User:Chieharumachi/sandbox/Martyrs

From Mindanao

Rising conflicts during the early M presidency
The election of Ferdinand Marcos as President of the Philippines saw a large influx of Christian groups settling in Mindanao, displacing many locals and resulting in numerous land ownership conflicts. The Marcos administration encouraged these new settlers to form militias, which were eventually nicknamed the Ilaga. The Ilaga were often associated with committed human rights abuses targeted at the Moro and Lumad people. This resulted in a lingering animosity and a cycle of violence between Moro and Christian communities which still persists today.

From March 1970 to January 1972, the Ilaga committed 22 massacres resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Muslim civilians. The violence reached a climax with the June 19, 1971 massacre of 70 -79 Maguindanaon civilians - women, children and elders - in a mosque in Manili, Carmen, North Cotabato. Fearing for their lives, many Maranao Muslims civilians fled to take shelter in the Lanao del Norte. Some Muslims formed small militant groups to counter the Ilaga. One such group was called the "Barracudas" and in September 1971, the Barracudas clashed with the Ilagas resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people on both sides a conflict that has been referred to as "the battle of Lanao del Norte." The skirmishes continued until October, and over 60 Muslim houses were torched by the Ilaga.

Despite this violence, prominent Moro thought leaders were mostly not politically active until the news of the 1968 Jabidah massacre ignited the Moro insurgency. Reports of Moro men being recruited into the Philippine Army and then being massacred when they had a dispute with their commanding officers led to the conviction that Moros were being treated as second class citizens. Ethnic tensions arising from this led to the formation of secessionist political movements, such as Cotabato Governor Datu Udtog Matalam's Muslim Independence Movement and Lanao del Sur congressman Haroun al-Rashid Lucman's Bangsamoro Liberation Organization.

Additionally, the 1969 Philippine balance of payments crisis led to social unrest throughout the country, and violent crackdowns on protests led to the radicalization of many students, with some joining the New People's Army, bringing the Communist rebellion to Mindanao for the first time.

1972
Towards the end of the last term allowed to him by the Philippine Constitution, Marcos placed the Philippines under Martial Law in 1972, which had the effect of further increasing tensions in Mindanao. It marked the beginning of a 14-year period of one-man rule, historically remembered for its human rights abuses In Iligan, one incident documented by a 1975 fact finding mission of Amnesty International documented the killing of twelve detainees, which was staged the incident to make it look like a prison break. . The witness was himself detained without a warrant at the time, and was regularly being subjected to torture and forced labor. The proclamation of Martial law also helped escalate the moro secessionist situation by banning political parties and organizatiions. The formal establishment of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) one month after Marcos' proclamation of Martial Law thus marked a shift to a more military phase of the Moro conflict, taking in the members of the former BMLO, and attracting members who had become dissatisfied with the MIM. Lanao Del Sur and Iligan itself were deeply affected by the conflict, with the Armed Forces of the Philippines' conflicts with MNLF and its later splinter group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) affecting combatants and civilians alike.

Aside from political groups, Marcos' proclamation of Martial law also shuttered press outlets - television stations, national newspapers, weekly magazines, community newspapers, and radio stations - throughout the country, including in Iligan and Lanao Del Sur. The 14 years of the Marcos dictatorship saw the killings of many Mindanao journalists, with prominent examples being Bulletin Today Lanao provincial correspondent Demosthenes Dingcong, Philippine Post Iligan correspondent and radio commentator Geoffrey Siao,  and DXWG Iligan commentator Charlie Aberilla.