Duterte’s Peace Legacy in Mindanao: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects

Summary

Rodrigo Duterte was the first president to have hailed from Mindanao. Along with federalism, making peace with Moro Muslim separatists in the conflict-ridden south was among his priorities. He pledged to uphold the 2014 peace deal and to grant greater autonomy to the Bangsamoro.

While the goal of federalism slowly faded and was eventually abandoned, he has delivered on his promise of bringing peace and prosperity to Mindanao despite some setbacks and persistent challenges. The Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), signed and passed in 2018, is regarded as Duterte's greatest legacy. This chapter examines the achievements of and challenges to Duterte's peace-building efforts in Mindanao and the prospects for sustainable peace after his presidency. The chapter is organized as follows: the first part provides a brief background of the Mindanao conflict and the events that led to the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM); the second and third sections examine the achievements of the BARMM during Duterte's tenure and the challenges to the established peace, respectively; and the final section discusses the developments under the new Marcos Jr. administration.

The Long Road to Peace

The Mindanao conflict was complex and multifaceted, involving ethno-religious, cultural, historical, political and ideological aspects. The often-cited cause of the conflict was the incompatible divide between the Muslims and the Christians, but the long-standing and unresolved socio-economic grievances of ethnic minority Moro Muslims, political repression and enduring patterns of inequality and injustice also contributed to its continuance. The origins of the Mindanao conflict date to as far back as the sixteenth century (when the native Muslims resisted Spanish colonialism), but most of the literature identifies the 1968 Jabidah Massacre as the spark that ignited the contemporary armed resistance. It triggered the reinvention of Moro identity and spurred the creation of the revolutionary Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in 1971, whose chief objective was to gain the independence of the Bangsamoro.

The conflict between the Philippine government and the Muslim insurgents intensified following the imposition of martial law by President Ferdinand Marcos in September 1972. The attempts by the government to disarm Muslim groups led to a full-fledged war between the Philippine military and the MNLF, resulting in an estimated 60,000 deaths and about 200,000 to 300,000 people displaced.