Saguia is one of an estimated 46,000 Filipinos that remain displaced from conflict-affected areas of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, where Muslim secessionists have been waging an armed struggle for a separate homeland since the early 1970s. Entire communities, particularly those living in the Muslim-majority provinces of the region, are constantly forced to flee amid periodic outbreaks of a vicious war between Muslim rebels and government forces.

Saguia says that for the past three years he has had no regular source of income, and is forced to take menial jobs like carpentry. Even these are hard to come by, he says. Other times, he tries to catch fish and snails from the river and swamps near the resettlement where he lives. A day’s haul earns him around 35 pesos (less than a dollar), barely enough to buy a day’s worth of food.

Muslims, or Moros as they are known locally, comprise an estimated five to nine percent of the country’s population of 94 million. They live mostly in Mindanao, the poorest of the Philippines’ three major island groups, despite it being touted as the “Land of Promise” because of its rich soil, awe-inspiring mountain ranges and lush pastures.

The August 2008 hostilities, spawned by the breakdown of the then ongoing peace talks between the government panel and the Islamist separatist group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), forced Saguia and his family to abandon their home and agricultural land. They were among the 750,000 people caught in the crossfire. Most of them managed to return home after a ceasefire was successfully forged in July 2009. But many, like this 41-year-old father of three, are still in evacuation camps, resettlement areas, or host communities and in dire need of assistance.

Today, notwithstanding the renewed peace negotiations that stalled in 2008, the prospects for Saguia and scores of others displaced by the protracted civil war in Mindanao look dim.

As of November 2011, tens of thousandswho were involuntarily displaced by previous conflicts, including the renewed fighting in 2008, were still displaced, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). This figure doesn’t include those conflict-displaced individuals who have either returned or moved elsewhere, but who have found no “durable solutions” to their problems. They still “still struggle to survive due to vulnerability related to years of repetitive displacement and insecurity, compounded by underdevelopment and natural disasters,” says OCHA.  

Across Southeast Asia, the Philippines ranks third in terms of the number of internally displaced people (IDP), next to Burma and Indonesia. Globally, a total of 27.5 million people have been displaced by war or violence, says the Norway-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center in its March 2011 report.

Unrelenting Hardship

Saguia has for the past three years been living in a cramped resettlement facility called Relocation 1, behind a market in Datu Piang, a municipality in Maguindanao and one of the hardest hit areas in Mindanao. This resettlement area is home to at least 200 families. Lack of access to basic needs such as food and potable water forms a pattern of deprivation, while the sanitation facilities available comprise just two small latrines that serve about a thousand IDPs.  

Saguia and his neighbors say they’ve never been visited by a social worker, nor any local officials – only by non-government organizations such as the Mindanao People’s Caucus, which is actively engaging affected communities in peace-building efforts. The situation has prompted Saguia, as the de facto leader of five resettlement and evacuation areas in his Datu Piang, to initiate the drafting of a comprehensive proposal to their local authorities, calling for a package of long-term IDP assistance.

“It’s our proposal,” he says emphatically, as though alluding to the government’s lack of effort on developing a long-term recovery plan. It has three major components: “Return, Resettlement, and Reintegration,” he says.

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It’s also a favorite stop over for pirates, smugglers, mercenaries, illegal workers and the Darul Islam movement, whose roots can be traced back to Indonesia’s independence almost 65 years ago. Since then, Darul Islam has spawned a litany of Muslim militant groups like Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).

Most who pass through continue on, but some stay to stock-up on supplies, reload and plan for another day as authorities found out when 13 suspected terrorists were arrested in Tawau last month under the Internal Security Act.

Among them were seven Malaysians, five Indonesians and a Filipino, all of whom were initially labeled as suspected members of JI and alleged to be gathering weapons and bomb making material from The Philippines to be used against the Singaporean Embassy in Jakarta.

“The arrests…raise fresh concerns over the threat of a terrorist attack utilizing small arms and targeting foreigners,” says Todd Elliott, a security analyst with Jakarta-based Concord Consulting.

He also says that according to his sources, it was likely not the first time the Umar group had attempted to smuggle firearms into Indonesia from the southern Philippines, allegedly with the assistance of corrupt Philippines police officers and Umar’s son, who is said to be a member of the Abu Sayyaf Group. Other plans included a plot to kidnap a police officer to exchange for other militants under detention and to “start activities that would be harmful to the country.”

