Jabidah massacre
Encyclopedia
The Jabidah massacre, also known as the Corregidor massacre, refers to an incident in which members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
(AFP) massacred a number of Moro Muslim
recruits under their supervision. Sources differ regarding the details, with the number of victims ranging from 14 to 68, and some sources asserting that the massacre is a myth. The Jabidah Massacre is widely regarded as having been the catalyst behind the modern Moro insurgencies in the Southern Philippines.
, which had been under British
control since the late nineteenth-century, formally became part of the Federation of Malaysia. The Philippines, however, protested this, claiming that Sabah had never been sold to foreign interests, and that it had only been leased (padjak) by the Sulu Sultanate and therefore remained the property of the Sultan and by extension the property of Republic of the Philippines.
then later on Ferdinand Marcos
to establish special military units tasked with fomenting dissent amongst Sabah's non-Malay ethnic groups, namely the Tausug and Sama
, two groups closely aligned ethnically and culturally with the Bangsamoro
.
The code-name of this destabilization programme was "Operation Merdeka" (Operation Freedom), with Manuel Syquio as project leader and then Maj. Eduardo Abdul Latif Martelino as operations officer. The end-game of this is the annexation of Sabah to the Republic of the Philippines. The plan involved the recruitment of nearly 200 Tausug and Sama Muslims aged 18 to 30 from Sulu and Tawi-Tawi
and their training in the island-town of Simunul in Tawi-Tawi. Simunul was where the Arab missionary Makhdum built the first mosque
in the Philippines in the 13th century. The recruits felt giddy about the promise not only of a monthly allowance, but also over the prospect of eventually becoming a member of an elite unit in the Philippine Armed Forces. From August to December 1967, the young recruits underwent training in Simunul. The name of the commando unit: Jabidah.
On December 30, 1967, 135 to 180 recruits boarded a Philippine Navy vessel for the island of Corregidor in Luzon for "specialized training."
This second phase of the training turned mutinous when the recruits discovered their true mission. It struck the recruits that the plan would mean not only fighting their brother Muslims in Sabah, but also possibly killing their own Tausug and Sama relatives living there. Additionally, the recruits had already begun to feel disgruntled over the non-payment of the promised monthly stipend. The recruits then demanded to be returned home.
by their military handlers. Arula, who was wounded in the left knee, managed to attach himself to driftwood
long enough to be rescued by fishermen from the nearby island of Cavite
.
Though there has never been an official count, the number of dead ranges from 28. As of 1980,some of the axe-bearing military trainers of jabidah were even in the active service, particularly in the 2nd Army (sep), 2nd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army wearing the Jabidah pin.
held a week long protest vigil over an empty coffin marked ‘Jabidah’ in front of the presidential palace. They claimed “at least 28” Moro army recruits had been murdered. Court-martial proceedings were brought against twenty-three military personnel involved. There was also a firestorm in the Philippine press, attacking not so much the soldiers involved, but the culpability of a government administration that would foment such a plot, and then seek to cover it up by wholesale murder.
Despite the court-martial proceedings and a preliminary Supreme Court hearing held in 1970 with Eduardo L. Martelino, Cirilo Oropesa, Teodoro Facelo, Ruperto Amisoto, Alberto Soteco, Solferino Titong, et al. as petitioners, the case disappeared into the thickets of the Philippine justice system and no real punishment was ever handed-down to the accused.
and, later, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
.
For years, Muslims of the Philippines had been complaining of official discrimination by consecutive Philippine governments and the Catholic
majority. This included discrimination in housing and education, as well as lack of government funding for the majority-Muslim South. Coupled with the official government policy of settling Catholic Filipino
emigrants in Mindanao, a class of radical Moro intellectuals emerged, led by student activist Nur Misuari
.
The Jabidah Massacre further radicalized Muslims in the Philippines, leading some to take up arms in the style of the CPP
. This new organization, formed in the early 1970s and led by Misuari, was named the Moro National Liberation Front. Following a split over the role of Islam
in a Bangsamoro state, a new, more conservative movement emerged in 1981, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Armed Forces of the Philippines
The Armed Forces of the Philippines is composed of the Philippine Army, Philippine Navy and Philippine Air Force...
