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The Unifying and Divisive Effects
of Social Identities: Religious and
Ethnopolitical Identities Among
Mindanao Muslims in the Philippines
Ma. Elizabeth J. Macapagal,1Cristina J. Montiel,1and Jose Jowel P. Canuday2
1Department of Psychology and Institute of Philippine Culture,Ateneo de Manila University,Philippines
2Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Institute of Philippine Culture,Ateneo de Manila University,Philippines
The present study looks into the unifying and divisive effects of ethnopolitical and religious social
identities, and an emerging superordinate Bangsamoro identity of Muslims in the southern region of
the Philippines. We surveyed 394 Muslims with a mean age of 32.6 and standard deviation of 13.3 from
the Tausug, Maranao, and Maguindanaoan ethnopolitical affiliations using various measures of social
identities. Findings showed that the Muslims in our sample identify themselves more strongly with their
religious identity over their ethnopolitical affiliations. Religious identity may thus be a unifying element in
the conflict-ridden context of Mindanao, as a significant correlation was also found between their Muslim
identity and attitudes toward the superordinate Bangsamoro identity. Qualitative data on the meaning
of Bangsamoro were also analysed and revealed that Bangsamoro means a fusion of Mindanao, Islam,
and peace/unity. However, data also reveal the divisive effects of ethnic identity. A moderately high
overlap was found between their own ethnic identity and the Bangsamoro identity. The Tausugs, the
low-power group in the peace talks, showed lesser overlap compared to Maguinanaons, suggesting
that ethnopolitical, or what observers of Mindanao conflict have referred to as ‘tribal’ relations, implicates
the respondent’s perception of a superordinate Bangsamoro identity.
Keywords: Muslim Mindanao, Bangsamoro, social identity, religious identity, ethnopolitical identity
Within the year of the election of President Rodrigo
Duterte in May 2016, the competing Bangsamoro armed
formations of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) sepa-
rately but simultaneously engaged the government in a
new round of peace processes. Both formations are mov-
ing closer to finalise a comprehensive peace agreement for
a territorial autonomy with the Philippine government
and to end nearly half a century of violent secession-
ist warfare that in turn repeatedly displaced millions of
people in the Muslim enclaves of the southern island of
Mindanao in the Philippines (Ahmad, 2000; Oquist,
2002). Coincidentally, however, these remarkable initia-
tives were overshadowed by a fresh round of violence
launched by new rebel formations such as the Bangsamoro
Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in the villages of Maguin-
danao and North Cotabato on the one hand, and the so-
called Maute Group in the Islamic City of Marawi in May
2017 on the other.
Address for correspondence: Ma. Elizabeth J. Macapagal, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights Quezon City, Philippines 1108,
P.O. Box 154, Manila, Philippines. Email: mmacapagal@ateneo.edu
The continuing cycle of war-and-peace accords laid
bare the intricate dynamics of the Moro secessionist move-
ments in ways that also raise the question of how the
Muslim constituencies that they seek to represent align as
well as disentangle themselves from two long-standing
but sharply competing ethno-nationalist revolutionary
projects. This article examines these configurations by
looking at how Muslim communities associate and disas-
sociate themselves with the internal politics of secession-
ism in the immediate aftermath of the 2013 Zamboanga
violence and the forging of the 2014 peace agreement.
The latter was signed by former Philippine President Be-
nigno Aquino III as the Comprehensive Agreement for
the Bangsamoro. The agreement proposed a Bangsamoro
Basic Law (BBL), establishing a self-governing territory
for Islamised ethnic groups in Mindanao. The proposed
law asserted the unified identity of Muslim constituen-
cies in Mindanao as a ‘bangsa’ Moro (Moro nation), with
the goal of ending intergroup violence between Christians
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Ma. Elizabeth J. Macapagal, Cristina J. Montiel, and Jose Jowel P. Canuday
and Muslims in the southern region of Mindanao (Majul,
1973).
Historically, peacebuilding efforts in Mindanao have
focused on formation and training that helped increase
cultural understandings and tolerance of each other’s re-
ligions. We believe that understanding the nature of peace
and conflicts in Mindanao entails looking beyond the
conventional clash-of-religions narrative. Behind this so-
called religious divide is an ethnopolitical1discourse that
surfaced in the course of impassioned debates on the out-
comes of the peace negotiations and the BBL debates that
underpin detailed territorial dominion over land ceded
by the dominant Christian state (Montiel, de Guzman, &
Macapagal, 2012).
The discourse during peace talks has traditionally
been about a single Muslim territory referred to as the
Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM),
associated with the Tausug-led MNLF or the Bangsamoro
Juridical Entity (BJE) in the 2008 failed peace agree-
ment with the Maguindanao-influenced MILF. The
Comprehensive Agreement for the Bangsamoro calls for
the creation of an autonomous political entity named
‘Bangsamoro’, replacing the ARMM. Thus, the history of
Mindanao peacemaking in the Philippines seems to as-
sume a common identity for Muslims and does not seem
to recognise the underlying political and tribal contours in
Muslim Mindanao. The current study looks into these eth-
nopolitical as well as religious social identities of Muslims
in Mindanao in the Southern Philippines. It also looks
into an emerging superordinate identity, the Bangsamoro
identity.
Social Identities and Territorial Conflict
Social identity refers to one’s psychological position
on any social dimension; this position is shared and is
therefore not defined individually. Social identity theory
(Tajfel, 1978;Tajfel&Turner,1979) assumes that people
strive to maintain positive self-esteem. Because groups
contribute to one’s self-definition and self-evaluation,
people’s psychological attachment to their ingroups is an
important way in which self-esteem is regulated (Martiny
& Rubin, 2016).
