Philippines: Bangsamoro, A Triumph of Western Diplomacy?

The return of American geopolitical realism in foreign and defense policies finds echoes in Bill and Dayuhan's views. The appointment of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel as U.S. Secretary of Defense will probably emphasize a more nuanced and circumspect approach in the use of US military power, which has been demonstrated anyway in the Obama administration's limited military responses in Libya and Syria. It is remarkable that most of Obama's foreign policy initiatives were not opposed by Mitt Romney in the presidential debates. However, in the case of the South China Sea, even Japan's new prime minister Shinzo Abe recently called the South China Sea as "Lake Beijing". This more nuanced US foreign and defense policies mean that the Bangsamoro region is a "geopolitical card" for the U.S. in its "vacuum war" with China and in the overall "rebalance" to Asia (Robert Kaplan calls this as defining China's maritime sphere of influence in Asia). The Bangsamoro region is a key region in order to have leverage over the Muslim maritime states of Indonesia and Malaysia and of course the Philippines vis-a-vis China. Below are two articles that I wrote sometime ago that demonstrate how the economic power of China can be put in play in countries that are its neighbors, for example, the State Grid Corporation of China buying the monopoly electricity grid operation of the Philippines with all that it implies in terms of national security (See "China grabs ‘power’ in the Philippines, while the U.S. preoccupied"). The other article "Philippines: U.S. triangulating the Aquino Presidency and the “wedge issue” of Moro separatism in Maritime Southeast Asia" shows the geopolitical games involving Bangsamoro among Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, US, China and Islamic countries. Dayuhan wanted these geopolitical issues to be highlighted more.

Philippines: U.S. triangulating the Aquino Presidency and the “wedge issue” of Moro separatism in Maritime Southeast Asia

By Ishak Mastura

July 19, 2010

Newly-elected Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, more popularly known as “Noynoy”, took the reigns of power at noon of June 30, 2010 in Manila. The son of two Philippine democracy icons, Aquino, 50, succeeds Gloria Macapagal Arroyo whose stormy nine-year rule was rocked by four failed coup attempts and allegations of corruption, vote-rigging and human rights abuses, including the worst spate of killings of journalists in recent years in a so-called “democracy” punctuated by the infamous “Maguindanao Massacre” of November 23, 2009, wherein a group of 32 journalists was waylaid in a roadside ambush and killed as a result of a local political rivalry in the restive ethnic Moro[1] province of Maguindanao in the Philippines’ troubled south.

Some 500,000 attended Aquino's oath-taking at a seaside park in the capital Manila. Aquino aimed his speech at the many Filipinos exasperated at the Southeast Asian country's enduring problems that also include decades-long Moro separatist and Maoist insurgencies. While the Philippines has remarkably weathered the global financial crisis, Aquino has also expressed alarm at the ballooning national budget deficit, which he said could surpass $8.7 billion (400 billion pesos) this year.

In many elite circles of Manila and the Philippine oligarchy, Aquino was viewed as the favored candidate of the Philippines’ former colonial master, the United States, to win the presidency. According to Manila’s coffee-shop talk and political pundits, that the Americans favored Aquino over the other candidates was indicated by the fact that shortly before the elections on May 10, 2010, TIME magazine came out with Aquino on its cover and wrote a glowing article about him, while other candidates for the presidency noticeably did not get as much press in the foreign journals and news outfits dominated by the U.S.-led Western media.

Despite the Aquino family suffering from political persecution under the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whom some analysts say the Americans coddled and tolerated in the interest of the struggle against Communism in Southeast Asia as had happened in other far-flung corners of the Cold War, Noynoy’s father, the late martyred Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr. was considered as America’s fair-haired boy due to his close ties to the U.S. intelligence community, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In one account, the participation of the Philippines in the secret American subversion of Indonesia in 1957-1958 (through American covert support of an uprising by rebel colonels against Sukarno), especially in the Christian enclave of Sulawesi, which made it a potential trigger for a separatist-religious conflict, was led by Ninoy Aquino.[2] Not only was he the conduit for the funds coming from then Philippine President Carlos Garcia, Ninoy Aquino even opened up a training camp for the Indonesian rebels in his home province of Tarlac. The account also cited Ninoy Aquino as the person responsible for transport and trade of arms from Taiwan to Sulawesi in Indonesia.

More recently, during the Anwar Ibrahim affair in Malaysia during the late 1990s, the Aquino family especially former president Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, mother of the current president, and her Cojuangco siblings dabbled in regional politics by capitalizing on her status as a “democracy icon” in Asia to show support to Anwar Ibrahim and his reformist groups’ plight under Prime Minister Mahathir’s regime. There were rumors that Corazon Aquino’s brother Jose “Peping” Cojuangco even gave tips to Anwar Ibrahim’s supporters about civil disobedience strategies and tactics based on the experience of the so-called “Yellow force” during the 1986 people power’s revolt that toppled Marcos and catapulted Corazon Aquino to the presidency. The wave of Color revolutions that the U.S. instigated in the post-Soviet space was patterned after the “Yellow revolution” of Corazon Aquino.

Given the history of the U.S. with the Aquinos, will the advent of a pro-American Aquino presidency signal a more active geopolitical Great Game in Maritime Southeast Asia with the Moro Question as the “wedge issue”?

