The Unfinished Peace

Rido and the Continuation of Violence in Post-Agreement Mindanao

by Sabrina Nour Touijer, TAF Regional Peacebuilding Analyst

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In 1968, an alleged massacre of Muslim army recruits in Manila sparked the formation of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), igniting an armed struggle for independence. Over the following three decades, the conflict claimed the lives of approximately 120,000 people and displaced an estimated two million others. However, the roots of this conflict could be traced back to the 1500s, when the Muslim population of Mindanao began experiencing systemic discrimination and marginalisation under the Spanish colonial rule (1565-1898) , followed by the U.S. colonial administration (1898-1945).

During these periods, both colonial powers encouraged and facilitated the migration of Christian settlers and businessmen from the northern and central Philippines, alongside the establishment of transnational corporations. These groups settled in lands traditionally farmed and occupied by Muslim and indigenous communities. The dispossession of Moro lands was legitimised through the imposition of colonial property regimes that prioritized individual titling, transfer, and large-scale ownership systems over Moro’s traditional system of communal ownership and stewardship of property. The process of displacement by colonial powers was compounded by persistent state neglect that failed to address local grievances, coupled with political repression, militarisation, and discrimination towards Muslim and indigenous peoples, which fueled the decades-long conflict that followed.

After more than three decades of conflict, the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the MNLF signed the 1996 Final Peace Agreement, granting autonomy to several Muslim-majority provinces in Mindanao.

While this agreement successfully led to the demobilisation of the MNLF, a sub-group known as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front emerged (MILF), rejecting the terms of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement. This development prompted the signing of a bilateral ceasefire in 1997 and the initiation of formal peace agreements in 1999.

The peace process between the GRP and the MILF spanned 17 years, experiencing major obstacles in 2001, 2003, and 2008. The 2008 breakdown of negotiations triggered a severe political and humanitarian crisis, displacing approximately 500,000 people within weeks and resulted in one of the world’s most significant humanitarian emergencies at that time.

On 27 March 2014, the GRP and the MILF signed a Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, formally ending the armed conflict that had begun in 1969, a conflict that claimed over 120,000 lives and displaced an additional two million people. The agreement established a new self-governing entity known as the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, governed by the officials and key commanders of the MILF. Despite this achievement, the Philippines continues to face challenges posed by violent extremism, feuding political and ethnic clans, and separatist movements led by other militant groups. The crisis in Mindanao can be characterized by two types of violence. The first type of violence is vertical violence, referring to state-rebellion conflict, typically characterized in top-down, insurgent, or separatist movements challenging the authority and infrastructure of the state, such as the armed struggle between the GRP and the MNLF/MILF. The second type of violence is horizontal violence, which refers to localized, bottom-up conflicts rooted in inter-or-intra-ethnic, clan-based, or tribal rivalries. This form of violence is often seen through rido, or clan feuding, which remains one of the most prevalent manifestations of communal conflicts in Mindanao.

Bottom-up Grass-roots Initiatives

Bottom-up grassroot peacebuilding initiatives led by an array of civil society actors in Mindanao have played a critical role in countering violent extremism. For instance, the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG) has undertaken significant efforts to address pro-ISIS sentiments among certain extremist groups in the region. Their work focused on understanding the vulnerability of Muslim youth towards recruitment and radicalization by militant groups. Results from IAG’s research indicate that, in the absence of effective counter-narrative programs and relevant state policy, Muslim youth remain vulnerable to the narratives, ideologies, and interpretations propagated by violent extremist groups. Initiatives such as those led by the IAG have been proven to be valuable within the broader peacebuilding process in Mindanao, offering evidence-based research that informs policymakers, government institutions, the security sector, religious authorities, and local communities. These initiatives have been particularly vital amid the growing threat of violent extremism and the vulnerabilities it poses to youth populations in the region.

Women’s participation has also been instrumental in advancing the peace process in Mindanao. A coalition of thirty-six organizations, operating under the Women Engaged in Action (We Act 1325), successfully lobbied the Philippine Congress to ensure the inclusion of gender-responsive provision in the peace process. The group’s advocacy focuses on promoting women’s political, social, and economic rights, while simultaneously fostering public awareness of Bangsamoro history through education, training, and community workshops.