Simon and Klandermans (2001) theorised about a par-
ticular kind of social identity called politicised collective
identity. They claim that this type of politicised identity
emergeswhensocialactorsmoveasmembersofagroup
and are involved in power struggles involving wider con-
texts beyond the protagonists and antagonists. Politicised
collective identities are likewise defined in relation to the
public-at-large (Simon & Klandermans, 2001) and are sat-
urated with history and culture (Huddy, 2001; Schwartz,
Dunkel, & Waterman, 2009;Seul,1999). In Mindanao’s
war-and-peace historical narrative, politicised collective
identities have been evoked as groups grapple with each
other in power contestations and also struggle to win over
local populations as well as global audiences (Tan, 1993).
In territorial conflicts, politicised collective identities
are closely attached to the land. Such identities pertain
to groups that occupy the contested land, or groups that
are seen as invading or grabbing the contested territory.
Political identities that arise during territorial conflicts are
often associated with religious and ethnic categories. Dur-
ing conflict, politicised religious identities provide moral
frameworks, institutions and rituals that meet the psycho-
logical and political needs of warring groups. Seul (1999)
emphasised the intricate meshing of religious identity and
conflict as he claims that ‘the peculiar ability of religion to
serve the human identity impulse thus may partially ex-
plain why intergroup conflict so frequently occurs along
religious fault lines’ (p. 553). One example of a territorial
conflict saturated with religious identities is the Israel-
Palestine conflict, which evokes the religious categories
of Jews versus Muslims, not only within the geographical
boundaries of the conflict, but also in a global narrative of
Jews versus Muslims.
However, identities evoked during territorial conflicts
may not be predominantly religious, but rather ethnic.
Ethnic identity is a social identity of group members who
are bound together by some combination of common an-
cestry, shared history, language, and valued cultural traits
(Chandra, 2006;Gurr&Moore,1997). The largest concep-
tual subcategory of ethnic identity is a classification that
encompasses descent-based attributes (Chandra, 2006).
Because ethnic identities are linked with descent and an-
cestries, such identities hold meaningful implications vis-
a-vis two factors crucial in territorial conflicts: territory
and religious identities.
First, territory is closely associated with ethnic iden-
tity (Buendia, 2005). Individuals who share a common
descent and set of ancestors tend to share proximal space;
hence, ethnic groups coagulate within defined territo-
rial boundaries (Chandra, 2006). Carrying this argu-
ment further, then, territorial discourses evoke ethnic
identities.
A politicised ethnic identity emerges when one’s
reference group shares ‘some combination of common
descent, shared historical experiences, and valued cultural
traits . . . (activated when making) claims on behalf of
their collective interests against either a state or other
groups’ (Gurr & Moore, 1997, p, 1081). The element of
common descent is important in politicised ethnic identi-
ties, but not in politicised religious identities. The notion
of common descent in ethnic identity can be elaborated
to include sharing a common ancestral language, place of
origin, tribe, or religion. Further, a geographical category
can be an ethnic category only if this territorial category
includes the place of origin of one’s ancestors (Chandra,
2006). We take this argument further and point out that
in territorial conflicts, ethnic identities may be evoked
more passionately by groups who have had centuries-old
attachments to the contested land, rather than by the
migrant or settler groups. In the case of Mindanao, the
Muslims would be more tied to their ethnic identities
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Social Identities in Muslim Mindanao
than the migrant Christians. Thus, the current research
only focuses on Muslims in Mindanao.
In past decades, the concept of politicisation of so-
cial identity helped guide social psychological conceptu-
alisation of the idea of ethnopolitical consciousness and
its inherent contradiction. The politicisation of identity
unfolds when subjective forces move to deploy distinctive
narratives of culture and history as strategic issues that de-
fine themselves as a collective and rationalise their struggle
for power (Huddy 2001; Schwartz et al., 2009;Seul,1999;
Simon & Klandermans, 2001). Politicising social identity
to establish ethnopolitical consciousness necessitates that
subjective forces differentiate their interest from other eth-
nopolitical subjectivities in a manner that at times spurs
‘inter-ethnic’ difference and tensions (Ellis, 2010). These
views echo earlier analysis illustrating how ethnonational-
ist2and separatist political formations mobilised specific
historical narratives and ethno-linguistic distinctions to
evoke the sense of difference so great to the extent that
they can never be expected to share a territory, let alone
power (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1992;Turton,1998). More-
over, these ideas offer yet still useful analytical frames of
understanding identity formations that activate primor-
dial (cultural) and instrumental (material) conditions in
defining themselves as a political collectivity with a dis-
tinctively political identity.
Competing Identities in Muslim Mindanao
Distinctive language groups in Mindanao, which were
subsequently referred as tribes by Bangsamoro scholars,
were present even before the arrival of Islam in Min-
danao (Jubair, 1999). At around the time Islam arrived
in Mindanao through commercial traders, three domi-
nant yet territorially distant tribes had risen to politico-
economic superiority and had formed two sultanates. The
Tausugs, alongside with ethnic groups such as the Sama
and the Yakan, occupy areas across the Sulu Archipelago
and some parts of the Zamboanga Peninsula (Frake, 1998).
The Maguindanao (Magindanw’n) people thrived in the
riverine plains of the Cotabato region, covering the present
day Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces, while
the Maranao (M’ranaw) lived in areas surrounding Lake
Lanao and the coastal areas of the Lanao provinces. A
Maguindanao Sultanate had arisen along the downstream
banks of the Pulangi, the main river in Cotabato, in the
17thcenturybutsoondeclinedafterwards(Warren,2002).
The decimation of the Maguindanao Sultanate paved the
way for the rise of a Sulu Sultanate with Tausug speakers as
the core of its leadership in the 18th century until its dis-
integration two centuries later following U.S. occupation
of the Philippines (Warren, 1981). In the run-up to the
Philippine nation-state building following the country’s
independence in 1946, the clear-cut tribal dividing lines
of these ethnolinguistic groups have softened due to in-
termarriages and migration to each other’s communities
and the formalised national education introduced by the
government, even as they largely retained their respective
ancestral languages, lands, and sense of identification to
their genealogical roots.
