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This will be the last regular update for the Philippines. The organized violence there has declined to the point where it no longer qualifies for regular updates. Instead, we will cover any major outbreaks of violence in our updates of neighboring countries or in a Potential Hotspot piece. Past updates for all wars remain available.
Since StrategyPage began in 1999 we’ve retired more wars than we’ve added. As we have noted frequently, the trend since the 1990s has been fewer wars. Those we have retired since 1999 include Haiti (2009), Nepal (2010), Sri Lanka (2010), Central Asia (2012), Ivory Coast (2012), Indonesia (2013), Chad (2013), Uganda (2013), Kurds (2013), Philippines (2023), Rwanda (2013), Balkans (2013), Ethiopia (2013), Congo Brazzaville (2013), Colombia (2017), Mexico (2017), Myanmar (2020), Algeria (2020), Sudan (2020) and Thailand (2020). Some of these former updates included nearby conflicts that also ended, like Micronesia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
August 4, 2023: EU (European Union) leaders back the Philippines and efforts to halt Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. The EU wants to reduce its trade with China, which is seen as an increasingly unreliable trading partner. Because of that the EU wants to establish better trade relationships with other nations in east and southeast Asia. The EU is also interested in helping the Philippines improve its armed forces and cooperate with the Philippines and its regional allies (like Japan) to confront Chinese aggression. China insists it is not a threat and offers military cooperation with the Philippines. Meanwhile China continues to fortify its artificial islands in the South China Sea and increase the military personnel, equipment and weapons on those islands.
July 27, 2023: One of the conditions for establishing an autonomous Moslem region in the south was agreement to formally disarm the thousands of armed men belonging to Moslem resistance groups. So far, 24,000 men have been disarmed and another 14,000 will be disarmed over the next two years to complete the disarmament program.
In 2014 the majority of Moslems and Christians in the Philippines agreed to an autonomous Moslem region on the southwest coast of the large southern island, Mindanao and the string of smaller islands (Sulu, Basilan, Tawi, Tawi) extending from southwestern Mindanao towards Malaysia. Bangasamoro is where most Filipino Moslems live and the new Moslem entity, which has more autonomy. Bangasamoro Moslems are now responsible for maintaining the peace. This is no small matter because, more than elsewhere in the Philippines, the Moslem south has long had many more clan militias that believed it was their right to engage in private wars. Not all the clans share the official attitudes about who has the right to make war in Bangasamoro. In late 2018 the decades-long state of war against MILF ended and since then MILF has been a lot more useful in eliminating Islamic terror groups.
Bangasamoro governs the four million Moslems in the south. Down there the Moslems are outnumbered by Christians who had moved south during the last half century. Nationwide there are about 11 million Moslems and over 90 million Christians. The Christian Filipinos are better organized, more industrious and economically more successful. The Moslems believe they should run Mindanao even if they are the minority, because Mindanao is the local "Islamic homeland." While some in the government were willing to concede this, the Christian majority in Mindanao and the rest of the Philippines, does not. Because of this groups like BIFF, ISIL and Abu Sayyaf are treated as outlaws in Bangasamoro and have lost support and members since 2014, but remain active, but a lot less active.
Maute Group is similar to BIFF and both joined Abu Sayyaf in forming the Filipino branch of ISIL in 2016. Maute Group was nearly wiped out during the May-October 2017 battle for Marawi City. In December 2017 the army confirmed that all seven Maute brothers died as a result of Marawi. These men were the core leadership and the largest ISIL faction in Marawi City was from the Maute Group who unexpectedly brought in hundreds of their own gunmen who were willing to fight to the death and triggered an existing plan to gather in Marawi City to inspire local Moslems to rise up and drive out Christians. That did just the opposite and resulted in nearly all the thousand or so ISIL gunmen who showed up getting killed. Only about a dozen were willing to surrender and a hundred or so apparently escaped. The thousands of soldiers and police sent in to eliminate the ISIL force suffered 168 dead.
The Maute Group was formed in 2012 by members of the Maute family, which is one of the larger and wealthier clans in the south. The seven Maute brothers got mixed up with clan politics, MILF and eventually ISIL. Because all seven brothers died in Marawi City, the group limped on by recruiting from outside their clan. That has kept the Maute Group going but, like BIFF, both groups have fewer than a hundred active members and Abu Sayyaf has about twice that.
July 26, 2023: In the south (Misamis Oriental province) Dionisio Micabalo, one of the few remaining NPA (New People’s Army) leaders, was killed when he encountered an army patrol and refused to surrender. Micabalo was also one of the few remaining members of the CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines) Central Committee. The NPA is the armed element of the CPP.
July 10, 2023: The army believes only one of the 89 known units (“Fronts”) of the NPA (New People’s Army) is still active with about 1,800 armed members. In 2022 there were still five Fronts active. This Front operates in the central Philippines (Samar Island) and is not expected to last much longer. During the last two years the NPA rapidly fell apart after several senior leaders were killed or captured, some of them with over fifty years’ NPA experience. Many were found because of tips from local civilians.
Most of the political violence in the Philippines since World War II has come from communists, who were present but not very active before World War II. The communists became a major part of the armed opposition fighting the brutal 1942-45 Japanese occupation. After independence in 1946, leftist rebels continued fighting, trying to establish a communist dictatorship. That proved difficult to do. A major reorganization took place in the 1960s, resulting in the creation of the NPA in 1969. The new communist rebel organization adopted the Chinese “Maoist” long term strategy. That was not very successful despite lots of economic and social problems they could promise to fix if they were in charge. Enthusiasm for a "communist solution" went sharply downhill after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its East European communist allies between 1989 and 1991. That massive failure of communist states left the NPA much weaker ideologically and vulnerable to subsequent amnesty programs. A decade ago, NPA leaders admitted that they had only a small fraction of their peak (in the 1980s) strength of 26,000 armed members. There were some serious attempts to reverse the decline in popularity. NPA gunmen were instructed to behave better around civilians and the NPA were found giving some civilians, especially health or aid workers, cash compensation of a few hundred dollars each for wounds received during NPA attacks on soldiers or police. The government increased its efforts to provide medical care for such victims of NPA violence, the NPA tried to compete and found they couldn’t afford it. Many NPA members arrested recently were wanted for banditry and similar crimes.
Information on the location of NPA camps, weapons storage sites or covert supporters is now regularly obtained from local civilians or surrendering NPA members. Because of that more NPA camps are being attacked, weapons storage sites seized and key supporters arrested or killed, even in traditional strongholds like Bukidnon and Negros Occidental provinces.
July 6, 2023: In the south (Lanao del Sur province) police arrested Acmad Casim. Police had a warrant for the arrest because Casim was one of the few known members of the Maute Group still believed to be active, or at least alive. Maute Group is one of the few ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) Islamic terrorist groups to establish itself, if only briefly, in the Philippines. There have been little heard from the Manute Group in 2023 and the last activity of them occurred in late 2022 when troops encountered and killed eight Maute Group members. One soldier was killed and four wounded. The dead were identified as members of the Maute Group, which preferred to be called DITG (Dawlah Islamiyah Torayfie Group). Members of this group tend to fight to the death if trapped, rather than even consider surrender. Remnants of several ISIL factions have been trying to survive in this area since 2017. The Maute Group appears to be the last of them.
