A Study On Moro Separatism And The Formation Of Moro Ethnic Groups

As a friendly neighbor country,Philippine has been considered to be a great partner in the "One Belt,One Road" initiative,but there is a so called "Moro Problem" in southern Philippine.In fact,the people of Moro are living in the south and southwest part of Philippine,composed by 13 Islamic Malay ethnic-linguistic groups,every group has its own culture and customs,which was different from each other.The Moro ethnic groups are including the Maranao of Lanao,the Maguindanao of Cotabato and the Tausog of Sulu,the three groups above are the majority of the Moros.Beside of that,the Samal living in Sulu islands and has been subservient to the Tausog,the Iranun living on the coasts of Illana bay,the Sangir in the Saraggni and Davao del Sur provinces,Kalagan of Davao del Sur and Davao Oriental,Jama Mapun and Badjao in the Sulu islands,Palawani of Palawan,Kalibugan or Molbog or Melebuganon of the Zamboanga peninsula and the Yakans of Basilan.After the Philippine Commonwealth has been established in 1935,the politic and economic rights of the Moros has been ignored or deprived by the majority group of Philippine,the Catholic Filipinos,and the Moros has founded several armed separatism organizations as the MNLF,MILF and the Abu Sayyaf,which was deep connected with the al-Qaeda and ISIS.Under the conflict,the situation of southern Philippine has been full of chaos for decades.In the first part of this paper,we will have an overview of the Moro groups,include the religion,culture,legal custom and society issues.In the second part,we will analyse the so called "Moro Problem" by using the method of Benedict Anderson and his "Imagined Communities " theory,and find out how the recognition of the Moros established,then we are trying to get the answer of how the armed separatism was accepted and chosen by the Moros and why they keep fighting against with the Manila government of Philippine for years.