From Rebels to Crusaders: Loyalty Cost and the Shift from Separatism to Transnationalism in the Bangsamoro Peace Process

Abstract

The separatist struggle for an independent Bangsamoro nation in Mindanao gave rise to four prominent insurgent movements. However, despite the fact that all four movements enjoyed support from the same Moro population and received external support from terror networks, they developed differently. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) maintained limited ties to transnational terror networks, while the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) declared allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014. This act of allegiance is particularly significant, for not only did it signify a switch in the movement’s mobilizing ideology, it is also often a one-way route. This paper questions the factors that feeds into a separatist insurgent movement’s decision making and asks why an insurgent movement would choose such a drastic option of declaring allegiance. Rather than a move to gain resources from the transnational partner or an attempt to form a significant coalition against the government, it seems that the act was a payment to buy the loyalty of different constituencies within the population. To prove this argument, the Bangsamoro Peace Process serves as a comparative case study, in which the core argument is evaluated with three of these movements within specific pockets of time.