The actual emergence of current secessionist forces,
however, can be tracked back to the rise of the Min-
danao Independence Movement (MIM) in Cotabato in
the 1960s (McKenna, 1998). Udtog Matalam and Salipada
Pendatun organised the MIM when communal violence
began spreading, pitting Muslim and Christian commu-
nities in the region (McKenna, 1998). Events unfolded in
the midst of growing Muslim social actions in Manila and
elsewhere over deepening poverty, dislocation, underde-
velopment, and increasing cases of unsolved killings across
the Muslim enclaves of Mindanao.
MIM lasted a few years after Matalam and other lead-
ers secured deals with the Marcos government to end
the fighting and earned political posts in the dictator-
ship (Lucman, 2000). The movement’s demise, however,
unleashed sentiments for secession by restive Muslim stu-
dents and intellectuals. The youth of the MIM transformed
the group into a fiercer and better organised Moro Na-
tional Liberation Front, with Nur Misuari as chair and
Salamat Hashim as his deputy in 1972 (Jubair, 1999). Un-
der the banner of the MNLF, Misuari, Hashim, and their
followers fashioned the Moro struggle in the likeness of the
growing nationalist movements elsewhere in the Middle
East (McKenna, 1998). In articulating the idea of a Moro
nation, the movement imagined Morohood as a collec-
tive identity of 13 Islamised ethnic communities across
the Southern Philippine region of Mindanao, Sulu, and
Palawan islands (Jubair, 1999).
Eventually, though, under the auspices of the Islamic
Conference of Foreign Ministers, the precursor of the Or-
ganisation of Islamic Cooperation, the MNLF negotiated
peace with the Marcos regime and sealed a deal in 1976
in Tripoli, Libya (Majul, 1985). The deal was clinched af-
ter the MNLF refined their demands from secession to
autonomy for a few provinces in Mindanao and Sulu.
Shortly after, however, the deal collapsed over sharp dis-
agreement with the central government’s insistence on
holding a referendum before delivering its commitment
of implementing the accord (Delos Santos, 1986). The
government unilaterally went ahead with the plebiscite,
prompting the MNLF to resume fighting for an inde-
pendent Bangsamoro state but under a radically changed
organisational circumstance. Immediately following the
peace accord, fissures shook the MNLF leadership, which
led Hashim to break off and form the MILF in the 1980s
(Gowing, 1988;Mastura,1984).
On the surface, the fragmentation appears to follow
ethnic fault lines, given that the secessionist movement
itself built up the idea of the Moro as constituted by di-
verse Islamised communities and that their leaders are
closely associated with their ethnic origins, with Misuari
being a Sama-Tausug native from Sulu and Hashim a
Maguindanao from Central Mindanao (Bertrand, 2000;
Buendia, 2005;Frake,1998; Montiel et al., 2012). Some
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Ma. Elizabeth J. Macapagal, Cristina J. Montiel, and Jose Jowel P. Canuday
commentators went as far as arguing that the idea of the
‘Bangsamoro . . . unifies the various Moro groups only to
a small degree. It is relevant politically in order to be heard
by the Philippine government or the international donor
community . . . In terms of content, the bands are weak,
the Muslims see themselves as members of their clans and
ethnic group, and only secondary as Muslims’ (Kreuzer,
2005, p. 22). They underscore the ethnic dimensions of
the Mindanao conflict but in a manner that underplays
the broader relations permeating its secessionist politics.
Dissecting the realignments of the subjective forces of
secessionism in Mindanao following its many episodes
of splintering, however, suggests an even more complex
configuration wherein association by ethnicities, religion,
and political interests converge and overlap even while
they also disconnect. The MILF subsequently built a core
leadership run by the ulama, with Hashim as simulta-
neously chief cleric and amirul (leader) of the move-
ment (Gutierrez, 1999). The group expanded and gained
widespread following in Central Mindanao, a Maguin-
danao and Maranao populated region. In contrast, the
MNLF thrived through a system of territorial revolution-
ary committees led primarily by secular military and po-
litical strategists or traditional village leaders, even as it
continued to concentrate on community organising and
military work in enclaves populated by different Islamised
ethnic communities (Mastura, 1984). At the helm of the
MNLF leadership was Misuari, an ethnic Sama-Tausug
political science professor. Nonetheless, when the MNLF
further split apart in the 2000s, Misuari’s loyal armed fol-
lowing narrowed down to specific villages of Sulu and
Basilan provinces in the Sulu archipelago, reflecting in
part the ethnic contours pointed earlier (Torres, 2014;
Canuday, 2014).
The foregoing discussion illustrates the tangled re-
lationships of ethno-politics and religion in Mindanao.
While fundamentally unified in imagining an indepen-
dent Bangsamoro and a shared Moro identity for all of
the region’s Muslim communities, competing movements
have mobilised and integrated, or were forced to contend
with ethnopolitical and religious forces as they positioned
themselves in the contested political environment of the
periphery. These processes, however, leave the question of
how communities in whose name Bangsamoro indepen-
denceisfoughthavecometoacceptorreject,associate
or dissociate themselves from such an agenda. In what
ways are religious and ethno-political identities becoming
inclusive in the context of the Bangsamoro question? In
what ways do they intersect and overlap?
Overlapping Social Identities
Are religious and ethnopolitical identities mutually ex-
clusive during social conflicts? On a theoretical plane, it
may be easy to disentangle religious and ethnic identi-
ties, because each type of social identity is marked by its
own set of characteristics. For example, during conflict,
the emergence of ethnic identities inspires political talk
about group territorial rights and social recognition of the
marginalised group. On the other hand, the rise of reli-
gious identities triggers proselytisation and the unpacking
of the social conflict along the language of one’s religion.
