” A Centenary for Mindanao Development (1903-2003): The origins of American social engineering in the Southern Philippines.”
In 1890, ten years prior to the entry of American forces in the Southern Philippines, Spanish military-civilian authorities divided Mindanao into five “distritos” – (1) Zamboanga, (2) Misamis, (3) Surigao, (4) Davao, and (5) Cotabato. At the turn off the century, the areas inhabited by Moros and Lumads [indigenous hill tribes] were still outside the provincial and municipal governance system that characterized “hispanized” Visayas and Luzon.
The succeeding American military-civilian authorities set aside two norhern districts of Misamis and Surigao and concentrated their efforts at social engineering on areas heavily populated by Moros and Lumads – Sulu, Zamboanga, Lanao, Davao and Cotabato. In 1903 these five areas were consolidated into one large administrative unit known as the “Moro Province.” In 1913, the Moro Province was abolished and all five districts were transformed into regular provinces under a new administrative unit called the Department of Mindanao and Sulu. The area placed under the jurisdiction of the Province of Cotabato was so extensive as to earn the title of “imperial province.”
After World War II, Cotabato was subdivided, under political and economic forces emanating from Manila, into current smaller provinces of (1) North Cotabato, (2) Magindanao, (3) Sultan Kudarat, (4) South Cotabato, and (5) Saranggani.
Mindanao has had a long history of statecraft – the process of building a political community larger than the narrow loyalties of small tribal villages. Locally initiated statecraft formations were made by Sultan Kudarat who led the fist Magindanao segmentary state in the 17th century. Similarly Tausug sultans maintained their own segmentary state in Sulu. Several European powers have made similar attempts at statecraft in the Southern Philippines. The Spaniards tried it through conversion and colonization, but failed. The Americans, too, briefly toyed with the idea of turning the Moro Province into an American territory similar to Hawaii, cutting it off from the rest of the Philippines. The recent secessionists attempts under the MNLF and MILF leadership may thus be viewed as part of this line of statecraft experiments.
The historical, anthropological, political and economic contexts and consequences of these experiments were brought into sharp focus by the Americans in 1903 when they formed the Moro Province, an act that now appears in retrospect to be the seed of contemporary secessionist ferment. The consequences, good and bad, of American social engineering in Mindanao, is significant enough in their wider ramifications to merit re-examination a century later. ”
