Trade

At no time in history had the issue of Mindanao independence been brought to a critical point as it is today. The issue had already been expressed as early as 1910 when the Zamboanga business sector presented a written petition to isolate the island for the development of "plantation interests". The same sentiment was aired in the written petition of Muslim datus, sultans, and leaders in 1930 when the question of Philippine independence from the United States elicited Muslim preference for exclusion from the projected free Philippines under Filipino rule. Then in the late 1970s the Independence aspiration of Mindanao was again revived by the Mindanao Independence Movement of DatuUdtogMatalam of PagalunganCotabato, Ruben Canoy of Cagayan de Oro, and NurMisuari of the Moro National Liberation Front. Only the latter succeeded in achieving a compromise agreement known as the Tripoli Agreement on December 23, 1976 through the mediation of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). Although the OIC explanation was for the Agreement to be a Comprehensive representation of the Filipino Muslim Community, this was not acceptable to HashimSalamat and his MILF. This was where the critical point began from the Muslim perspective creating the problems, ambiguities, and dilemma in the government responses to the Mindanao conflict.

The government from Marcos to Estrada operated on the clear premises of the Tripoli Agreement that autonomy not independence was to be the framework of any resolution of issues and conflict and that the Philippine Constitution would be the point of reference for the definition of the meaningful extent of autonomy. But what the government has ignored and belittled were certain fundamental realities and facts that have remained active in Muslim consciousness:

"The present democratic system is not sufficient for real autonomy the Muslims may accept short of total independence. It must be something where the Christian majority has no more say