The arrests and pending prosecutions have landed the authorities in an unwanted political mess.Local journalists and analysts have been warned not to speculate, and religious parties like PAS have been urged not politicize the arrests. Rights groups, meanwhile, are disturbed the police used the ISA to make the arrests after Prime Minister Najib Razak announced he would repeal the widely loathed law.

The Sabah branch of the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) reacted strongly, saying all 13 were members or supporters and called on police to either release or charge them.Under the ISA, police can detain indefinitely without reason.

PAS was rebuked for admitting foreigners to a Malaysian political party with Chai Kim Sen, Youth Secretary General of the Chinese dominated MCA, saying it “should be left to the police to decide whether the persons arrested are missionaries or terrorists.”

“The security of our country is at stake here…PAS and its allies in Pakatan Rakyat should not politicize the issue further by making up lies and distorting the truth,” he added, referring to opposition groups.

The Abolish ISA Movement and human rights group Suaram then took aim, condemning police and the government for using the ISA, which they said was regrettable and contradicted Razak’s pending abolition of a law introduced by his party after Malaysia gained independence in 1957.

“What is the rationale behind the detention? Is the prime minister trying to fool the people of Malaysia with his hypocritical attitude? The PM should be ashamed of this arrest,” they said in a joint statement.

JI is largely defunct, splinter groups have emerged to replace it and they have been prominent in Indonesia, where attacks have focused on small local targets like isolated police stations and even a mosque. The 13 were arrested as they swore allegiance to Kaltim, also known as the Abu Umar group.

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The unit’s biggest break came in Aceh earlier this year after militants started trying to cobble together what became known in some quarters as the ‘Coalition of the Leftovers’ on the home ground of Acehnese separatists at the north-eastern tip of Sumatra.

Jihad remnants of the splintered Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and an assortment of other outfits had gathered at a paramilitary training camp in the mountains of Aceh determined to re-group.Among their plans was an attack on the Presidential Palace and state guests who would be gathered there for the Independence Day ceremonies in August.

But the police were tipped off and raided the base on February 22;three officers and one terrorist were killed during the raid. Despite the inauspicious start to the operation, the balance has shifted, with another 13 alleged terrorists killed by police and more than 60 arrested.

Among the dead was Dulmutin, by far the most prominent member of JI, who was also wanted in connection with the 2002 Bali bombings and who carried a $10 million reward on his head.However, Dulmutin’s favoured cohort, Omar Patek, is still at large and was recently sighted on the island province of Tawi Tawi in the Southern Philippines. He’s now probably the region’s most wanted terrorist.

But it looks like a potentially bigger prize hasn’t eluded the authorities— radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. The police believe Bashir is a key player in the organizational structure of terror cells as opposed to being the simple preacher he has always claimed to be. He’s now in front of the courts again after being arrested in August on charges relating to the Aceh paramilitary camp.

Bashir insists the Bali bombing eight years ago that left more than 200 dead was the result of an offshore missile fired by the CIA. The September 11, 2001, strikes by al-Qaeda, a JI affiliate, were part of an Israeli conspiracy to make Muslims look bad, he says.  

He also insists that he has never been a terrorist because he has never killed anyone and that JI— where he sat as spiritual head—never even existed.However, some of those close to him have suggested otherwise, arguing the 72-year-old Javanese cleric has a two-pronged strategy that advocates terrorism in private while promoting conspiracy theories in public.

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Of course this is nonsense—in old-fashioned military parlance, a terrorist is simply someone who strikes at soft targets in a way designed to terrify a civilian population as a means of trying to shape the agenda. Buses and trains, airplanes, crowded bars and tourist destinations are always popular for this type of warfare—it’s simply one bloody means for obtaining an end and can be deployed equally by governments, militaries, separatists and insurgents of all types, including religious fundamentalists.

But because of the political interference that too often accompanies the handiwork of terrorists, there’s no international legal agreement or criminal law that properly defines terrorism, which is ultimately the cheapest, easiest and most common strategic tactic employed and enjoyed by bullies the world over.

