The Moro people

It has been the experience of Mindanao that the so-called development aggression -- mainly by big mining, logging and big agricultural companies, many of them transnational corporations – has victimized mainly Moro and indigenous peoples, displacing them from their ancestral lands. This policy of dispossession, which has been implemented in Mindanao for decades now by the tandem of government and big business, gave birth to the various rebellions in Mindanao.
For the Moro people, the central issue that drove mainland Mindanao to violence was mainly due to land grabbing. With the government’s promotion of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao to potential foreign investors, it once again committed a disservice to the cause of peace by removing strategic minerals and natural resources from the scope of ancestral domain and will rob native inhabitants of their birthright over their God-given natural resources.

Added to this harsh situation is the militarization of the area where opposition to the entry of potential foreign investors is strong and the labeling of the conflict as Christian-Muslim conflict. This tragic story of Christian-Muslim conflict in Mindanao sacrificed thousand of lives of innocent civilians and created great damaged to properties and sources of livelihood.

With the government’s active participation to the Global War on Terrorism, it is fearful to note that legitimate struggle of the indigenous and Moro peoples to protect their ancestral domain and assert their right to self determination is often times tagged as an act of terrorism.