2018 Volume 82 Issue 4 Pages 488-508
In the southern Philippines, armed conflict has been waged between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Moro separatist groups for more than forty-five years. Having been economically deprived and politically marginalized, the Moro National Liberation Front （MNLF) was formed mainly by the discontented Moro （mainly composed of Muslims) around 1970. In 1984 （also substantially in the late 1970’s), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front （MILF), a splinter group from the MNLF, was organized. Both Moro separatist groups have been separately engaged in an armed struggle and peace negotiations with the Philippine Government to attain the right to self-determination via the establishment of an autonomous government.
As both the MNLF and MILF are mainly composed of the Moro, the armed conflict tends to be portrayed as one between the Moro and the Philippines Government. However, there are additionally non-Moro indigenous peoples （collectively known as the Lumad) in the same region who themselves have also been marginalized in the process of state formation. Those peoples have been engaged in their own political struggle to gain rights by forming a nationwide alliance with other indigenous peoples, leading to the enactment of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act （IPRA) in 1997. In other words, both the Moro and non-Moro indigenous peoples have been engaged in separate vertical struggles with the Philippine Government.
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