Further, the recent rise of political cyber-communication
has made a religious narrative rather than an ethnic sto-
ryline more likely to facilitate widespread support among
like-faithed groups globally.
But, on the ground, religious and ethnic identities are
more difficult to distinguish and may not be mutually
exclusive. During territorial conflict, both types of social
identities arise side by side with each other because terri-
torial spaces of conflicting groups likewise mark the fault-
lines along which ethnic groups and religions divide. For
example, the Bosnia-Croatia-Serbia conflict in the former
Yugoslavia was divided along Muslim-Catholic-Orthodox
lines (Powers, 1996), and the ongoing Tamil-Sinhalese
conflict in Sri Lanka is also a conflict between Christians
and Buddhists (DeVotta & Stone, 2008).
It is possible for ethnic social identities to overlap
under conditions when common ingroup identity does
not demand forswearing subordinate ethnopolitical iden-
tity (i.e., being Tausug, Maguindanaon or Maranao). In
this premise, it is possible to think about persons pursu-
ing multiple identities. This is particularly important in
societies with sustained ethnic conflict where it may be
challenging to abandon one’s original group membership
(Gaertner, Dovidio, & Bachman, 1996).
Moreover, conditions marked by violent ethnopoliti-
calconflictscanmotivatepeopletoadopttwoormore
strategic socio-political identities that place them in a po-
sition to express their inclusion in a broader formation, as
well as the distinctiveness of their immediate ethnic and
cultural affiliation (Brewer, 1991). Minority motivation to
associate with a superordinate identity loses importance
when a favourable socio-political condition emerges. One
way of dealing with such a circumstance is to understand
the political conditions that made it important for an
ethnic minority to maintain more than one strategic eth-
nopolitical identity. On this premise, this article proceeds
with the examination of overlapping subgroup or ethnic
social identities and common in-group or superordinate
(Bangsamoro) social identities. Overlapping social identi-
ties refers to the superordinate identity similarity, which is
whether they perceive their ethnopolitical social identity as
intersecting with the emerging superordinate Bangsamoro
identity.
The Bangsamoro Identity: An Emerging Superordinate Identity
Having overlapping social identities suggests that it is pos-
sible for the conflicting ethnopolitical groups to accept
a superordinate social identity. Based on the common
ingroup identity model developed by Gaertner and Do-
vidio (2000) to account for the dynamics of intergroup
contact, previously distinctive groups on some occasions
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Social Identities in Muslim Mindanao
recategorise themselves into a singular group welded to-
gether by a superordinate identity. If the secessionist dis-
course of historic political and cultural amalgamation
of Islamised ethnic identities of Mindanao holds, the
Tausugs, Maguinanaoans and Maranaos should see them-
selves as constituents of emerging superordinate identity,
which this study regards as an ethnopolitical Bangsamoro
form of identification.
While identification to a superordinate identity poten-
tially ameliorates intergroup solidarity, such an outcome
nonetheless hinges on knowing how an individual attitude
develops toward a particular superordinate identity within
a given political context (McKeown, 2014). Given the ten-
uousness of individual identification to intergroup soli-
darity, it is also possible to find variances in the degree to
which people who regard themselves as Tausug, Maguin-
danaon and Maranao associate with a Bangsamoro super-
ordinate identity. In this study, we investigated the atti-
tude and the extent of identification of Tausug, Maranao
and Maguindanaon ethnopolitical constituencies to the
Bangsamoro as a shared national identity.
Accepting a superordinate identity may be challenging
in societies with salient ethnic categorisations (Hewstone,
Rubin, & Willis, 2002). Historically competing groups and
minorities are likely to resist what they see as assimilation
into a superordinate category dominated by a majority
ethnic formation, or in the Bangsamoro case, a politically
dominant outgroup (Hewstone et al., 2002). In this situa-
tion, it is possible to imagine a superordinate identity being
regarded as a threat, in particular by a low status group that
harbours fears of the superordinate identity undermin-
ing subordinate constituency (Saguy, Dovidio, & Pratto,
2008). In the context of the Bangsamoro peacetalks, armed
formations with strongholds in Maguindanao province
and its proximate areas underpinned the leadership of
the MILF. MILF leaders, whose armed base hails mainly
from areas predominantly populated by Maguindanaon
speakers, set the terms of the negotiations with the gov-
ernment and claim to represent the broader interest of the
Bangsamoro people. The MNLF, the competing secession-
ist force with strongholds in the Tausug-predominated ar-
eas of Sulu, have found themselves precluded from the
government and MILF negotiations. ARMM constituents
in areas with stronger allegiances to the MNLF are within
the low status group. In this case, the negotiations for
the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro
left behind the constituencies of Sulu, a predominantly
Tausug-speaking area. In this connection, we posit that the
attitude of the respondents from Tausug-predominated
areas of Sulu would hold a degree of connection towards
a Bangsamoro superordinate identity.
Research Objectives
The present study aims to examine the different social
identities in Muslims in Mindanao, particularly their re-
ligious and ethnopolitical identities. We also examine the
possible overlap between the Muslim’s ethnic/tribal iden-
tity and the emerging superordinate Bangsamoro iden-
tity. As past literature has suggested, having overlapping
identities is possible and even particularly important in
societies with sustained ethnic conflict, where it may be
challenging to abandon one’s original group membership.
Finally, we posit that the low status group in the peace
talks, the Tausugs, will have less overlap with the emerg-
ing Bangsamoro identity compared to Maguindanaon and
Maranao ethnic tribes. Moreover, the Tausugs will have
less favourable acceptance of the emerging superordinate
Bangsamoro identity, having been excluded in the recent
peace talks and Agreement on the Bangsamoro.