The Aquino family is viewed as somewhat sympathetic to the Moros and their aspirations because Ninoy Aquino as Senator was responsible for exposing to the nation the so-called “Jabidah massacre” wherein in 1968 Moro recruits were massacred by their Philippine military trainers when they aborted Marcos’ plan to invade Sabah, Malaysia. The event signaled the rise of the Moro separatist rebellion and directly led to the formation of the first Moro revolutionary group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), whose vanguard role is now taken by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

But in the case of President Noynoy Aquino, there are strong elements in his Liberal Party, particularly his defeated running mate and chairman of the Liberal Party, Manuel “Mar” Roxas and Liberal Party Senator Franklin Drilon, who are perceived to be ardent Filipino “pseudo-nationalists” since they opposed in court the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (that was negotiated and initialed by the Arroyo administration peace panel with the MILF), which eventually led to the Supreme Court prohibiting its signing. Roxas is the grandson of Manuel Roxas, the first Philippine president under an independent Philippine Republic, who was handpicked by the Americans to lead the country just before they gave the Philippines its independence on July 4, 1946. However, such “pseudo-nationalists”, despite of or in spite of their history and identification with the U.S., can be very prickly about being viewed as American proxies such that for the May 2010 elections Mar Roxas even adopted a strident campaign slogan “Bayan Muna, Bago Sarili” (Country First, Before Self), which he has continued to espouse as a pseudo-political “cause”.

Wary of any potential resentments and even blowback from such Filipino “pseudo-nationalists”, the U.S. and its allies can rely on the Moro Question as an “insurance policy” and “wedge issue” much as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said of the British Raj, that he hoped that the tension between Hindus and Muslims would remain "a bulwark of British rule in India." According to one commentator:

“Religion has long played a role in the West's relationship to the rest of the world, but more as a way to divide populations than convert them. Ireland and India are cases in point. England invaded Ireland in 1170, but for the first 439 years it was a conquest in name only. In 1609, however, James I founded the Plantation of Ulster, imported 20,000 Protestant settlers, and introduced religious strife as a political tactic. By favoring Protestants over the native Catholics in politics and economics-the so-called "Ulster Privilege – the English pitted both groups against one another. The tactic was enormously successful, and England used it throughout its colonial empire. Nowhere were the British so successful in transplanting the Irish model than in India. But in India's case it was unnecessary to import a foreign religion. The colonial authorities had India's Muslim and Sikh minorities to use as their wedge. As the historian Alex von Tunzelmann argues in "Indian Summer," it was the British who defined India's communities on the basis of religion: "Many Indians stopped accepting the diversity of their own thoughts and began to ask themselves in which of the boxes they belonged."[3]

In this geopolitical web and intricate game of “nations and peoples” as well as of “ethnicities and religions”, the other Maritime Southeast Asian states are well and truly caught. This is because the Muslim-majority countries in Maritime Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, at one time or another have been involved in the search for the political settlement of the Moro Question. The Moro Question refers to the ethnic and sovereignty-based conflict in southern Philippines regarding the claim for emancipation of the Muslim Moro.

In 1996, Indonesia under the auspices of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) was the principal country to broker the failed Peace Agreement between the Philippine government and the MNLF. However, as one enterprising researcher found out the real reason for Jakarta’s role in helping settle the Moro problem was not necessarily the former Suharto regime’s love for fellow Muslims in the Philippine south but the business expansion of the Jakarta oligarchy pioneered by Suharto’s closest and oldest business partner, Lim Sioe Liong, through the Salim group.[4] The Salim group is a major investor in the dominant telecommunications company in the country, and is involved in real estate deals in the Philippines as well.

Accordingly, Jakarta oligarchic business interests mainly wanted peace in southern Philippines to enable their business operations to expand in Mindanao without taking into consideration (or paying only lip service to) ‘Bangsa Moro’ (Moro Nation) interests, and to extort concessions and business franchises from the Manila government as a reward for mediating the Mindanao Conflict. True enough, after the 1996 peace agreement, the sister of Suharto, Sitti Hardiyanti Rukmana or Tutut obtained a build-operate-transfer mega-project to construct the 45-km Skyway Road Project in Manila through her Citra Consortium. Later on, this Suharto interest in the Skyway Road Project was sold off to a Malaysian conglomerate as Suharto fell from power.

In 1997 the Asian Financial Crisis happened and Indonesia imploded with the collapse of the Suharto regime. Indonesia became very busy with its own internal affairs and as such, the implementation of the peace agreement with the MNLF was neglected and the MNLF likewise suffered its own implosion because its erstwhile leader, Nur Misuari, was ousted from his leadership post and an executive council replaced him effectively splitting the MNLF into Misuari loyalists and those with the executive council. The MNLF lost any leverage it had with the Philippine government because its fighting forces were integrated into the Philippine military so that it no longer had any fighting forces on the ground and had been substantially defanged, except for Misuari’s small praetorian guard composed of his own ethnic Tausug tribal members based in the island of Sulu, which the military has hounded ever since.[5]

Invariably, Indonesia has sought to regain its lost influence in Mindanao with the Moros by using the current tripartite talks among the Philippine government, the OIC and the MNLF to review the implementation of the 1996 peace deal with the MNLF since the committee in the OIC that is handling the review is chaired by Indonesia. Admittedly, the MNLF is no longer a useful tool for the Indonesians to assert its regional hegemony of Muslim initiatives over Malaysia and Brunei, both of which are involved in the peace talks of the 12,000-strong MILF with the Philippine government. Moro sentiments on the ground are that Indonesia is an unreliable partner for the Moro cause and that Indonesia is a “sellout”. Indonesia according to one of their officials who was involved in the peace negotiations thought that their job was just to get the parties to sign a peace agreement but it was up to the parties to implement it. Indonesia suffering from its own ethnic separatist causes in Aceh and West Papua cannot espouse solidarity with the Moros for fear of being inconsistent with their defense of colonial borders.

