1. Outlaw activity commonly referred to as "banditry" was widespread in Cotabato and throughout the Muslim South in the 1950s. Much of it involved rather straightforward criminal activity, especially highway robbery and cattle rustling. Other incidents, however, have the appearance of social banditry and a few, including the famous "Kamlun Uprising" (Tan 1982, 68) of 1952 in Sulu, approached the level of genuine armed insurgency against the state. It was this latter episode of "banditry," along with a similar armed uprising in Kapatagan in Lanao, that prompted the formation of the Congressional Committee in 1954 (Tamano 1974). [BACK]

2. Congressman Alonto was the keynote speaker at the First National Muslim Convention sponsored by the Muslim Association of the Philippines in 1955. In that speech he echoed the language of his committee's report, declaring to the delegates: "Let us purge ourselves of our defects," and proclaiming: "We need a thorough spiritual rejuvenation . . . If we are good Muslims we are automatically good citizens . . ." (Muslim Association of the Philippines (1956, 31). [BACK]

3. The invasion, or infiltration, of Sabah apparently was to be made as part of the Philippine government's prosecution of its claim to Sabah. That claim was first announced by President Diosdado Macapagal in 1962 and was based on an 1878 transaction between the Sultan of Sulu and an Austrian businessman (Noble 1977). [BACK]

4. George (1980, 197) reports that Misuari was "one of the founding fathers" of the Kabataang Makabayan (Nationalist Youth), the largest and most active leftist student organization of the pre-martial-law period. The Kabataang Makabayan was organized in 1964 by Jose Maria Sison, who in 1968 founded the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines (CCP). Shortly thereafter, Sison organized the New People's Army and initiated a new armed communist insurgency against the Philippine state, one that eventually grew to be far more extensive and successful than the Huk Rebellion of the 1950s. A detailed account of the beginnings of this insurgency, including a description of radical student politics at the University of the Philippines in the 1960s, may be found in Chapman (1987). [BACK]

5. Another featured speaker at the 1955 Muslim Filipino Conference was an Egyptian emissary, Sheikh Hassanal Baguri. In his speech, Sheikh Baguri announced the commitment of the Egyptian government to underwrite the advanced Islamic training of numbers of Philippine Muslims: "Our dear Muslim Filipino brothers, we are here declaring in the name of our government that we are ready to send you teachers for your schools and that we are even ready to establish an Islamic institution in the City of Manila for Islamic studies. We are ready to accept your sons and daughters to study in our universities and to give them all the facilities in our hands" (Muslim Association of the Philippines 1956, 40). [BACK]

6. For an absorbing account of Islamic education and politics in Cairo in the mid-1960s see Gilsenan (1982). [BACK]

7. The Muslim separatist movement was, to a significant degree, ignited by the aspirations engendered by both secular and Islamic higher education. The coalescence (at least for a time—see below) of Middle East- and Manilaeducated activists in the MNLF leadership represents a distinctive variant of a pan-Islamic development recently analyzed by Dale Eickelman (1992): the relationship between mass higher education, political and religious activism, and transformations of religious authority. [BACK]

8. The Ampatuans were descendants of Datu Ampatuan, a datu of the early colonial era who, like datus Ayunan and Balabaran had few blood ties to the precolonial high nobility of Cotabato. Datu Ampatuan, however, claimed Arab descent through his great-grandfather. He was a lieutenant of the anti-American Datu Ali but later allied with the pro-American Datu Piang. He succeeded to Datu Piang's seat on the Cotabato Provincial Board in 1917 (Beckett 1977, 1982).

The English term "clan" is widely used in the Philippines to refer to kinbased political factions, especially those with pronounced dynastic tendencies (see, e.g., Francia 1988). Its use in Cotabato has exactly the same meaning and is not intended to describe any actually existing corporate descent groups. [BACK]

9. The Mindanao Cross reported on April 29, 1967, an announcement by Congressman Pendatun that he was running as the Liberalista candidate for governor because Datu Udtug was in "failing health." [BACK]

10. By mid-1970, Datu Udtug had changed the name of the Muslim Independence Movement to the "Mindanao Independence Movement" in order to include Christians. Prior to this he had already modified his stand to one in favor of regional autonomy in a federal-state framework (see George 1980). [BACK]

11. In an August 17, 1968, interview with the Mindanao Cross , Datu Udtug expressed puzzlement at the "war talk" creating anxiety in Christian settlers in North Cotabato and "causing many families to sell their property." [BACK]

12. In 1966, after years of maneuvering, Datu Udtug succeeded in having the capital of the province moved to Pagalungan, his home territory, only to have it returned again to Cotabato City by Governor Datumanong immediately after his assumption of office. [BACK]

13. Some writers (see, e.g., Gowing 1979; Majul 1985; Mercado 1984), in seeking a direct causal connection in the flow of events between 1968 and 1970, have suggested that the manifestos and activities of the Mindanao Independence Movement were principal precipitating factors for the wave of intense communal violence in Cotabato that began in 1970. There is little evidence for that proposal, however, and although the formation of the MIM may have marginally intensified Muslim-Christian tensions in the province, it was probably only a minor contributing factor. It is more productive, I believe, to view both the sectarian conflict and the formation of the MIM as effects of more fundamental political and economic pressures in the province. [BACK]