Method
Sample
Our survey included 394 residents from selected political
centres of the ARMM (autonomous region), specifically
the cities of Jolo (n=157), Cotabato (n=151), and
Marawi (n=89). In terms of gender distribution, about
53% of the respondents of the study were females and 47%
males, with a mean age of 32.6 years old and standard
deviation of 13.3 years.
The minimum sample size required to conduct the sta-
tistical analysis (i.e., ttest and ANOVA) for a Cronbach’s
alpha of .05 and 90% power is set at 67 (Cohen, 1988).
Moreover, our sample distribution takes into account the
population sizes of three of the largest Islamised ethnopo-
litical groups in the autonomous region that observers of-
ten cite as the more dominant Bangsamoro constituencies
in Mindanao (Kamlian, 2003; National Statistics Office,
2002;Tan,1993). Our sample considers these broader pop-
ulation variations by proportionately assigning Tausug
and Maguindanaon speaking groups the greater num-
ber of respondents, being the more populous ethnopo-
litical formation among the Bangsamoro constituencies.
This proportion also takes into account that the armed
bases of the main Mindanao secessionist formations are
located mainly in provinces where both ethnopolitical
groups predominate. As discussed above, critical areas
of Tausug-predominated Sulu served as the citadel of an
MNLF faction while strategic parts of Maguindanoan-
dominated Maguindanao province have been reported as
an MILF stronghold (Kreuzer, 2005). Furthermore, we
factored Maranao-speaking respondents into the study
on the premise that they are often regarded as a major
Muslim ethnic ‘tribe’ (Kamlian, 2003).
Local researchers from colleges and universities in
these three areas recruited respondents from varied social
classes and occupations (e.g., teacher, student, govern-
ment employee, businessman, driver, soldier, nurse, social
worker). The respondents were categorised into the three
ethnopolitical groups based on self-report. All respon-
dents extended their informed consent and were assured
of confidentiality and anonymity.
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Ma. Elizabeth J. Macapagal, Cristina J. Montiel, and Jose Jowel P. Canuday
Measures
Respondents from the three sites were asked to reply to a
series of questions concerning their beliefs, thoughts, and
feelings about themselves and their ethnic tribe, religion,
and Bangsamoro. Specifically, they answered the following
three measures:
Social identity scales. Many social scientists have relied
on multi-item scales to measure social identity (Huddy,
2013). As such, to measure the respondents’ salience of
identification with their ethnopolitical ingroup (Tausug,
Maguindanaon, or Maranao) and religion (Muslim), we
adapted Cameron’s (2004) scale of social identification.
Respondents were asked to rate on a 5-point Likert-type
scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree)to5(strongly ag ree)
on nine items for the ethnic identity. Sample items in-
clude: ‘I often think about being [Tausug, Maranao or
Maguindanaon]’; ‘I often regret being a [Tausug, Maranao
or Maguindanaon]’; ‘I don’t feel a strong sense of being
connected to [Tausugs, Maranaos or Maguindanaons]’. A
similar scale for Muslim identity was used with 10 items
(e.g., ‘I often think about being a Muslim’; ‘I often re-
gretbeingaMuslim’;‘Idon’tfeelastrongsenseofbeing
connected to Muslims’).
A high score on the scales indicates strong identifi-
cation with their ethnopolitical or Muslim identity. Both
scales are highly reliable (α=.81 for ethnic identity and
.75 for Muslim identity). An array of studies on intergroup
behaviours and ethnic identity use the same scale, which
is known to be a valid measure of social identification
(McKeown, 2014; Obst, White, Mavor, & Baker, 2011).
Attitude towards Bangsamoro superordinate identity. To
determine the extent to which respondents associate the
Bangsamoro as an identity that they can easily adopt, a
four-item, 5-point Likert scale was used with the fol-
lowing items: (1) ‘I would feel happy belonging to one
Bangsamoro’; (2) ‘All Tausugs/Maguindanaon/Maranaos
would be happy belonging to one Bangsamoro’; (3) ‘A sin-
gle Bangsamoro identity is an identity that I could person-
ally accept’; (4) ‘A Bangsamoro identity is an identity that
all Tausugs/Maguindanaons/Maranaos could accept’. The
scale was patterned after McKeown’s (2014) superordi-
nate inclusion scale and was found to be reliable (α=.91)
and valid, with the four items loading onto a single factor
accounting for 79% of the variance.
Overlapping ethnic and Bangsamoro identities. To d e -
termine whether the Bangsamoro identity is perceived
as being similar to or intersecting with their eth-
nopolitical social identity, participants were asked to
rate the extent to which they felt Bangsamoro and
Tausug/Maguindanaon/Maranao identities overlapped.
This followed the inclusion of self-in-other approach of
Aron, Aron, and Smollan (1992) by using Venn diagrams
(seeFigure1).Themorethecirclesoverlapped(num-
bered 1 to 5), the more similar the identities of their eth-
nic group and the emerging superordinate Bangsamoro
identity were perceived.
B M/T/M
B M/T/M
B M/T/M
B M/T/M
B M/T/M
B-Bangsamoro; M-Maguindanaoan; T-Tausug, M-Maranao
Figure 1
Venn diagram of overlapping ethnic and Bangsamoro identities
All the instruments were translated to the local dialect,
but the English translations were retained. Moreover, our
survey instrument also ran an open-ended item that asked:
‘What does Bangsamoro mean to you?’
Results
A paired samples ttest was conducted to compare the eth-
nic identity and Muslim identity salience of the respon-
dents. A series of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)
was also conducted to compare the ethnic and reli-
gious identity saliences scores, overlap between ethnic
and Bangsamoro identity scores, and attitude towards
Bangsamoro identity across the three ethnic tribes.
