Moro people

Moro is a term used to refer to several Indigenous Filipino ethnic groups that are predominantly Muslim. Initially a derogatory term imposed by the Spanish, it has been adopted as a term of pride and associated with secessionist movements in the southern Philippines. The Moro people have long resisted foreign rule, and their Islamic sultanates were able to persist during the centuries when the Philippines were part of the Spanish Empire; this history of resistance has led directly to modern secessionism.

Bangsamoro is the Malay word for "Moro nation." Sometimes used as a synonym for the Moro people, it also refers to a political proposal for an autonomous region in the southern Philippines and is often used by Moros to refer to the traditional Moro lands, including the provinces of Basilan, Cotabato, Compostela Valley, Davao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Palawan, Sarangani, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi.

Brief History

Islam is believed to have been introduced to the southern Philippines in the fourteenth century, the Muslim trader and missionary Karim ul-Mahkdum arrived on the Filipino island of Tawi-Tawi from Johor (in present-day Malaysia). The mosque he established is the oldest in the country. Some Muslims may have arrived earlier in the century since Islamic traders had been active in this part of Southeast Asia for about a hundred years when ul-Mahkdum arrived in the Philippines. After the arrival of ul-Mahkdum, Islam spread quickly. The Sultanate of Sulu, which ruled over parts of the southern Philippines and Borneo, was established in 1405, became independent from the Bruneian Empire in 1578, and enjoyed a long existence as an independent kingdom until the Europeans arrived. Like the rest of the Philippines, it was annexed first by Spain in the 1850s, and then by the United States, which dissolved the sultanate in 1915.

The term Moro is a reference to the Muslims ("Moors") who had controlled southern Spain, and it was applied to Muslims of the Philippines by the Spanish who took control of the archipelago. Considered derogatory originally, the word has been reclaimed by Indigenous Muslims in the modern day as the result of political groups like the Moro National Liberation Front. The ethnic groups considered part of the Moro peoples include the Badjao, Iranun, Jama Mapun, Kalagan, Kalibugan, Maguindanao, Maranaw, Molbog, Palawanon, Sama, Sangil, Tausug, and Yakan. Traditionally, these groups lived in the Filipino provinces of Sulu and Palawan and the island group of Mindanao, but in the twenty-first century, Moro communities are found throughout most major cities in the Philippines. It is in their traditional homelands that they retain the most political and cultural power, however. Converts to Islam from other ethnic groups may or may not call themselves Moro or be called that by others.

The Moro/Catholic conflict dates to the original Spanish arrival in the sixteenth century when the Spaniards established missions and made the rest of the Philippines, apart from the sultanates, part of the Spanish Empire; the sultanates were better able to resist. The Spanish, in turn, had a special enmity for Islam. This historical conflict continues to inform contemporary frictions.

Topic Today

For many today, Moro identity represents more than just the Muslim faith. The Moro National Liberation Front was founded in 1969 as a secessionist movement, with the slogan "Moro, not Filipino," distinguishing between the Muslim Moros and the predominantly Catholic Filipino establishment that controls the central government. Similar separatist groups include the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Bangsa Moro Liberation Organization.

While Moro nationalism was always a vibrant cause, it became especially strong and well-organized in the 1960s. The government eventually made some concessions, granting Muslims exemptions from certain national laws predicated on a Catholic worldview (specifically, the prohibitions on divorce and polygamy). However, this did little to slow the growth of Moro nationalist and secessionist movements. Beginning in the 1970s, disputes in some regions became violent, and deploying the army in response only inspired the establishment of more Moro nationalist paramilitary groups.

In response to this violence and the underlying concerns, several attempts were made to create an autonomous Muslim region within the Philippines, eventually resulting in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), consisting of the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi, in 1990. More provinces were added in the early twenty-first century. However, while nominally autonomous, ARMM’s population is among the most impoverished in the Philippines, and nearly all of the government’s funding comes from the Filipino government, which is insufficient for real investment in education and infrastructure. The preliminary agreement on Bangsamoro, the political entity that will replace ARMM in the hope of addressing some of these problems, was signed in 2012 to take effect in 2016. In 2019, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) replaced the ARMM.

The conflict between Moro secessionists and the government has intensified anti-Moro hostilities and inspired some Moros to leave the Philippines. Moro diaspora communities are especially concentrated in the predominantly Muslim countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. Nor are hostilities limited to the secessionists and the predominantly Catholic government; animists among the ethnic groups of the Moro peoples, practicing the folk religions native to the islands, face marginalization at best, and are often treated as outsiders by Muslim Moros who consider them uneducated pagans. Animist practice is common (relatively speaking) among the Badjao people of the Sulu archipelago, for instance, which is otherwise predominantly populated by the almost uniformly Muslim Tausug people. Animism and worship of the ancient sea deity and his consort was the ancient religion of the Badjao people before Islam was introduced. (Today, Badjao Muslims often consider that sea deity, Tuhan, to be another name for Allah.)

While most Christian members of the Moro peoples are Catholics like most Filipinos, as with the rest of the country, there is a small Protestant minority. Among the Muslim majority, Sunni Islam is the norm both in the Philippines and in the Moro diaspora (it is the official religion of Brunei and Malaysia), but various forms of folk Islam are also practiced, especially in rural communities.

Bibliography

Arnold, James R. The Moro War. Bloomsbury, 2011.

Ferrer, Miriam Coronel. Region, Nation and Homeland: Valorization and Adaptation in the Moro and Cordillera Resistance Discourses. ISEAS Publishing, 2020.

Francia, Luis H. History of the Philippines. The Overlook Press, 2013.

Fulton, Robert A. Moroland: The History of Uncle Sam and the Moros. Tumalo Creek Press, 2007.

Hawkins, Michael. Making Moros: Imperial Historicism and American Military Rule in the Philippines’ Muslim South. Northern Illinois UP, 2012.

Irving, Hancock H. Uncle Sam’s Boys in the Philippines. HardPress, 2013.

Karnow, Stanley. In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines. Ballantine Books, 1990.

"Moro Muslims in the Philippines." Minority Rights Group, minorityrights.org/communities/moro-muslims. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.

Toer, Pramoedya Ananta. The Girl from the Coast. Hyperion, 2003.

Truxillo, Charles. Crusaders in the Far East: The Moro Wars in the Philippines in the Context of the Ibero-Islamic World War. Jain, 2012.