Islam has been a potent force in the country since the s, predating even Christianity's arrival. So, as tensions in the predominantly Catholic nation are reaching boiling point, we take stock of the long and volatile history of Islam in the Philippines.
Islam officially arrived in the province of Sulu, a small archipelago in the south, in the 13th Century. Some insist it came even earlier with the rise of Arab traders in the 10th Century. Either way, there were well established sultanates periods of time when sultans ruled in Sulu and Mindanao by As commentator Victor Taylor, who's worked in the Muslim majority areas of the Philippines for the last 50 years, puts it:. Patricio Abinales, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawaii, says the sultanates were relatively civilly advanced for the time.
But Filipino writer and journalist Criselda Yabes argues this progress came at a cost. When the Spanish arrived in , they quickly became established in the central and northern regions of what is now the Philippines.
As Dr Abinales says, the Spanish were essentially "in a defensive position vis-a-vis the Muslim sultanates, especially because the sultanates were conducting so-called slave raids into central and the northern Philippines very frequently, and the Spanish couldn't stop it". Only towards the latter part of 19th Century did the Spaniards get a foothold in certain Muslim areas — but they never had effective sovereign control.
In fact, it wasn't until the arrival of the Americans that Sulu and Mindanao fell under foreign control. The Americans gained control over the Philippines in the Treaty of Paris in , which ended the Spanish—American war. In the northern and central regions of the country the Americans governed with civilian politicians, but in Mindanao, the first 10 years of American rule was via the United States Army.
When, in , the US Congress passed the Jones Law that promised the Philippines eventual independence, the Muslim community reacted badly.
The Americans, during the colonial period, did not have much success either. This, in my opinion, should be a source of pride, and should be heralded as a sterling example of a people defending their freedom and independence from foreign invaders. Marvin Tort is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippines Press Council matort yahoo. Sign in.
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Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Large-scale land pasture leases, crop plantations, large-scale mining permits and logging concessions were awarded to foreign and Philippine business interests, which led to the displacement of entire indigenous communities. One result of these developments was that the Muslims and Lumads, who constituted the majority of the population in Mindanao and Sulu at the turn of the 20 th century, found themselves minorities in their homeland, overwhelmed by the inflow of Christian settlers.
A census undertaken in showed that Muslims and Lumads constituted 63 per cent of the total population of Mindanao and Sulu. An important question to consider is how Muslims in the Philippines fare socially and economically compared to other Filipinos.
While the report is over a decade old, it is not expected that there would have been any drastic changes in the comparative data compiled. There are five provinces in the Philippines where the majority of the population is Muslim. These are the provinces of Sulu 98 per cent Muslim , Tawi-Tawi 97 per cent , Lanao del Sur 94 per cent , Maguindanao 82 per cent and Basilan 80 per cent.
These five provinces form the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao established by law in The PHDR reported on a number of factors reflecting the level of human development in the 77 provinces that make up the Philippines and compared how each province stood relative to the others. On an overall basis, combining the various factors and creating an index, Sulu was at the bottom of the heap at rank 77, followed by Maguindanao at rank 76, Tawi-tawi at 75, Basilan at 74 and Lanao del Sur at rank One of the factors reported on was poverty incidence, which is the percentage of the population in each province falling below the poverty line, describing the minimum level of income needed to meet living requirements.
As the table below indicates, the level of poverty in the Muslim provinces is overwhelming, as these provinces ranked lowest among all provinces in the Philippines.
Another factor reported on was life expectancy, indicating the average number of years a person living in each province could expect to live. As the table below demonstrates, the residents in the Muslim provinces have the shortest life expectancies, 10 to 20 years less than the average life expectancy of Filipinos as a whole. One measure examined by the PHDR was the ratio of persons 18 years and older who had completed a high school education. The table below indicates how some of the Muslim provinces compared with the Philippines as a whole.
Again, these provinces are at the bottom of the heap. Among many other factors examined, these initial indicators clearly show that for varying reasons, Muslims in the Philippines are disadvantaged relative to their countrymen. An awareness of this historical and social background is essential to understanding the roots of the problems in the Philippine South. T: E: institute mackenzieinstitute.
The opinions of the writers published herein do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Mackenzie Institute. They are presented to inform broader social discourse. Contact Us.
Hit enter to search or ESC to close. Colonial Inroads into Muslim Territory Over time, the Spanish colonizers made inroads into the territories of both Sultanates.
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