Social Identity of Muslims in Mindanao
Our sampled respondents identified rather strongly with
both their Muslim and ethnopolitical identities, as ev-
idenced by mean scores closer to the highest possible
rate of 5. The results showed that Muslims do identify
themselves more strongly with their religious or Mus-
lim identity (M=4.41) compared to their own ethnic
group (M=4.16), t(393) =-9.04, p=.00. In comparing
the ethnic groups, the Tausugs have a significantly more
salient Muslim identity (M=4.49) compared to Maguin-
danaoans (M=4.30), F(2,392) =4.50, p=.01. Common
to all three groups is the lack of significant differences in
ethnic identity scores among Tausugs, Maguinandaoans,
and Maranaos, F(2,392) =1.00, p=.36. In other words,
respondents from the three ethnopolitical groups share
the same ethnopolitical identity salience (refer to Table 1
for the mean scores per ethnic group).
High positive correlations between their ethnic and
Muslim identities were also obtained for the three groups,
with Maranaons and Maguindanaons having similar
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Social Identities in Muslim Mindanao
Tabl e 1
Mean and Standard Deviation Scores for Ethnic and Muslim Identity
Salience Across Ethnopolitical Groups
Ethnic identity Muslim identity
salience salience
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Tausugs 4.18 .69 4.49 .55
Maranaos 4.22 .59 4.46 .48
Maguindanaoans 4.10 .63 4.30 .66
Mean scores 4.16 .65 4.41 .59
Tabl e 2
Correlations Between Muslim Identity, Ethnic Identity and Bangsamoro
Muslim Ethnic Ethnic
identity and identity and identity and
Bangsamoro Bangsamoro Muslim identity
Maguindanaoan .51∗.38∗.63∗
Maranao .18 .16 .64∗
Tausug .26∗.31∗.55∗
Total .27∗.27∗.59∗
Note: Pearson
r
is significant,
p
=.00.
Tabl e 3
Overlapping Identity Mean Scores per Ethnopolitical Group
Overlapping identity
Ethnopolitical group mean scores
SD
Tausugs 3.00 1.44
Maranaos 3.65 1.18
Maguindanaoans 4.05 .98
correlations (r=.63 and r=.64) but the Tausugs having
the lowest correlation (r=.55). See Tab le 2 .
Overlapping Social Identities
The mean overlap scores of the respondents was 3.52 (out
of 5), suggesting a moderately high intersection between
their own ethnic identity and the emerging superordi-
nate Bangsamoro identity. There was a significant differ-
ence of overlapping social identities between the Tausugs
(M=3.00) and Maguindanaons (M=4.05) at p=.00.
Maguindanaons showed the most overlap of social iden-
tities. As expected, the Tausugs showed the least similarity
between their own ethnic identity and the Bangsamoro
identity (Tab l e 3 ).
The correlations in Tabl e 2 also reveal that ethnic iden-
tity was significantly correlated with their attitudes toward
the Bangsamoro identity (r=.27, p=.00).
Ethnic Differences and Attitudes towards Bangsamoro Identity
The Muslims in our sample showed generally favourable
attitudes toward the emerging superordinate Bangsamoro
identity, with an overall mean score of 3.81 out of 5
(Tabl e 4 ) . A significant difference was found between the
Tabl e 4
Attitude Toward an Emerging Superordinate Identity Per Ethnopolitical
Group
Attitude toward
Bangsamoro identity
Ethnopolitical group Mean
SD
Tausugs 3.35 .96
Maranaos 4.03 .75
Maguindanaoans 4.16 .88
Tabl e 5
‘I think the Bangsamoro identity is mostly associated with . . . ’
Ethnopolitical group Frequency
All Islamised ethnic groups in Mindanao 57%
Maguindanoan 23 %
Tausug 12%
Maranaos 5%
Others (e.g., Muslims and non-Muslims in Mindanao) 3%
attitudes of Tausugs (M=3.34) and Maguindanaoans
(M=4.16), with F(2,386) =34.74, p=.00, but not be-
tween the other ethnic groups.
We also correlated Muslims’ ethnic identity, their Mus-
lim identity, and attitudes toward the Bangsamoro iden-
tity. It is interesting to note that only the Maranaos did not
have a significant correlation between their Muslim and
Bangsamoro attitudes (r=.18) as well as their ethnic and
Bansamoro attitudes (r=.16). It is the Maguindanaons
who have the strongest link between their Muslim identity
and acceptance of the Bangsamoro identity with r=.51
(see Tabl e 2 ). These differences in correlations reveal that
the ethnopolitical groups do not perceive the compatibil-
ity between their Muslim and overarching Bangsamoro
identity equally.
Ethnopolitical Group and Bangsamoro Identity
On the question of which ethnopolitical affiliation they
think the Bangsamoro identity today is mostly associ-
ated with, the majority (57%) said all Islamised groups in
Mindanao, indicative of their openness to include all eth-
nopolitical formations in the Bangsamoro identity. How-
ever, there are quite a number who still think that cer-
tain ethnopolitical groups are more associated with the
Bangsamoro identity: 23% regard themselves as Maguin-
danaoan, 12% see themselves Tausugs, and 5% identify
themselves as Maranaos (Tab le 5 .)
Segregating the data according to ethnopolitical
groups, it can be seen in Tab l e 6 that one’s own ethnic
group is still associated with the emerging superordinate
Bangsamoro identity.
Meaning of Bangsamoro
In constructing the subjective meaning of the term
Bangsamoro, our survey instrument also ran an
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Ma. Elizabeth J. Macapagal, Cristina J. Montiel, and Jose Jowel P. Canuday
Tabl e 6
Responses to ‘I think the Bangsamoro identity is mostly associated with
. . . ’ According to Ethnopolitical Group
All
Ethnopolitical
Maguindanaoan Maranao Tausug Groups
Maguindanaoan 46% 1% 48%
Maranao 8% 19% 1% 71%
Tausug 8% 3% 29% 58%
Note: Chi square is significant,
df
=8, 157,
p
=.00.