Nevertheless, these grassroots peacebuilding initiatives continue to face considerable challenges due to weak security conditions, intensified by the presence of non-state armed groups and the widespread circulation of unlicensed weapons. Weak governance, coupled with the dominance of powerful local warlords and political clans have entrenched instability in the region. In some instances, militant groups have even abducted members of NGO peacebuilding networks, heightening risks for civil society actors. Consequently, the Philippine military has increasingly assumed a dual role, not only as a security provider, but also as a humanitarian actor and peacebuilding agent, tasked with safeguarding the integrity of the formal peace process.

Why is Sustainable Peace Failing in the Philippines?

Despite the 1996 Final Peace Agreement between the GRP and the MNLF, as well as the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro between the GRP and the MILF, these agreements have failed to secure a lasting and sustainable peace. Both top-down and bottom-up peacebuilding approaches have been implemented by the GRP and various civil society actors, however, violence and instability continue to persist in Mindanao.

The persistence of violence can be largely attributed to an exclusionary political economy that fails to adequately address the complex and interlinked systems of violence in the Philippines. Many peacebuilding initiatives in Mindanao have failed to adequately consider the influence that rido has played on the broader conflict dynamics. Both international and local efforts to end the armed conflict have focused primarily on measures such as ceasefires, elections, autonomy, and decentralisation. While these measures are key instruments for lasting and sustainable peace, these efforts have been insufficient because they overlook the subtle yet significant impact of inter-and intra-clan conflicts that continue to shape the social and political atmosphere in the region.

Since the signing of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement, rido-related violence has in fact increased, a development that can be attributed to several interrelated factors. These factors include weak governance under founder and leader of the MNLF, Nur Misuari’s administration, the failure to establish an inclusive and effective political settlement between rebel groups and the GRP, and the lack of effective command of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) over local and security forces. Moreover, the MNLF and MILF, as well as the GRP have at times aligned themselves with rival clans and tribes, particularly over disputes over land, resources, and political power. This has perpetuated a vicious cycle of violence, undermining formal peace processes and eroding trust in governance structures. A notable example occurred in 2000, when renewed hostilities between the GRP and the MILF led both parties to take opposing sides in a local Muslim-Christian conflict over land control in Lanao del Norte. What began as a local dispute rooted in competing clan and tribal interests during the post-1996 peace settlement escalated into a broader confrontation, highlighting how rido continues to destabilise formal peacebuilding efforts in Mindanao.

Disputes over territorial land ownership among clans and ethnic groups underscore a deeper structural problem: the top-down institutional framework of agrarian reform in Mindanao, which peace settlements have yet to effectively resolve. Combined with the persistent economic and social underdevelopment in Muslim Mindanao, particularly when compared to the rest of the Philippines, these issues reveal the extent to which the roots of the conflict remain unresolved.

The ARMM proved incapable of governing the region effectively. Its administrative weakness hindered the delivery of essential public services in key areas, such as health care and education, and it lacked effective control over local police and security forces. The ARMM’s inability to monopolise the state’s coercive power meant it exercised minimal authority over internal security and had little capacity to implement meaningful security sector reforms. Consequently, the ARMM has been unable to prevent rido and other forms of community-level conflict. Furthermore, there is a lack of real genuine power required of the regional executive office and regional assembly in the post-1996 ARMM government. This has limited their ability to pursue autonomous and inclusive governance. As a result, poverty and exclusion in Muslim Mindanao have continued to persist, even during periods of national economic growth.

A key limitation of current peacebuilding approaches in the Philippines lies in their tendency to conceptualize violent conflict primarily along the vertical axis of conflict, through the lens of state-rebellion confrontation between the GRP and the armed groups such as the MNLF and MILF. However, this framing often overlooks the horizontal axis of conflict, which encompasses rido and other localized forms of violence that both shape and are shaped by the larger armed struggle. By neglecting the mutually reinforced relationship between rebellion-related violence and clan-based conflicts, peacebuilding efforts have failed to capture the full complexity of Mindanao’s conflict dynamics, thereby making sustainable and durable peace more challenging to achieve. To move forward, peacebuilding strategies must account for the localized conflict dynamics and the ways in which armed rebellion interacts with community-level disputes. Sustainable peace requires a peace process that incorporates inclusive dialogue, mediation, and the participatory engagement of both excluded and included groups in order to confront, unpack, and resolve current patterns of power, control, and violence.

Peace cannot be declared simply through agreements, it must be built through trust, inclusion, and justice at every level of society. Sustainable peace depends on inclusive governance. Addressing both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the conflict would transform Mindanao from a landscape of recurring conflict into one that has sustainable and lasting peace.

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Edited by Nishiha Jasper David, Frontier Analysis Editor

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