Beginning in the last quarter of last year, Indonesia has regained some of its lost prestige with Moro revolutionaries now dominated by the MILF, when Muhammadiyah, the second largest moderate Islamist social movement in Indonesia with 30 million members, joined the International Contact Group, composed of Britain, Japan and Turkey and other international non-governmental organizations, that was formed for the Philippine government’s peace talks with the MILF in November last year. This year the Indonesian embassy in Manila sent a delegation to dialogue with the MILF leadership in the south about the possibility of Indonesia participating in the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team now composed of OIC countries, such as Brunei and Libya joined by Japan, the European Union and Norway, which body is monitoring the ceasefire and developments on the ground between the warring forces of the Philippine military and the MILF.

In contrast to the poor reception of the Indonesians with the Moros, Malaysia has reaped dividends ever since it provided a rear base of operations for the first large-scale Moro insurgent group, the MNLF during its beginnings and during the Mindanao war of the 70s. In fact, the MNLF’s successor, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces are led by militarily proficient but aging officers trained by ex-British Special Forces in Sabah, Malaysia in the 60s.[6] Moreover, according to Professor Julkipli Wadi of the University of the Philippines:

“Central in the Mindanao issue at that time was the configuration of the Moro struggle from previously ethnic and collaborative strands in the early 1900s into revolutionary and nationalist lines in 1960s onward. The rosary of Muslim movements that sprouted since then advanced the secessionist card against the Philippine government that ironically served the interests of Malaysia. The latter was not only saved from the venom of Tausug militants, but it also transferred the Moro threat to the Philippines. Indeed, Malaysians coddled the MNLF. However, Malaysia’s help was highly calculated enough only to aid distressed brothers in times of need and not an all-out resolution of what they desire. Malaysia knows fully well the implication of an independent Bangsamoro Republik. It would not only mean a re-opening of the Sabah claim. It would be a floodgate for Moro’s resurgence in the historic “Sulu zone” (Sipadan island included), a “sub-regional” area they once controlled. Moreover, Malaysia and the Philippines with geo-political schism used the Mindanao conflict in pursuit of their respective interest: the first as buffer politics by Malaysia against the Philippines in constricting the Moro rebellion in order to mute the Sabah claim; the second as source of legitimacy for whimsical national policy like the Declaration of Martial law in 1972.”[7]

Currently, Malaysia enjoys the upper hand over Indonesia in the regional game of hegemony in maritime Southeast Asia over the Moro population, the only distinct population and constituency in the maritime region capable of playing a role in the “balkanization” of the Southeast Asian archipelagos, since they have an armed population with a warring and raiding culture suffused by what the Americans call “a history of violence” wherein individual families and clans have access to high-powered firearms and other ordnance normally reserved for armies or SWAT Police units. Since 2001, Malaysia has acted as the facilitator of the peace talks between the MILF and the Philippine government. The role of Malaysia as facilitator has been largely effective and it deployed in 2003 a Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team to monitor the ceasefire between the MILF and the Philippine military. Malaysia enjoys the good will of the Moros because the International Monitoring Team is viewed as a check on the Philippine military’s abuses and depredations on the Moro population and in fact, the International Monitoring Team’s coverage has been expanded to include the Sulu Archipelago, traditionally the MNLF’s stomping grounds but increasingly under the sway of the MILF.

Contrast the Malaysians’ savvy diplomacy to the strategic ineptness of the Indonesians, who failed to capitalize on the deployments of Indonesian military personnel under the Joint Monitoring Commission for the 1996 peace agreement of the MNLF. Now, despite the clamor of the MNLF, the Indonesians and the OIC no longer have any mandate to deploy their own international monitors because Indonesia itself in the OIC has been saying that the 1996 peace agreement has been effectively implemented by the Philippine government except for the socio-economic provisions which requires massive development funds from the OIC. The Philippine government has also delegitimized and discredited the MNLF that still have arms and who are still fighting the Philippine military in the small island of Sulu, who are labeled as Misuari Breakaway Group or are lumped together with the Abu Sayyaf.

In the manner of a multi-level geopolitical chess game, the rivalries in Maritime Southeast Asia of the Malaysians, Indonesians and the Filipinos with the Moro Question as the fulcrum or lever are taking place at the same time that the U.S. and China are vying for supremacy in Maritime Southeast Asia with the Moro Question also serving as a useful “geopolitical card”.

Since 2001, within the current context of the "war on terror", Fourth World independence movements have continued a phase marked by the disintegration of multi-national post-colonial states like the Philippines and Indonesia, and conflicts are now intensifying in significant locations – places of strategic importance for Great Power relationships such as in Mindanao with the ‘Bangsa Moro’.[8] And just as previous contextual chapters (like the Cold War) have confused the understanding of decolonization, so too the "war on terror" now overlaps with and obscures the fundamental nature of indigenous liberation movements, while simultaneously obscuring Great Power dynamics. Under the "war on terror" cover, the stage is set for Great Power conflict in many Fourth World theaters and also for a tsunami of sovereignty movements, possibly beginning with the Moros in Mindanao with regard to the emerging U.S.- China rivalry in East Asia.

In the U.S.-China rivalry in East Asia, particularly in the South China Sea, the Moros play the role of the "Joker" card. Traditionally, the use by the U.S. of the Fourth World is manifest outwardly in a foreign policy that is equally ambiguous in its recognition of indigenous nations within other states. Hence, the "Joker" card represents this ambiguity since the "Joker" has meaning and value assigned by the one who holds and plays it. Sometimes indigenous nations in other countries are useful to U.S. interests, and at other times, not. Usually, the U.S. stands by the principle of territorial integrity, which is a universal right of all states, codified in international law so that the exceptions to the rule are therefore most interesting, but such exceptions often are conducted in covert “special operations” of the CIA (or the U.S. military's Special Operations Command such as in Afghanistan and possibly in Mindanao), or outsourced to unofficial foreign policy agents, greatly increasing the challenge of perception from without.