(AFP) massacred a number of Moro Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
recruits under their supervision. Sources differ regarding the details, with the number of victims ranging from 14 to 68, and some sources asserting that the massacre is a myth. The Jabidah Massacre is widely regarded as having been the catalyst behind the modern Moro insurgencies in the Southern Philippines.
Background
In 1963, the resource-rich island of SabahSabah
Sabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...
, which had been under British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
control since the late nineteenth-century, formally became part of the Federation of Malaysia. The Philippines, however, protested this, claiming that Sabah had never been sold to foreign interests, and that it had only been leased (padjak) by the Sulu Sultanate and therefore remained the property of the Sultan and by extension the property of Republic of the Philippines.
Operation Merdeka
This dispute led the-then Philippine presidents Diosdado MacapagalDiosdado Macapagal
Diosdado Pangan Macapagal was the ninth President of the Philippines, serving from 1961 to 1965, and the sixth Vice President, serving from 1957 to 1961. He also served as a member of the House of Representatives, and headed the Constitutional Convention of 1970...
then later on Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos, Sr. was a Filipino leader and an authoritarian President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives and a member of the Philippine Senate...
to establish special military units tasked with fomenting dissent amongst Sabah's non-Malay ethnic groups, namely the Tausug and Sama
Bajau
The Bajau or Bajaw , also spelled Bajao, Badjau, Badjaw, or Badjao, are an indigenous ethnic group of Maritime Southeast Asia...
, two groups closely aligned ethnically and culturally with the Bangsamoro
Bangsamoro
The term Bangsamoro refers to a people who are natives or original inhabitants of the island of Mindanao and its adjacent islands in the Philippines, including Palawan and the Sulu archipelago at the time of conquest or colonization...
.
The code-name of this destabilization programme was "Operation Merdeka" (Operation Freedom), with Manuel Syquio as project leader and then Maj. Eduardo Abdul Latif Martelino as operations officer. The end-game of this is the annexation of Sabah to the Republic of the Philippines. The plan involved the recruitment of nearly 200 Tausug and Sama Muslims aged 18 to 30 from Sulu and Tawi-Tawi
Tawi-Tawi
Tawi-Tawi is an island province of the Philippines located in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao . The capital of Tawi-Tawi is Bongao. The province is the southernmost of the country sharing sea borders with the Malaysian State of Sabah and the Indonesian East Kalimantan province. To the...
and their training in the island-town of Simunul in Tawi-Tawi. Simunul was where the Arab missionary Makhdum built the first mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
in the Philippines in the 13th century. The recruits felt giddy about the promise not only of a monthly allowance, but also over the prospect of eventually becoming a member of an elite unit in the Philippine Armed Forces. From August to December 1967, the young recruits underwent training in Simunul. The name of the commando unit: Jabidah.
On December 30, 1967, 135 to 180 recruits boarded a Philippine Navy vessel for the island of Corregidor in Luzon for "specialized training."
This second phase of the training turned mutinous when the recruits discovered their true mission. It struck the recruits that the plan would mean not only fighting their brother Muslims in Sabah, but also possibly killing their own Tausug and Sama relatives living there. Additionally, the recruits had already begun to feel disgruntled over the non-payment of the promised monthly stipend. The recruits then demanded to be returned home.
The massacre
The sole survivor of the Massacre, Jibin Arula, recounted how the young Moro recruits were taken in batches of twelve to a remote airstrip where they were executed with machine gunMachine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
by their military handlers. Arula, who was wounded in the left knee, managed to attach himself to driftwood
Driftwood
Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea or river by the action of winds, tides, waves or man. It is a form of marine debris or tidewrack....
long enough to be rescued by fishermen from the nearby island of Cavite
Cavite
Cavite is a province of the Philippines located on the southern shores of Manila Bay in the CALABARZON region in Luzon, just 30 kilometers south of Manila. Cavite is surrounded by Laguna to the east, Metro Manila to the northeast, and Batangas to the south...
.
