration of political illusions, the martial law regime was able to gain and maintain the upper hand in the contest of international diplomacy. 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).

The Tripoli Agreement was initially 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 seemed an enormous diplomatic victory for the MNLF, for it implicitly recognized the MNLF as the official representative of Philippine Muslims and accorded it belligerent state status. Further, the terms of the agreement were 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 also benefited substantially from the signing of the Tripoli Agreement; it provided a much needed breathing spell from the economic drain of the war and eased the considerable diplomatic pressure for settlement coming from the Middle East. It is doubtful that President Marcos ever sincerely intended to implement the agreement as signed. The unilateral actions of the Marcos administration provoked angry responses from both the MNLF and the Islamic Conference (which still stopped short of imposing economic sanctions).

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. The MNLF 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, many of whom were datus and all of whom were absent from the province more often than not, usually in Manila pursuing separate careers or looking after business interests. 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.

Despite the tremendous political upheaval of the 1970s, the structure of Muslim politics in 1980 looked remarkably similar to that in 1968: formal political power in Muslim Cotabato (now politically circumscribed as Maguindanao Province) remained in the hands of those most closely tied to the powers that controlled the central state. Those datus

who had collaborated most energetically with the martial law regime had, for the most part, retained and in some cases enlarged their hold on Muslim politics in Cotabato. Appearances notwithstanding, Muslim politics in Cotabato, as well as political relations between the Philippine state and its Muslim minority, had been thoroughly transformed. A Muslim counterelite had emerged to condemn datu collaboration and defy state control. The separatist leaders had been outmaneuvered but not defeated in their war with the martial law government. The insurgents who supported them, though depleted by defections, remained under arms in considerable numbers in remote camps. Of equal significance, the actions of representatives of the Marcos regime before and during the war turned many ordinary Muslim civilians against the Philippine government and its datu collaborators and inclined them toward the separatists who claimed to be fighting on their behalf. The next chapter examines the Bangsamoro Rebellion from the perspective of its ordinary adherents. The chapter following chronicles the reemergence of a unified and reinvigorated Muslim counterelite to lead the unarmed struggle for Muslim autonomy and challenge directly the authority of datus to command Cotabato Muslims.