I suspect there is a little bias and a couple of inaccuracies in that piece, but if one can look past that to the essence, the tone, to the populace's perception, one gets an idea of why this nation has never been able to resolve the conditions that give rise to such persistance of insurgent challenge.

Many want to argue "facts" but facts mean little in insurgnecy, what matters is perception. The final sentence is telling:

"As insurgency expert Robert Kilcullen notes, the aim of counter-insurgency is to “return the insurgency’s parent society to its normal mode of interaction.” In the Philippines it is the normal mode of interaction itself which promotes insurgency, with the veneer of Philippine ‘democracy’ and economic growth sating only the relatively few who benefit from it."