Introduction

The armed conflicts in the southern Philippines between the government and several separatist and insurgent groups for over forty years are some of the longest running in the world, as well as some of the most difficult to consequentially resolve (Majul 1973; Hashim 2001; Tan 2010). Whilst many peace treaties and agreements have been signed, a significant breakthrough occurred in 2012 with the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB), its follow-up Annexes, and ultimately, the groundbreaking Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) in 2014. The Bangsamoro “homeland of the Moro” would be a new, autonomous region in Mindanao that would replace the previous Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. The CAB was primarily based on the decade-long negotiation between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the compromise achieved by both sides after almost twenty years of negotiation that spanned numerous ups and downs. In their content and concept, the FAB and CAB finally marked milestones for many residents of Muslim Mindanao.

However, a few years later, in 2017, arguably the most lethal armed conflict of the last decade in Mindanao occurred: the onset of the Marawi siege. Months of violence between a local militant group inspired by the Islamic State and government security forces (International Alert 2017) destroyed a chunk of the only Islamic city in the Philippines. What the Marawi siege demonstrated was that the drafting of the FAB—and the subsequent birth of CAB—did not entirely prevent the emergence of an alternative to the negotiated idea of the Bangsamoro: a more violent and fierce manifestation of the Bangsamoro vanguard. What led to the 2017 Marawi conflict was an actual or perceived lack of confidence in the government on the ground, frustrations about local or regional grievances and the spread of Islamic State (IS)/Daesh allure over social media since 2014. These all contributed to increased mobilization and activity of Moro militant groups, some aligning themselves with the Marawi insurgency, even if only for rhetorical action.