In the case of the Moro liberation struggle, it is a Fourth World conflict that has its roots in ages past, most especially since Philippine independence from the United States at the end of World War II. The Philippine state has always been a largely Western project, and its control of largely-Muslim Mindanao and other southern islands has been the source of conflict since long before al-Qaeda’s existence. While there is attempt among security analysts to link the Moro struggle with al-Qaeda and the “war on terrorism”, it must be understood broadly as a Great Power theater focused on shipping lanes through and near the South China Sea, which in this case, the local theater of the Sulu archipelago, involves movement through the Sea Lines of Communication between the Sulu and Sulawesi seas. The U.S. was evicted from former bases in the Philippines (Clark Air Force Base, and the Subic Bay Naval Base), but now has returned to a highly strategic position that constrains Chinese movement in the region.

The U.S. is not alone in recognizing the potential of the Moros and their quest for a “Bangsamoro” homeland as a fulcrum or leverage and “geopolitical card” in Maritime Southeast Asia, which has the added advantage that it ultimately impacts the rich Northeast Asian countries of China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan with an issue that has significant resonance in the Islamic world not only in Southeast Asia but even in its heartlands of the Middle East. No wonder that the trans-Atlantic security partners of the U.S. have joined in this post-colonial struggle for the crucial maritime geopolitical spaces of East Asia. This is manifest in the presence of major North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) powers, Britain and Turkey including Japan, the principal treaty ally of the United States in the Far East, in the International Contact Group formed late last year for the peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF. Another indication of the importance of the Moro Question to the U.S. and its trans-Atlantic partners is the fact that last month the European Union together with founding NATO member country Norway joined the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team.

As a "Joker" card, the U.S. and its trans-Atlantic allies probably have yet to fully utilize the Moros shrouded in ambiguity as their policy is in its support to the peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF while supporting the Philippines militarily in its insurgency campaign against Moro militants of the Abu Sayyaf.

However, as reinforced by recent trends, the Philippines may yet find, as other countries seem to increasingly do in Asia, that its interests lie more with China instead of the U.S. by sheer logic of geography and due to the economic gravity of China's rise. Otherwise, it may find that it has nothing to gain by being caught on one side in the crossfire between the two, much less by being the target of Chinese retaliatory attacks on U.S. military facilities in the Philippines in case of conflict, and the Philippines may yet conclude that it has no interest in being at the receiving end of China’s missiles. Then if that day comes the utility of the Moros as a Fourth World "Joker" will probably come into play for the U.S. The U.S., much like what imperial Britain found out during their age of decline, would have need of such a "Joker" card since hegemonic decline has set-in for the U.S. and the "end of the Vasco Da Gama era" has been heralded.[9]

As it is, the rise of the U.S. to global pre-eminence which began in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, wherein the Philippines in the same year became a U.S. colony as a prize in that war, prefigured the end of the independence and autonomy of the Moro sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao with the signing of the Kiram-Bates treaty establishing a protectorate for the Sulu sultanate a year later. It is ironic that more or less 100 years later in the 21st century that the return of the U.S. military to Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago prefigures the ebb-tide of U.S. hegemonic power in Asia. The promise of a U.S. protectorate for the Moros under the 1899 Kiram-Bates Treaty was implemented only for a while, as the U.S. sought temporary tactical advantage while fighting the Filipino-American war; although a successor semi-independent Moro Province in Mindanao was established by the U.S. for a time after consolidating the Moro polity. Now, in the echoes of the U.S. presence in Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago in an age of "war on terror" against jihadists, there may be some advantage in recreating a sub-state for the Moros within a loose Philippine federation that will act as an interlocutor between the Islamic world and the West. Ultimately in terms of realpolitik, what the U.S. and NATO gain is a friendly base of operations vis-a-vis China in a "Bangsamoro sub-state" similar to U.S. and NATO basing strategy in Iraqi Kurdistan and Kosovo, both of which are semi-independent and autonomous.

The U.S. and its trans-Atlantic partners should avoid the strategic blunder of India when it lost its leverage in Sri Lanka through the total defeat of the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam. Brahma Chellaney writing for Forbes magazine observed that China, clearly, was the decisive factor in ending the Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka through its generous supply of weapons and its munificent aid.[10] Having been outmaneuvered by China's success in extending strategic reach to Sri Lanka in recent years, New Delhi got sucked into providing major assistance to Colombo, lest it lose further ground in Sri Lanka. But India stands more marginalized than ever in Sri Lanka. Its natural constituency – the Tamils – feels not only betrayed, but also looks at India as a colluder in the bloodbath. India's waning leverage over Sri Lanka is manifest from the way it now has to jostle for influence there with arch-rivals China and Pakistan. Just like the Palestinian cause, the Moro cause is critical for the public or constituency that the U.S. and its trans-Atlantic partners seek to influence, i.e. the Islamic world, since the Moro cause together with Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya, Afghanistan (and possibly Patani in southern Thailand) are the weather-vanes of Western engagement with the wider Islamic world. It is not coincidental that the OIC has taken up the Moro Question year-in and year-out in its agenda together with the issue of Palestine, especially since the Moro cause arose at around the same time that the OIC was organized in the wake of the Palestinian troubles.

Lastly, aside from addressing aspects of its China strategy, its convergence in the parallel U.S. strategic mission of confronting Islamic militants makes Mindanao ideal since it has been said that "the most intractable and urgent tasks facing the society of states in the early 21st century arise from the need, and great difficulties, of repairing the damage inflicted on the relationship between the Islamic world and the rest of the society of states during the 20th century."[11] By contrast, in the 19th century (i.e. the Concert of Powers period) the relationship was somewhat less fraught with rage and resentment on either side. There were many reasons for this, but one was that Islamic power was then embodied in a sovereign state — the old Ottoman Empire. The history of the 19th century or the Concert of Powers period induces consciousness of the advantages of having even a potential adversary embodied in a sovereign state. A sovereign state has a lot more to lose since it has much that can be held at risk by its potential adversaries: its cities; its economic interests; its infrastructure; and the lives of its citizens. The whole concept of deterrence rests on that fact. In contrast, the jihadists, as ‘non-state actors’, have no such interests to be held at risk, not even the members’ lives, since they hold, as an item of faith, that death in the cause is martyrdom.