Tabl e 7
‘What does
Bangsamoro
mean to you?’ Top Five Words Associated with
Bangsamoro
Weight of Word–Bangsamoro
Word Paired Association
Muslim(s) 75
Mindanao 58
Peace 28
Islam 19
Unity 15
open-ended item that asked: ‘What does Bangsamoro
mean to you?’ We avoided precoding responses to this
item in order to tap the broad spectrum of subjective un-
derstandings of this crucial term.
Our data analysis relied on quantifying qualitative
text through text mining procedures. We investigated
the words paired or uttered together with Bangsamoro.
We then calculated for weights or how often each
word-Bangsamoro pair appeared together. The higher the
weight, the more the word was associated with the term
Bangsamoro. For example if the word pair Mindanao-
Bangsamoro obtained a weight of 58, this meant that the
word Mindanao appeared 58 times in the same response
as the word Bangsamoro.Tabl e 7 presents the top five (5)
words associated with Bangsamoro, ranked from highest
to lowest weights.
Word association calculation is akin to taking a pic-
ture of the ideas linked with the concept of Bangsamoro.
The procedure enjoys the benefits of mixing qualitative
data with quantitative procedures. By avoiding precoded
responses, the instrument avoids priming the respondent
with a set of predefined choices. Allowed to speak freely,
the respondent creates his or her own unadulterated re-
ply to a question about subjective meaning. On the other
hand, quantitative analyses were imposed on the lexical
responses in order to control for the interpretative gap, as
researchers interpret open-ended prose. More specifically,
computations of word association weights — rather than
some kind of thematic analysis — showed which words
contributed to the meaning of Bangsamoro, with the ac-
curacy and precision of mathematical calculations.
Our findings in Tab l e 7 show that Bangsamoro means
a fusion of Mindanao, Muslim/Islam, and peace/unity. Ex-
amples of these texts include ‘Bangsamoro is the coming
together of the tribes towards peace and progress of Min-
danao’ (from a Maranoan); ‘People with different ethnic
groups but with the same faith to Islam unite together
to form a bond between each other in order to influ-
ence peace and harmony’ (from a Maguindanaon); and
‘Bangsamoro is the coming together of Tausug with the
desire to be united for the entirety of the Islam religion’
(from a Tausug). Hence, this pivotal term possesses fea-
tures that define it geographically, ethnically, and proce-
durally. In summary, Bangsamoro means bringing peace
to Muslim Mindanao. While the calculated weights spec-
ify what Bangsamoro implies, one can stretch the find-
ings further and likewise define what Bangsamoro ex-
cludes, semantically or meaningfully. Our research results
show that Bangsamoro is not about the entire Philippine
archipelago, nor does it include Christians; and it is an
antidote to war and divisions.
Discussion
The objective of this research was to look into the reli-
gious, ethnic, and emerging superordinate identity that is
the Bangsamoro identity of Muslims in Mindanao in the
southern Philippines. The present study is the first to ex-
amine such perceptions of this new and emerging identity
and how acceptable this identity will be among Muslims
in Mindanao. We compared the ethnic and religious so-
cial identities of the Muslims to examine which was more
salient. We also looked at how their ethnic identity influ-
enced their perceived overlap of ethnic and Bangsamoro
identities and consequently their acceptance of this emerg-
ing identity.
Social Identity of Muslims in Mindanao
Results of this particular survey did not exactly resonate
with at least two streams of widely cited assessments of
Muslim identity issues in Mindanao. They do not re-
flect narratives that Muslim communities identify them-
selves rather strongly with their ethnic sense of connection
shaped by broadly extended kindred relations, more than
their religious conviction (Frake, 1998;Kreuzer,2005).
Moreover, they do not fully support assertions of a Muslim
ethnopolitical formations congealing toward an Islamic
political consciousness that emerged out of a long historic
struggle to defend Islam against colonial and postcolonial
aggressions (Laiq, 1988; Macasalong, 2014; Rabasa, 2003).
Instead, the responses gathered in this study suggest yet
another understanding of identity of a Mindanao Muslim
constituency that does not cast Islam as a secondary el-
ement to family or ethnopolitical affiliation imagination
but rather is the essence of it. This constituency identi-
fies themselves rather strongly with conviction to Islam,
but not necessarily as a basis for an ethnopolitical iden-
tity assertion. To some extent, this finding resonates with
broader observations of shifting terms of solidarity, from
unfettered allegiance to ethnicity or the nation toward
stronger adherence to religion, particularly of Islam and
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Social Identities in Muslim Mindanao
its sacred texts, in dealing with extraneous structural forces
in several other contexts of separatist struggles (Ghanem
& Mustafa, 2014; Yemelianova, 2014). The responses from
our respondents in Mindanao align with observations
of deepening connections to Islam as a significantly im-
portant component of individual and collective identity,
rooted in an idea that speaks about the oneness of faith
(Foley, 2008). Our study shows that the salience of their
religious identity may be a unifying factor in a conflict-
ridden context in Mindanao.
Overlapping Social Identities
Consistent with our hypothesis, responses from our survey
show a moderately high overlap of individual allegiance to
their own ethnic identity and the emerging Bangsamoro
superordinate identity. These responses suggest that native
ethnopolitical and the Bangsamoro superordinate identi-
ties are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, asso-
ciation with the superordinate identity is buttressed by
even stronger attachment to local ethnic identity. In this
case, our respondents retained their salient ethnic identity
(i.e., being Tausug, Maguindanaon, or Maranao). They
did not abandon their original ethnic membership but
maintained identification to both identities, possibly mo-
tivated by their need for the inclusion of both into the new
superordinate identity (Brewer, 1991).
