The History of the Philippines:
The Philippines came under Portuguese, then Spanish influence becoming a colony from the 16th century. From 1902 on the Philippines were a United States colony. In 1946 they gained independence. In 1986, President Marcos was overthrown by a people power movement led by Corazon Aquino, who became the new president. Since then, there have been more than a dozen military coup attempts. The political system is copied from the U.S. system with two houses and power mainly being with the President.
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The Government of the Philippines:
Since May 2004, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is President, after having held this office as acting president since she replaced Joseph Estrada. Joseph Estrada was heavily attacked for mismanagement and toppled in a second “People Power Revolution” in 2001. She is also the chair of the strongest Philippine Party, Lakas-CMD.
The Population of the Philippines:
There are approximately 85 million people in the Philippines. The majority are Christians, with 5 Million Muslims, about 7% of the population. In Mindanao today, Muslims are less than 20% of around 14 Million inhabitants – the majority are Christian settlers coming only in the last century. Mindanao is also home to many Lumads or ‘Indigenous People’, consisting in fact of a number of different peoples with different languages but often lumped together as Lumads.
The main guerrilla, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), signed a peace treaty (“Final Peace Agreement”) with the Philippine government (GRP) in 1996. Today they are part of the governments in the provinces forming the “Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao” (ARMM). The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that had split off from the MNLF, continued the fighting. Ceasefire agreements and peace negotiations with the MILF broke down several times. In July 2003, the government signed a new ceasefire with MILF ahead of talks in Malaysia. These negotiations are under way, and mechanisms and structures for the monitoring of the cease-fire have been created. However, tensions between the three parties have led several times to (regionally contained) armed confrontations, most often in the Sulu region where also other more radical small groups (like Abu Sayyaf) are active.
The cease-fire is being monitored by an official mechanism that includes both the government and the MILF and that has four elements: The Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities(CCCH), Local Monitoring Teams, an International Monitoring Team staffed mostly by Malaysia, and an Ad hoc Joint Action Group. The CCCH has set up Monitoring Posts in the conflict areas that are manned by government and MILF soldiers as well as with representatives of local civil society initiatives. The extraordinary feature of this set-up is the close involvement of several hundreds of local civil society peace-keepers who mostly work in a voluntary capacity.
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