A potential interlocutor in the ‘Bangsa Moro’ embodied in a "Bangsamoro sub-state", with whom some terms of co-existence could be discussed with jihadists, may just be what is needed to begin “repairing the damage inflicted on the relationship between the Islamic world and the rest of the society of states during the 20th century”. After all, the Moros have always viewed their struggle as the longest ‘jihad’ in the world against the Muslims’ perceived colonizers and oppressors in the West and its allies starting from the arrival of the Spaniards in the Philippine islands in 1521 fresh from their 'Reconquista' of Spain from the Moors, or Moros in Spanish, which is why the Muslims in Mindanao ended up being called Moros by the Spanish in the first place.

As a postscript, President Aquino just recently named his chief negotiator for the peace talks with the MILF but he remains coy as to the third-country facilitator. The MILF has indicated that they are satisfied with almost 10 years of Malaysian facilitation and that changing facilitators would just derail the peace talks. In those 10 years Malaysia has emerged as the U.S. and its allies’ ace in the Mindanao peace process since it is playing a role similar to Jordan in the Middle East peace process. For now, the urgent task for the U.S. and its trans-Atlantic partners is to restart the peace talks soon before the one-year mandate of the International Monitoring Team ends in November. (END)

[1] The Moros are predominantly Muslim indigenous or aboriginal peoples with a history of struggles for self-determination and who are engaged in a sovereignty-based claim for a Bangsamoro homeland in Mindanao waged principally through a decades-long armed-struggle starting in the early 1970s, which is currently being led by the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

[2] Kahin, A. and Kahin, G., Subversion as Foreign Policy — The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia, University of Washington Press, 1995.

[3] Hallinan, C. “Religion and Foreign Policy”, Counterpunch at http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan10022007.html, October 2, 2007.

[4] Aditjondro, G., “Muslim Brotherhood, Or Pure Business Interests? The ASEAN-isation of the Suharto Family Business Interests in the Philippines “ internet article which can be accessed at the following website – http://focusweb.org/publications/1997/Struggle%20fro%20democratic%20rig…

[5] Criminal cases have been filed and arrest warrants issued against MNLF commanders loyal to Nur Misuari in Sulu, such as Khaid Ajibun and Habier Malik, who have been implicated in the explosion of an improvised explosive device that killed 2 U.S. soldiers in September of 2009.
[6] Tan, A. “Southeast Asia as the Second Front in the War Against Terrorism: Evaluating the Threat and Responses”, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 15, No. 2 Summer 2003.

[7] Wadi, J., “Southeast Asia Regional Security and Mindanao Conflict”, edited by Kreuzer, P and Werning, R., Voices from Moro Land, Perspectives from Stakeholders and Observers on the Conflict in the Southern Philippines, Malaysia, 2007.

[8] Sills, M., “The GWOT and the Joker: Fourth World War in 2006”, Fourth World Journal, Vol. 7 No. 1, 2006. The Fourth World is the constellation of indigenous peoples and nations in conflict with states. It was first conceptualized during the 1970s – at a time when the wars of First World decolonization were widely perceived to be in their last chapters. The Fourth World concept has its roots in a revolutionary tradition that dates back at least to the 1770s, but its phase in the 1970s had begun in 1945 – at the end of World War II and the subsequent independence of new states in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania and the Caribbean, states which largely became constituent members of the so-called Third World. Fourth Worldists of the 1970s argued that, while the phase of decolonization might have been in transition, the momentum had by no means been spent, and that there remained many chapters of liberation struggles yet to be written.

[9] The “end of the Vasco Da Gama era” has been coined by Cora Bell meaning the rise of an Asian century with China and India as its twin drivers may soon bring to a close sole Western-domination of the world begun by Vasco Da Gama's epic voyage to Asia.

[10] Chellaney, B. “How India lost out in Sri Lanka, Behind the Sri Lankan bloodbath, Forbes, October 9, 2009.

[11] Bell, C., The End of the Vasco Da Gama Era, the Next Landscape of World Politics, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney, 2007.

China grabs ‘power’ in the Philippines, while the U.S. preoccupied

By Ishak Mastura

April 15, 2010

Not many foreign observers noticed but on March 17 this year, it was reported in the Philippine media that one of the country’s richest men, billionaire ethnic Chinese tycoon Henry Sy, Jr. through his One Taipan Holdings acquired 30% of National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) from Monte Oro Grid, a unit of the Ricky Razon group. Henry Sy is known as the owner of the country’s biggest chain of shopping malls, Shoemart, and he has likewise built massive shopping malls in China on the strength of his excellent relations with Chinese officials. The biggest holding in the NGCP is the 40% equity of the State Grid Corporation of China, a state-owned enterprise. The remaining 30% equity of NGCP is owned by another ethnic Chinese billionaire, Robert Coyiuto, Jr. through his Calaca High Power.

This business deal is actually a significant development not only in the Philippines but the entire region because according to the book, When China Rules the World, the End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (2009) by Martin Jacques, as Chinese power in the region grows, the relationship between China and the overseas Chinese – who wield exceptional economic power in virtually every ASEAN country and whose self-confidence, status and position will be greatly enhanced by China’s rise – will become a growing factor in these countries. He also cites, the historian Wang Gungwu who argues that the overseas Chinese share many characteristics with other minorities: ‘But where the “Chinese” are totally different is [that] their “mother country” is near Southeast Asia, very large and populous, potentially powerful and traditionally contemptuous of the peoples and cultures of the region.’ Of course, in the Philippines the Chinese are known to put up dummy corporations to get away with the restrictions on foreign ownership of investments, so we don't really know what side deals the ethnic Chinese tycoons may have with the Chinese government-owned State Grid Corporation of China. Hence, the real winner in this seemingly innocuous business deal is China. Not a shot was fired but some would say that China has just trumped its rival the United States in its former colony, the Philippines.