14. "Ilonggo" is a term commonly used to refer to speakers of Hiligaynon (also called Ilonggo). Hiligaynon speakers originate from the provinces of Iloilo and Negros Occidental (on the islands of Panay and Negros) in the central Visaya region of the Philippines. In 1970, Ilonggos made up about 10 percent of the Philippine population. Ilonggos also composed a significant percentage of postwar migrants to Cotabato. [BACK]

15. For a rare firsthand account of the sectarian conflict in the Cotabato Valley, especially as it occurred in and around Midsayap, see Stewart (1977, 254-61). [BACK]

16. The Ilonggo politicians who, in these speculations, were supposed to have invented and supported the Ilaga were, in fact, themselves divided by separate political parties, aspirations, and interests. Not all were Nacionalistas, and those who were supported two different Ilonggo Nacionalista candidates for governor (see below). Also difficult to explain when considering these hypotheses is what sitting Ilonggo mayors, most of them ruling municipalities with large Christian majorities, would have to gain by initiating Ilaga terror within their areas of influence. [BACK]

17. The experience of Doroy Palencia, a Christian Liberalista politician and longtime confederate of Datu Udtug, in the 1971 election is instructive. Palencia had been elected to serve on the three-person provincial board for every one of Datu Udtug's terms as governor and also under Simeon Datumanong. He stated in 1986 that he had been "strong" among Muslims during elections and that Christians also supported him. He failed in his bid for the first time in 1971, because, as he put it, the sectarian violence had caused both Muslims and Christians to mistrust him. [BACK]

18. Although sectarian conflict did occur during this period in neighboring Lanao, and to the west across Ilana Bay in Zamboanga del Sur, by far the greatest number of violent incidents occurred in Cotabato. [BACK]

19. Premier Kadaffi announced in 1972 that he would send "money, arms, and volunteers" to aid Muslims in the Philippines (quoted in Schlegel 1978, 48). There is also evidence from informants and elsewhere to suggest that

Kadaffi was already providing arms to Lucman, and through him to MIM, well before this announcement (Noble 1976). [BACK]

20. Datu Udtug had, in fact, run for governor in the 1971 race as an independent Nacionalista candidate. [BACK]

21. The Marawi uprising was, by most accounts, spontaneous and idiosyncratic. It reportedly took by surprise the MNLF leadership in Lanao Province, some of whom held high positions in the Marawi City government (see Mercado 1984; George 1980). [BACK]

22. The Bangsa Moro Army has probably never had as many arms as men. A rebel commander informant noted in an interview that in his first armed encounter with the military, one hundred rebels shared seventy guns, some of them homemade. [BACK]

23. An August 11, 1973, story in the Mindanao Cross reported 924 Muslim "surrenderees" from Tran, noting in passing that all of these were women, children, and elderly men. [BACK]

24. In late 1973, what remained of the original province of Cotabato after the splitting off of South Cotabato in 1966 was subdivided by presidential decree into the three provinces of North Cotabato, Maguindanao, and Sultan Kudarat. The division coincided with the division of votes in the 1971 local elections. North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat Provinces were 80 to 90 percent Christian and Maguindanao Province was 85 percent Muslim. All of the mayors in Maguindanao were Muslim, and virtually all in Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato were Christian. The unusual shape of Maguindanao Province was the result of including pockets of Muslim population in areas such as Buldun, Buluan, and Pagalungan; and excluding the Christian communities of Pigcawayan, Pikit, and Esperanza (see map 3). [BACK]

25. Iranun narrators are fond of pointing out that Iranun fighters are the only Muslim rebels who never surrendered to the Philippine government. While this exaggerates the facts, it is the case that Iranun commanders and their men were very disproportionately represented among those rebels who remained under arms as late as 1985. It may also be noted, in regard to Iranun armed involvement in the insurgency, that the mostly Iranun municipality of Subpangan on the coast north of Cotabato City was the site of some of the very first as well as the last armed engagements of the rebellion. Iranun commitment to the rebellion is, I believe, related both to their recent past as cigarette smugglers and to their long history of resistance to external domination (McKenna 1994). [BACK]

26. The composite term "Bangsa Moro" has sometimes appeared in MNLF literature as one word and at other times as two. Current spokespersons for the Moro Liberation Front in Cotabato have stated a preference for "Bangsamoro" because of its emphasis on "bangsa," which they translate as ''nation." [BACK]

27. A policy statement from the first issue of Maharlika , an MNLF newsletter, clearly illustrates the national, rather than specifically ethnic or religious, character of the MNLF appeal:

From this very moment there shall be no stressing the fact that one is a Tausug, a Samal, a Yakan, a Subanon, a Kalagan, a Maguindanao, a

Maranao, or a Badjao. He is only a Moro. Indeed, even those of other faith [ sic ] who have long established residence in the Bangsa Moro homeland and whose good-will and sympathy are with the Bangsa Moro Revolution shall, for purposes of national identification, be considered Moros. In other words, the term Moro is a national concept that must be understood as all embracing for all Bangsa Moro people within the length and breadth of our national boundaries. (Quoted in Noble 1976, 418)

28. In a 1975 lecture delivered at the National Defense College, Brigadier General Fortunato U. Abat, then commander of the Central Mindanao Command of the Philippine Armed Forces, expressed the widely held Christian viewpoint on the "datu system":

[T]here are irreconcilable features in the cultures of the Muslims and Christians. On the one hand, we have the Muslims and the Islamic religion, the datu system serving as their government, the lack of education and different customs and practices. While they arouse pity, they usually do not command the respect of the socially superior Christians . . .