[IRIN] Mindanao is on the verge of a hard-won peace deal granting greater autonomy to minority Muslims. But on the edges of sprawling Liguasan Marsh, civilians like Tamano Bandila are bracing for more violence. He fled his home last year, after hearing rumours that militants linked to the Islamic State were near. He said, "I’m worried that ISIS will come back and recruit the youth and there will be more conflict,” he said, adding that civilians would be the collateral damage.Bandila’s home is in the middle of the central Mindanao marshlands that is also a stronghold of the island’s largest Muslim armed group – the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. For more than 40 years, grievances among the island’s Moro Muslims have fuelled a separatist movement that has battled the Philippine army.
The backdrop is last year’s five-month siege of Marawi, where fighting levelled the city and uprooted 360,000 people. The destruction both deepened long-held frustrations and raised fears that further missteps in the peace process will fuel extremism.
The government declared an end to the Marawi siege in October, but clashes with Islamist militants continue in places like the Liguasan Marsh. Here, the MILF has done what was once unimaginable: formed an uneasy alliance with the Philippine army
Today, the MILF and the military coordinate operations in the vast marshlands: the army providing airstrikes while MILF fighters lead the charge on the ground. MILF spokesman Von Al-Haq said, “We are the one who assaults the enemy directly."
President Rodrigo Duterte is on the cusp of signing – as early as this week – the Bangsamoro Organic Law, implementing the peace accord and granting greater autonomy and fiscal powers to a Moro Muslim homeland on Mindanao. Sky-high expectations surround the peace agreement, but local community groups worry that in practice, the resulting law will be stripped back from what was originally negotiated in 2014.The Philippine Congress has wrangled over matters of tax revenue, control over resources and waterways, and even the basic question of how outlying municipalities will accede to a new autonomous territory. While the MILF says the current agreement is an imperfect but acceptable new beginning, Islamist militants are likely to use any failings in the resulting deal as fodder in the future.