The State Grid Corporation of China, which is a Chinese state-owned enterprise, in consortium with Filipino investors, after winning the bidding of the Philippine government for the franchise of the monopoly operations of the transmission of electricity in the power grid of the country, took over the management and operation of the power transmission system from the government-owned National Transmission Corporation in January of 2009. The NGCP is the corporate vehicle formed by the consortium of Monte Oro Grid Resources Corporation with 30% equity, Calaca High Power Corporation with 30% equity, and State Grid Corporation of China with 40% equity. The consortium was declared the winning bidder in the biggest government auction conducted by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation in December 2007. A franchise with a term of 50 years was granted to NGCP under Republic Act No. 9511 signed into law in December of 2008.

This monopoly or sole control over the transmission system of the Philippines by China has very important implications for foreign investors not only in power generation but also for other foreign investments since they will be relying on China for the transmission of power or electricity for their operations. This strategic investment by China in the monopoly of the transmission system in the Philippines means that it has other foreign investors by the jugular.

As it is, the Philippines is in the midst of an “energy crisis”. As the “El Nino” drought phenomena has come, eight-hour brownouts have become the norm in some towns and villages in Mindanao, the second biggest island in this archipelago of 90 million people. Even the capital, Manila, suffers brownouts from time to time, practically everyday. Ostensibly, the “energy crisis” is the result of the hydropower dams in the archipelago slowing down its generation of power due to the lack rains to fill-up its catch basins with water. The rains have started sporadically in the past month but even if the rains have come, the lack of generating capacity throughout the Philippines is still a serious problem. For many Filipinos, who are experiencing the brownouts in the middle of an election campaign to elect their next President on May 10, the current brownouts have a sense of déjà vu since in the 90s, the Philippines also suffered from a similar “energy crisis” just as then President Corazon Aquino was leaving office after a six-year term. It took her successor President Fidel Ramos to solve the “energy crisis” by introducing Independent Power Producers, who were enticed to invest in power generation capacity through build-operate-transfer schemes. Since then investments in generating capacity have languished even though several government power plants have been privatized.

While the U.S. still has considerable leverage over the Philippines because of its past colonial history and affinity with the Filipinos, the leverage of the U.S. is dwindling preoccupied and distracted as it is with stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As quoted by Martin Jacques, “The balance of influence is shifting against the United States. In the last decade the Chinese have not done anything wrong in Southeast Asia. The Japanese have not done anything right, and the U.S. has been indifferent. So already Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and other states are defining their national interest as ‘Finlandization’ with respect to China. The U.S. will never be shut out of Southeast Asia completely, but there is less room for it now than in the past fifty years.”

Thailand and the Philippines are the treaty allies of the U.S. in Southeast Asia. Thailand is in the mainland and Philippines is in the maritime region of Southeast Asia. Thailand is in the throes of political turmoil and engaged in social re-engineering as its “deep state” monarchy grapples with modernization of its political and economic systems. In a paper entitled “Assessing 2010 Elections Automation in the Philippines,” the risk consultancy Pacific Strategies and Assessments (PSA) said it had found 14 danger signs that the elections were bound to run into a wall of problems, or worse, completely fail. “There is no doubt that May 10, 2010 will be the most important Philippine Election Day since independence in 1946,” according to the PSA (See Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 16, 2010). Asked why PSA considered the coming elections the Philippines’ most crucial, PSA director Pete Troilo said that in the next six years, “the differences between Asia’s winners and losers will become very clear.” “What side of that fence the Philippines will be on will be determined by the next administration. There’s a lot at stake and the country is trailing,” Troilo added. Geopolitically speaking, China and the U.S. will also be watching closely the upcoming Philippine elections to read the signs of which side of the fence the country will be leaning towards.

Will the instabilities in the countries, upon which the foundation of U.S. power in Southeast Asia rests, threaten it and present opportunities for China to wrest them from the U.S. vision of the world, or will these instabilities mean that U.S. influence can only grow in these two anchor countries (as U.S. global stability operations encompasses both)? That is the crucial question to ask since the age-old Chinese geopolitical strategy has always been premised on the idea that with crisis comes opportunity. In any event, the evolving “Finlandization” of the Philippines makes the strategic leverage of the U.S. in the Philippines dependent on its foothold in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, where upwards of 250 U.S. Special Forces have been deployed under the Philippines – Operation Enduring Freedom – Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF) and where on the basis of a status of forces of agreement, the Pacific Command’s naval and marine fleet currently has a virtual run of the place, especially the seas surrounding Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, such as the Sulu Sea, the Moro Gulf and the Philippine Deep. The waters and airspace of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago have become important to the Pentagon’s development of its program of Prompt Global Strike vis-à-vis China because it is here that ballistic missile submarines and other U.S. military platforms can exercise deterrence over China and other Asian continental powers, as well as, the surrounding maritime Southeast Asian region. The South China Sea is increasingly becoming a Chinese lake and the U.S. military presence in the adjacent Sulu Sea in the guise of anti-terrorism operations against Abu Sayyaf militants provides excellent strategic cover for the U.S. to monitor Chinese naval activity so that they do not have to rub elbows with the Chinese Navy in the South China Sea.