Moreover, as expected, Tausug respondents showed
the least association between their own ethnic identity
and the Bangsamoro. This finding tells us that the low
status ethnic group among the three ethnopolitical groups
included in this study takes a more critical, and to some
extent cautious, approach in assimilating with the new
superordinate identity, the Bangsamoro, which is more
associated with the competing ethnopolitical group. These
results concur with previous literature, which stated that
historically competing groups are likely to resist what they
see as assimilation into a superordinate category that is
dominated by a politically dominant outgroup (Hewstone
et al., 2002).
Ethnic Differences and Attitude Towards Bangsamoro Identity
From our sampled respondents, on the one hand we point
to generally favourable attitudes toward the emerging su-
perordinate Bangsamoro identity. On the other hand, the
contours of ethnopolitical relations are evident, as indi-
cated by the ambivalence of the Tausug-speaking respon-
dents in our sample in accepting the Bangsamoro identity.
Other respondents associate the Bangsamoro identity with
their own ethnic formation rather than the reverse.
Conclusion and Implications for Peacebuilding and Further
Research
The findings of the current research suggest how religious
identity provides a unified sense of belonging and serves
as a unifying element in the conflict-ridden context of the
Southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines. What
ethnic identity fragments, religious identity unifies. The
Muslims in our study strongly identified with their Muslim
identity, significantly more than their own ethnopolitical
or tribal identity. Moreover, the current research studied a
new superordinate identity, the Bangsamoro identity. Our
findings show that it is indeed an acceptable identity for the
Muslims in Mindanao. As McKeown (2014) has pointed
out, adopting a superordinate identity does not necessarily
mean that people must abandon their subgroup identity.
A dual identity may be a more realistic option.
By understanding ethnopolitical and religious social
identities and perceptions of a superordinate identity (in
this case, the Bangsamoro), it is possible to examine
whether this social identity can lead to improved inter-
group relations and further the cause of peacebuilding,
especially for Mindanao. Our research offers suggestions
toward making the Bangsamoro identity a workable solu-
tion acceptable to Mindanao Muslims, regardless of their
ethnic origins. Understanding is part of the key to actualis-
ing the dream of achieving peace in Mindanao. The exami-
nation of how Muslims perceive the emerging Bangsamoro
identity reveals to us a psychological diversity even among
Islamised ethnopolitical groups in Mindanao. This poses
a challenge, but more importantly a possible solution to
the dilemma facing the Mindanao peace process. Finding
a way to build a superordinate Bangsamoro social identity
that all Islamised Moro ethnic groups can identify with
is crucial to establishing a common Moro front in the
Mindanao peace process.
Our results also show how identities are dynamic and
context-dependent. Negotiators may want to determine
the groups they are dealing with. For example, when deal-
ing with a high-power group, a low-power group may
want to highlight religious identities to present a more
unified front. In the context of peace agreements, eth-
nopolitical countours may become more salient when one
group appears to take the lead vis-`
a-vis another group.
Overlapping social identities may also influence support
for, and participation in, various peacebuilding initiatives.
The politics in Mindanao goes beyond Muslim-
Christian relations in the Philippines. Power plays among
ethnopolitical formations affect the way these Islamised
Muslim groups accept the emerging Bangsamoro identity.
Reconciling the different Moro subgroups may pave the
way to smoother Muslim-Christian peace negotiations.
Appealing to the superordinate identity of Bangsamoro
in order to reach a common standpoint between the eth-
nopolitical groups may prove helpful in the creation of a
united Moro front during Mindanao peacebuilding. Thus,
peacebuilding efforts must continue to crystallise the uni-
fying function of religious identity and seek to transcend
ethnic divisiveness.
Limitations of the Study and Future Directions: Bangsamoro in
the Midst of Globalisation
Our study examined the meaning of Bangsamoro, a word
coined from one’s sense of being a Filipino Muslim. This
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Ma. Elizabeth J. Macapagal, Cristina J. Montiel, and Jose Jowel P. Canuday
article elucidated the religious dimension of Bangsamoro,
emphasising the importance of one’s Islamic identity
as distinct from the Christian identity of other Min-
danaoans. By some unexpected historical twist, however,
and as we write this paper, another threat has emerged
to the Bangsamoro identity. As of this writing, a Muslim-
dominated city in Mindanao is undergoing an intense
city-wide ground and aerial war, due to the emergence of
ISIS forces in the area. Armed attacks include forces of
foreign Islamic fighters, in the name of a global Islamic
cause.
One primary research limitation lies in the study’s sole
focus on the Muslim dimension of Bangsamoro and its
failure to interrogate the national Filipino identity of a Fil-
ipino Muslim. The question for future studies maylikewise
ask: What is a Filipino Muslim identity, as distinct from
a non-Filipino or global Muslim identity? Understand-
ably, such a question has not been asked before, perhaps
because Mindanao has not been under siege by foreign
Islamic forces in the past. New historical developments
place upon the research community new identity issues
that arise with the globalisation of a religiously coloured
war.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Ateneo de Manila Institute
of Philippine Culture Merit Research Award. Dr Macapa-
gal and Dr Canuday would also like to thank the Ateneo
de Manila School of Social Sciences for the research load.
The authors wish to thank Miguel Karlo Abadines, Arvin
Boller, Dr Alma Berowa of Mindanao State University-
Marawi City, Janice Jalili of Notre Dame in Jolo, Sulu,
and Dr Ma. Theresa P. Llano and the University Research
Center of Notre Dame University in Cotabato City.
Endnotes
1 The notion of the ethnopolitical refers to social formations
that mobilised shared religion, cultural and moral sensibili-
ties, linguistic identification, genealogical roots, and ances-
tral territories, as a deep set of resources that brings peoples
and communities into a singular ethnic identity (Ellis, 2011;
Gurr, 1994).
2 This paper adheres to the idea of the ethnonational as a
sense of deep political, religious, social, historical and cul-
tural identification that brings together diversified ethnic or
ethnolinguistic groups into a common formation of peoples
(Ekmekci, 2011;Wee,2002).
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