The older Moro National Liberation Front fragmented into factions after the group and the Filipino government signed a peace treaty in 1996…. it disaggregated a large insurgent group into multiple factions

This is simply wrong. The MILF split from the MNLF began in 1977, in Jeddah, during negotiations between the MNLF and Philippine Government representatives. Hashim Salamat and other Maguindanao and Maranao MNLF leaders, upset at the way MNLF Chain Nur Misuari was handling the negotiations, tried to take over leadership of the organization. Misuari denounced them as traitors and expelled them. They set up their own group, the “New MNLF”, and formally initiated the MILF in 1984. The Abu Sayyaf formed in 1990-91.

This is not obscure information, it’s available to anyone with access to Google and 5 spare minutes. I find it disturbing that an article like this can be published apparently without the slightest attempt to check basic facts.

This is not a minor detail. The presumption appears to be that this process of “disaggregation” disables the insurgency. If you look at the actual track record in Mindanao since the split, the disaggregation has made the fight more difficult. “Disaggregated” groups, such as the MILF and ASG, are more radical, less susceptible to negotiation, and more inclined to associate with international terrorist groups. Recently the MILF itself has shown a tendency to splinter, with disaggregated groups proving to be less inclined to engage in a peace process, more violent, and more inclined to harbor JI terrorists. They are also not necessarily easier to defeat, either militarily or politically. The failure of the MILF Central Committee to bring back any results from its negotiations and generally more moderate stance has enhanced the prestige of the breakaway radicals and raised the possibility that the entire organization may shift in that direction.

Abu Sayyaf is an international terrorist organization with ties to al Qaeda and part of the global insurgency being waged from New York to Iran, from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Pakistan and Thailand to Indonesia and the Philippines. Two other networks – for they are that more than armies – are Moro separatists…

This is a glib oversimplification that has been reappearing in many of the more superficial articles published on Mindanao. The MILF’s ties to JI and AQ are deeper and more continuous than ASG’s. The MILF often disowns ASG and publicly announces withdrawals from areas where operations against ASG are ongoing, but at the same time the MILF or some of its constituent parts will be cooperating with ASG, and with groups like the Pentagon and Al Khobar gangs, which do exactly the same things as ASG but are generally referred to as criminal syndicates, rather than terrorist groups.

ASG has been through a series of discontinuities in both leadership and agenda, wandering across a continuum between Islamist terrorism and outright banditry. ASG has reached its peak in manpower and influence in its purest bandit incarnation: ASG’s expansion in 2000-2002 was a consequence of large ransom payments, not a sudden burst of enthusiasm for jihad. ASG has been most effective as a terrorist group when its manpower resources and territorial control have been severely constrained, and at one point military success against the bandit incarnation of the ASG generated greater connections to foreign terrorist groups and a return to a terrorist agenda.

This article does not seem to have been supported by much real research into the backgrounds and histories of these organizations – bearing in mind of course that much of the secondary source material on these issues is highly questionable and based on information from individuals and institutions with vested interests in a particular presentation of events.

The battles between the AFP and Abu Sayyaf and MNLF make the papers, but they miss the real story of the counterinsurgency in the Philippines. The real story is the movement of the populace away from support for conflict and toward a support for the peace processes. This has followed “a shift in strategy since April,” according to Raphael, to focus on what are called civil military operations, which focus on dealing with problems afflicting the people. “A lot of the villages have insufficient water,” the general said. “They have no schools. We are doing massive infrastructure projects.” Acting in cooperation with the JSOTF-P, the AFP have held numerous meetings at which medical treatment is provided to anyone who showed up, with any problem that could be handle in the field. The AFP has built schools and community centers…

Meanwhile, the villagers – deciding whether to support the guerrilla – examine the situation based on their self-interest. If the government defends their interests and does not oppress, the villagers often choose prosperity over conflict. If the government is corrupt and suppresses the things they care about, the people often support an insurgency.

The problem with this formulation is that the government IS corrupt. Corruption is institutionalized and embedded, and has been for generations. Why do you think there are no schools, water systems, or health care; why do you think these projects are necessary? Corruption is not just a matter of appropriating money, imposing huge kickbacks, etc. Virtually every politician on Mindanao maintains a private armed force accountable to nobody but the boss. These forces are used to ruthlessly suppress dissent and political or economic competition.

This corruption cannot be fought by training or education of civilian and military officials. Corruption exists not because leaders aren’t aware of its adverse affects, but because it is extremely profitable, and because an entrenched culture of immunity has virtually eliminated risk associated with corruption.

Corrupt officials do not have horns and tails. The articulate, sophisticated politician who parrots back all the rhetoric of international development for beaming American visitors is likely to be the same one who’s been raiding the treasury, collaborating with bandits, and maintaining a squad of goons to make sure nobody interferes with personal interests. The officer who recites COIN dogma and speaks earnestly of hearts and minds may be the same one who has sold arms to the ASG, taken cuts of ransom payments, and participated in a list of human rights violations as long as your arm – if you’re Yao Ming. The guy sitting next to him in the same uniform may be completely straight, but he will never rat out the guy sitting beside him, partly because the culture of institutional loyalty forbids it, partly because talking too loudly can endanger a career, and at times a life.

The US has an advantage here that it lacks in many GWOT theaters. Aside from a tiny cadre of ideologues, the anti-US rhetoric of the Islamic fundamentalists has very little traction in Mindanao. Philippine Muslims generally don’t care about Israel and the Palestinians, American influence in Saudi Arabia, or American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan: their concerns are a lot closer to home. They do appreciate the projects, though they know quite well that the money isn’t coming from the Philippine government. More than that, they appreciate the impact that the US presence has had on the Philippine military: a Muslim cleric related by marriage to a senior ASG leader once told me that the human rights performance of Philippine troops is “1000 times better” when Americans are around.

The US has won some hearts and minds. The problem with that is that the US is not a party to the conflict. If this change is to mean anything, the respect earned by the US has to be transferred to the Philippine government, and that is not happening. People will tell us whatever we want to hear as long as we’re the big dog on the block, but everyone down there knows that the Americans will leave, and when they do the same people who have been ripping them off and kicking them in the teeth for the last 40 years will still be in control.

You cannot measure progress in Mindanao by Commanders killed or captured, or by transient territorial gains, or by forced rearrangements of the alphabet soup of insurgent acronyms: all this has been done before, with little to show for it in the long term. A better measure of progress would be evidence that the culture of impunity that lies at the core of Mindanao’s institutionalized crisis is finally being addressed. A real indication of progress would be a few Congressman, Governors, Mayors, Generals successfully prosecuted for corruption and collusion with terrorists and criminals, private armed forces disbanded and their members called to account for their crimes, members of Christian militias prosecuted for killing Muslim civilians. The first challenge faced by the Philippine Government is not to defeat insurgents, but to bring its own representatives within the rule of law.

US forces cannot “win” the fight in Mindanao. All they can be expected to do is to create a secure space for the Philippine Government to step in, not with cosmetic projects but with real reforms in governance. Unfortunately there is little to suggest that the Philippine government has the will or the capacity to do this.