However, in view of the growing “Finlandization” of the Philippines vis-à-vis China, which “Finlandization” is increasingly being viewed by its elite and the oligarchic leadership in Manila as something that is to their advantage, and in order to sustain in the longer run the level of U.S. military activity needed in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago for the Pentagon’s program of Prompt Global Strike and for overall preparedness for any military eventualities in the region, the U.S. together with its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies will have to sooner or later create conditions similar to Kosovo in the Balkan peninsula, wherein Camp Bondsteel was established as a U.S. base in that strategic region. Just like the Balkans and the Caucasus, the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas known as the Tri-border Sea Area astride crucial Sea Lines of Communications (SLOC), which has Mindanao at the heart of this maritime region of Southeast Asia, is strategic for the U.S. in terms of the geopolitics of the region. But more appropriately, the U.S. in the future may need to put up a missile defense shield in Mindanao or the Sulu Archipelago similar to what was being planned in Poland and in the Czech Republic (before it was cancelled and moved to Romania) in order to counter China’s ballistic missiles that may be launched from Chinese submarines lurking in the South China Sea.

Given the “Finlandization” of the Philippines, this scenario of missile bases and a free hand or unfettered U.S. and NATO military activity in Mindanao can only be secured if a semi-independent Moro homeland is carved out of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago (but still within Philippine territory). The Moros are Muslim indigenous ethnic groups in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago that have been fighting for self-determination and their lost sovereignty for the past four decades through an insurgency or armed struggle. The vanguard of the Moro self-determination and sovereignty-based movement is the 11,000-strong revolutionary armed group or armed non-state actor, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which is currently engaged in Malaysian-brokered peace talks with the Manila government for Moro self-rule. The peace talks between the government and the MILF have been stalled repeatedly by serious disagreements, followed shortly by eruptions of violence and both the Philippine government and the MILF in the waning days of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo are hoping to forge at least an “interim agreement” to preserve the gains of the past 11 years of peace talks for the next administration to continue.

Discussions of a constructive U.S. (and NATO) role in Mindanao typically focus on promoting security and development, but this approach fails to recognize a simple truth: “the traditional prerogatives of power in the southern Philippines are fundamentally incompatible with either. A thin veneer of democratic institutions covers a society that remains essentially feudal, conforming less to democratic ideals than to the style of the datus, the warrior chiefs of old. Leadership is personal and paternalistic and functions largely above the law; power flows from guns and money.”[1] The most destructive face of such Moro clan power manifested itself in the now infamous “Maguindanao Massacre” that transpired last November, wherein 57 people (including 31 journalists in the worst case in recent history of killings of media people) were massacred by the private militia of a powerful Moro clan to stop a political rival from filing his candidacy.
As such, as they become more embedded locally, some analysts say the U.S. troops may have to eventually deal with problems other than security, and foremost of which is the undemocratic and corrupt nature of local political power, on the premise that the ultimate success of stability operations (formerly the “war on terror”) hinges not on the physical elimination of groups like the Abu Sayyaf, but in resolving the absence of democratic politics in Muslim Mindanao by ending the domination of the political clans.[2] Eliminating clan power in order to have a more democratic government in Muslim Mindanao would require the U.S. and its NATO allies through the Mindanao peace process to engage in state rebuilding or reconstruction of a semi-independent Moroland within Philippine territory to usher in a new set of leaders more representative of Moro popular interests in the context of modernization and globalization.

The MILF then becomes the key modernizing element of local politics in southern Philippines within the context of a unified Moroland. After all, said one observer: “Whatever the historical limitations of the MNLF (or the MILF for that matter), given the incontrovertible evidence of their mass following – larger so far than what the CPP/NPA could amass at any given encounter with the AFP – and given the class structure of the Moro people (the majority of whom are exploited peasants and workers) vis-à-vis the majority of Christian Filipinos, there is no question that they genuinely represent the historic grievances and aspirations of their community. To be sure, large-scale political mobilization of Moro combatants with their civilian base may be viewed as participatory democracy in action, grassroots democracy in actual practice.”[3]

Recently on April 2, Norway became the first Western (and NATO) country to evince interest in putting “boots on the ground” (albeit in the guise of civilian or police contingents) through its participation in the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team composed of contingents from Japan, Brunei and Libya, that is monitoring the ceasefire in Mindanao between the government and the MILF. In September last year, an International Contact Group composed of Turkey, Japan and the United Kingdom of Great Britain was established for the peace talks with the MILF. So the active involvement of the NATO countries of the United Kingdom, Turkey and Norway in the Mindanao peace process means that NATO has put a significant stake in the Mindanao peace process towards the possible creation of a sub-state or semi-independent Moro homeland in Mindanao, where NATO can establish its bases and staging ground for military activities in the region. It goes without saying that the involvement of these NATO countries in the Mindanao peace process has probably been undertaken with the tacit approval of the U.S. as a counter-hegemonic exercise vis-à-vis China in light of Western geopolitical interests in the region. (END).

[1] Rogers, S. “Beyond the Abu Sayyaf, Lessons of Failure in the Philippines”, 83 Foreign Affairs 18, 2004.

[2] Abinales, P. and Amoroso, D., “The Withering of Philippine Democracy”, Current History, Sept. 2, 2006.

[3] San Juan, E., “Ethnic Identity and Popular Sovereignty: Notes on the Moro Struggle in the Philippines”, Ethnicities; 2006; 3; 391, p. 413 at http://etn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/3/391

In determining whether the referenced agreement should be described as a "triumph" for western diplomacy -- or simply as a baby step in the right direction -- should we first look at the overarching goals and objectives of the United States?

Herein, let me propose that the overarching goals and objectives of the United States might be stated as:

To cause other states and societies (especially those of some importance or potential importance to the global economy) to become - and/or to remain -- more-cohesive, more-democratic and more-capitalist entities who are better alinged with the western world.

