Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 08/2011

The Philippines: A New Strategy for Peace in Mindanao?

August 2011

International Crisis Group

Abstract

"The Philippines: A New Strategy for Peace in Mindanao?", the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, details the emerging strategy of President Benigno S. “Noynoy” Aquino’s administration for bringing peace to the southern Philippines. The government has three goals: to implement a two-year reform program to prove that good governance is possible in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM); to combine separate talks with two insurgencies, the factionalised Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the larger, better-armed Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF); and to lay the groundwork for a future Moro sub-state.