This is why the declaration of a ‘war on terror’ by former US President George W. Bush seemed such a silly response to the tragic events that unfolded on September 11. Instead of declaring war on the combatants—al-Qaeda and their Islamic militant affiliates—he took much of the Western world into battle against a type of warfare. This is akin to the Kennedy administration declaring war against guerrilla tactics deployed by the communists rather than the Viet Cong itself during the Vietnam War, or a declaration of war by Franklin Roosevelt on sneak attacks rather than the Japanese in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

Such distinctions are too often lost in the carnage, but the reality is that a ‘war on terror’ makes no more sense now than it did then, when it allowed members of the Bush administration to carry on their Middle East business dealings with unsavoury middlemen whose connections with al-Qaeda—whether direct or indirect—have been well documented.

Unfortunately, the precedent of muddying definitions of this sort for political benefit that was set by the Bush administration didn’t end with the Bush presidency. Indeed it’s a precedent that now appears to be being followed with some gusto in South-east Asia.

Recent investigations into a bus bombing that left 10 dead in the Southern Philippines—widely regarded as the ‘second front’ in counterterrorism efforts—have given political opportunists in the Philippines the chance to latch on to a terrorist incident for their own gain.

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For years, foreign editors have preferred to ignore the civil conflict that has dominated the region since the 1970s. The fact is life on the west coast of Mindanao can be just as dangerous as the southern provinces of Afghanistan or the hinterland of Iraq. But a combination of fatigue and a lack of relevance to the outside world had pushed the insurgencies and tragedies of Philippine militia life firmly towards the bottom of the international news agenda.

There were exceptions–in 2000, for example, when local bandits masquerading as freedom fighters crossed the maritime border into Malaysia and began kidnapping Western tourists and ransoming them off.

That outfit was the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) which, along with the regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), grew in notoriety once their ties to Islamic independence groups in Mindanao were laid bare in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist strikes against New York and Washington.

It was then that the United States declared the Philippines the second front in its ‘War on Terror’ and poured millions of dollars into the country’s south, dispatching troops and advisors in an attempt to shore-up the position of Filipino President Gloria Arroyo.

At that point, Arroyo had only just replaced her predecessor Joseph Estrada, but was already providing a welcome relief for traditional allies of the Philippines who had lost patience with the gross corruption that had thrived over the previous three years.

However, the massacre has highlighted troubling inconsistencies in relations between the government and the powerful family militias. And, with a general election scheduled for May, the incident has raised serious doubts about US efforts so far in combating insurgencies and securing the area.

Insurgents, Guns and Clans

Al Jacinto’s family has published the Mindanao Examiner for four years. It’s a typical local newspaper, and one that takes home-town issues to a level noticeable to outsiders.

Jacinto wears many hats: publisher, reporter, editor, sales executive.

He has covered the civil war in Mindanao and surrounding islands from all angles and broadened the family’s interests into film and TV production with cable channels in Basilan, Sulu and Zamboanga City.

When news of the single biggest massacre of journalists in history broke, Jacinto says he was interviewing the regional army spokesman in central Mindanao.

‘I was holding back tears,’ he says. ‘The killings of the journalists came as a shock to all of us. I have some friends who were brutally killed.’

‘We live in a small world in the Philippines–anything bad that happens to a journalist is one deadly stab in our heart. We’re journalists; we are only messengers of truth.’

The trigger for the massacre was a decision by Esmail ‘Toto’ Mangudadatu to enter the race for the governorship of Maguindanao Province, which was run as a private fiefdom by the Ampatuan family for the previous decade under the political patronage of Manila.

The slaughter in November was immediately blamed on the Ampatuans, any challenge to the authority of whom had been most unwelcome. But the bloodiness of their capabilities was tragically underestimated that day.

A convoy of 31 journalists and 16 political activists and supporters set off to file a certificate of candidacy on behalf of Toto, who planned to run against Andal Jr. Ampatuan in upcoming elections.

However, the convoy was ambushed by 100 armed men and steered off the main road where the men and women, including Toto’s wife and sister, were shot with M-16s or butchered with machetes before being buried in hastily dug shallow graves.

Another 10 witnesses who happened to be passing by suffered the same fate. The bodies of the women were mutilated.

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