With this (or a more-correct/better articulation of the overarching goals and objectives of the United States) as our starting point, then let us ask:

Does the referenced agreement provide a serious framework for -- and/or otherwise make great strides toward -- helping us achieve our goals and objectives?

If the answer to this question is a resounding "Yes!" then this agreement may indeed represent a "triumph for Western diplomacy."

It's interesting to see references to "competing blocks of Western powers" and "the Great Game of maritime Southeast Asia" raised in reference to the Bangsamoro issue, but the references would be more credible if the author had given some indication of what the purported blocks of western powers would be competing over, what the "great game of maritime SE Asia actually is, and what hypothetical influence engagement with the Bangsamoro is supposed to have on that great game. The invocation of the "Asian pivot" and the increased American Naval presence in Subic is also a bit disconnected, as the author makes no attempt to demonstrate how this presence relates to the situation in Mindanao.

There are often hints and suppositions, often deriving from that conspiratorially-minded Philippine press, that foreign interest in the peace process is designed to advance some overarching economic or strategic interest. What exactly those economic and strategic interests are is typically left up to various fertile imaginations: the resource endowments and strategic significance of the Bangsamoro area are consistently and wildly exaggerated. Once imagination is removed from the picture it's difficult to see how anyone stands to gain any significant advantage. The actual extent of foreign involvement has also been exaggerated: a significant number of foreign powers are indeed involved, but the actual commitment of resources has been fairly modest and far below any level that would indicate that a "great game" is being played.

The article's focus on foreign involvement tends, IMO, to overstate the impact of that involvement and distract from the overwhelmingly local nature of the process and the threat that local power dynamics pose to the success of the process.

The author mentions the tension between the MILF and MNLF, but fails to mention that this tension is essentially just a reflection of the deeper ethnic/tribal tension within the proposed Bangsamoro. The MILF and MNLF split less for ideological or religious reasons than because of rivalry between the mainland Mindanao Maguindanao/Maranao bloc that dominates the MILF and the predominantly Tausug/Sama/Yakan groups based on the islands west of Zamboanga. While the Bangsamoro negotiators may not all be integral MILF members, they are dominated by the Maguindanao/Maranao bloc and may not be accepted as representative by the groups in western islands, the area that produced the Abu Sayyaf and has dominated OEF/P operations. That raises significant doubts about the ability to integrate the two parts of the Bangsamoro and to control the regions not dominated by the MILF. If the Tausug, Yakan, and Sama feel like a second-class presence in the Bangsamoro government or in the peace process, prospects for peace will be somewhat diminished, to put it mildly.

It's also not clear how the competition for power within the Bangsamoro will pan out. Politics in the area have been dominated for several decades by powerful Muslim clans that have made alliances of convenience with the Manila government, enriching themselves through corruption, building support bases through government-funded patronage, and developing significant armed forces of their own. The downfall of the Ampatuans has somewhat reduced the potency of this bloc, but there are other political clans and they will not give up power easily, raising questions about the ability of the MILF to alter governance patterns even in the Maguindanao/Lanao heartland.

It also remains to be seen how a transition to civil power will affect the MILF leadership, assuming they can wrest power from the existing Muslim political elites. Past peace agreements have not failed because of the geographic scope or level of authority of the autonomous governments, they've failed because the rebel leaders who took on civil authority fell into the same pattern of corruption, patronage, impunity and "big man" politics that have plagued the area for decades.

There are also potential spoilers on the government side. The predominantly Visayan settler bloc that was deeply involved in the start of the conflict and which outnumbers the Muslims in much of Mindanao has its own quota of well-connected feudal bosses, and they are likely to try to derail the agreement or weaken its implementation. They will have considerable sympathy among the majority of the populace outside Mindanao, which retains a deep visceral prejudice against Muslims. Many north of Mindnanao have minimal sympathy with Muslim grievances and see the agreement as little more than an accommodation with terrorists.

This agreement will not in itself produce peace. It could be an important step toward peace, but it will not produce peace if it's treated as an end in itself. If the government, both in Manila and locally, can unite to deliver effective governance, bring the political elites within the rule of law, and break the cycle of feudalism and "big man" politics, there's real hope for progress. If the agreement is treated as an end in itself, we'll just have a new name for a backward, oppressed, impoverished region that suffers under feudal misrule and breeds a new generation of rebels, and likely terrorists as well.

Thanks for the solid outline.

For many people in this area combatants and non-combatants, where fighting has taken place over generations, peace and security is an unreal concept. Strangely enough, for both sides, conflict has a familiar pattern; it imposes order, stifles dissent, generates profits, and provides employment and a raison d’etre for misplaced, unemployed and disenfranchised members of the community. One of the challenges will also be to ensure the MNLF and the BIFF do not muddy the waters.

However, the agreement provides an example of how the right mix of multi-lateral intervention can positively influence a complex internal conflict.

The current ‘road-map’ may be paved on stronger foundations than previous attempts. The give-and-take between the Philippine Government and the MILF on issues like disarmament, systems of justice such as Sharia law only applying to Muslims, tax and revenue sharing, elective representation and governance are more accommodating than in the past. The Philippine Government also agreed to recognise the ‘Bangsamoro identity’, which is a shift from the past. The other key difference will be the intense oversight and monitoring of milestones that was missing following the 1996 peace deal.

The agreement should allow the AFP to focus its efforts on the NPA who continue to threaten and disrupt progress.

Ishak also provides a good summary of what other nations are doing in Mindanao including Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the EU among others.

Also note his comments about internal security operations winding down and focusing on external security concerns.

One theme he addresses in the introduction is how the Moro in history had played off the colonial powers to maintain independence. I think we should realize how other countries may also use a similar technique and play off the major regional and international powers. I am thinking specifically of Burma and north Korea. I sometimes wonder if we realize when we might be "played."