Though there has never been an official count, the number of dead ranges from 28. As of 1980,some of the axe-bearing military trainers of jabidah were even in the active service, particularly in the 2nd Army (sep), 2nd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army wearing the Jabidah pin.
Aftermath
The truth of the massacre took some time to emerge. In March 1968 Moro students in ManilaManila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
held a week long protest vigil over an empty coffin marked ‘Jabidah’ in front of the presidential palace. They claimed “at least 28” Moro army recruits had been murdered. Court-martial proceedings were brought against twenty-three military personnel involved. There was also a firestorm in the Philippine press, attacking not so much the soldiers involved, but the culpability of a government administration that would foment such a plot, and then seek to cover it up by wholesale murder.
Despite the court-martial proceedings and a preliminary Supreme Court hearing held in 1970 with Eduardo L. Martelino, Cirilo Oropesa, Teodoro Facelo, Ruperto Amisoto, Alberto Soteco, Solferino Titong, et al. as petitioners, the case disappeared into the thickets of the Philippine justice system and no real punishment was ever handed-down to the accused.
Insurgency
The main legacy of the Jabidah massacre was the crystallization of Moro discontent and the subsequent formation of the Moro National Liberation FrontMoro National Liberation Front
The Moro National Liberation Front is a political organization that was founded by Nur Misuari in 1969. The MNLF struggles against the Philippine Government to achieve independence of the Bangsamoro Land...
and, later, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
Moro Islamic Liberation Front
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is an Islamist group located in the southern Philippines. It is one of two Islamic militant groups, the other being the Abu Sayyaf, that are fighting against Government of the Philippines...
.
For years, Muslims of the Philippines had been complaining of official discrimination by consecutive Philippine governments and the Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
majority. This included discrimination in housing and education, as well as lack of government funding for the majority-Muslim South. Coupled with the official government policy of settling Catholic Filipino
Filipino people
The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....
emigrants in Mindanao, a class of radical Moro intellectuals emerged, led by student activist Nur Misuari
Nur Misuari
Nur Misuari is a moro politician and former leader of the Moro National Liberation Front. He completed his education through academic scholarships at the University of the Philippines and became a student activist...
.
The Jabidah Massacre further radicalized Muslims in the Philippines, leading some to take up arms in the style of the CPP
Communist Party of the Philippines
The Communist Party of the Philippines is a leading communist party in the Philippines. It remains an underground political organization since its founding on December 26, 1968 and has been operating in clandestine manner since its founding...
. This new organization, formed in the early 1970s and led by Misuari, was named the Moro National Liberation Front. Following a split over the role of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
in a Bangsamoro state, a new, more conservative movement emerged in 1981, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
See also
- Moro Islamic Liberation FrontMoro Islamic Liberation FrontThe Moro Islamic Liberation Front is an Islamist group located in the southern Philippines. It is one of two Islamic militant groups, the other being the Abu Sayyaf, that are fighting against Government of the Philippines...
- Islamic insurgency in the PhilippinesIslamic Insurgency in the PhilippinesThe Islamic insurgency in the Philippines refers to conflicts between Jihadist rebel groups and the Philippine government and its supporters...
- BangsamoroBangsamoroThe term Bangsamoro refers to a people who are natives or original inhabitants of the island of Mindanao and its adjacent islands in the Philippines, including Palawan and the Sulu archipelago at the time of conquest or colonization...
- Moro people
- Islam in the PhilippinesIslam in the PhilippinesIslam is the oldest recorded monotheistic religion in the Philippines. Islam reached the Philippines between the 12th and 14th century with the arrival of Muslim traders from Persian Gulf and the Malabar Coast in Southern India, and their followers from several sultanate governments in the Malay...
- Moro National Liberation FrontMoro National Liberation FrontThe Moro National Liberation Front is a political organization that was founded by Nur Misuari in 1969. The MNLF struggles against the Philippine Government to achieve independence of the Bangsamoro Land...
- Moro RebellionMoro RebellionThe Moro Rebellion was an armed military conflict between Moro revolutionary groups in the Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan and the United States military which took place in the Philippines as early as between 1899 to 1913, following the Spanish-American War in 1898...