The Moro People

The Moro people, or Bangsamoro, are Muslim peoples of the Philippines that make up about 5% of the
population. They represent thirteen subgroups linguistically and are found in the southern islands of the
archipelago. The following are the major Moro Philipines regions areas where the Moro people live:

Mindanao

Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao

Palawan

Sulu Island

So what is "Moro," exactly? The word "Moro" was a term that was derived from the Spanish colonial
rule of the region. It was a term that the Spanish used to refer to people of the Muslim faith. The word
originated from the Latin word "Mauru," which referred to people who lived in the region of Mauritania
in northwest Africa.

Ethnolinguistic Moro Groups

The Moros are divided into thirteen ethnolinguistic subgroups. These groups share a common ethnicity
with the majority of Filipinos, and their languages are all part of the Malayo-Polynesian. However, they
differ in their degrees of Islamic orthodoxy and there's often hostility between the groups.
The Moro ethnolinguistic subgroups include:

To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.

Create your account

Lesson

Quiz

Course

1.7K views

Culture of the Moro People

The Moros of the Philippines predominantly practice Sunni Islam. As a group, they have never
constituted a Mulsim majority. Islam in the Philipines was introduced in the 14th century from Borneo
and Malaya. Their faith and their relative geographical isolation kept them out of the mainstream of
Philippine life for centuries. For hundreds of years, the Moro people have been in direct conflict with the
majority of the population in the Philippines. Prejudice and neglect are hallmarks of their treatment by
the majority populations and ruling elites in the Philippines. They are also known for their distinct
regional cultural heritage that has grafted Islam and its teachings onto their daily lives.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account

History of the Moro People

The history of the Moros is broken down into three general, but distinct eras, all marked by varying
degrees of neglect and oppression. Much of this neglect and oppression was at the hands of the Roman
Catholic Spanish during their rule over the Philippines from the 16th through the close of the 19th
centuries. After the Spanish-American War in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Americans
fought a bitter counterinsurgency campaign against the Moros. The Moros' attempts to create a
separate and sovereign nation-state were crushed by the U.S. occupation forces.

Pre-Colonial Moro History

During the pre-Spanish colonial era in the 13th century, Muslim missionaries brought Islam to the native
populations of the areas of Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. Trade between these sultanates helped to
bring the religion to the region of the southern Philippines. With the introduction of Islam came
sultanates in Buayan, Maguindanao, and Sulu. The people of the Philippines practiced Islam and
animism until the arrival of the Spanish and Catholicism in the 16th century.

Colonial Moro History

With the arrival of the Spanish expedition to the East Indies, led by the Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand
Magellan in 1521, came the nascent beginnings of Spanish colonialism in the Philippine archipelago.
Magellan would die in the Battle of Mandan and not be able to complete the circumnavigation of the
globe with his crew the following year. It was not until 1564 when Miguel Lopez de Legazpi made a
successful return with an expedition that the colonization began in earnest.
The Sultanates actively fought against the Spanish incursions into Moro territory. The Spanish erected
Catholic missions and military installations. Notably, this was during the time of the Spanish Inquisition
and any Spanish colonial conquests would include an effort to bring native populations to Catholicism.

To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.

Create your account

Issues Faced by the Moro People in the Philippines

The Moro people of the southern portions of the Philippine archipelago have a 400-year history of
resisting the rule of outsiders. First the Spanish, then the Japanese, and then the Americans have all
tried to bring them to heel and the Moros across the region continue to struggle for their complete
independence from the government of the Philippines.

To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.

Create your account

Lesson Summary
The Moro people of the southern portions of the Philippines archipelago are a culturally diverse
ethnolinguistic grouping of 13 languages. They have fought aggression from outsiders for over 400 years
across their homelands. Sunni Islam arrived in the 14th century. Local sultanates followed shortly
thereafter.

To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.

Create your account

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the religion of the Moro people?

The Moro people of the southern Philippines are Muslims. Their religion is Sunni Islam and they
originally came to the arhipelago in the 14th century.

Who are the Moro people, and what are they fighting for?

Collectively known as the Moros, the Muslims of the Philippines are fighting for their independence
from the ruling Christian majority. For the most part they want their own sovereign region to live freely
and peacefully.

Modern daysedit

In the modern day Philippinesedit

Main article: Moro conflict in the Philippines

Philippine government policiesedit

After gaining independence from the United States, the Moro population, which was isolated from the
mainstream and experienced discrimination by the Philippine government, added to the fact that they
were now governed by what they view as the former foot soldiers of Spain, their ancestral lands given
away to settlers and corporations by land-tenure Laws, arming the settlers as militia in Mindanao,
Filipinisation was a government policy which eventually gave rise to armed secession movements.[3]
[37] Thus, the struggle for independence has been in existence for several centuries, starting from the
Spanish period, the Moro rebellion during the United States occupation and up to the present day.
Modern-day Moro conflict began in the 1960s. During the period, the Philippine government envisioned
a new country in which Christian and Moro would be assimilated into the dominant culture. This vision,
however, was generally rejected by both groups, the Christians remembering stories from Spanish foot
soldiers of how fierce the Moro was, and the Moro remembering the Christian as aiding its hated
Spanish enemy for 300 years. These two prejudices continue to this day. Because of this, the National
government realized that there was a need for a specialized agency to deal with the Moro community,
so it set up the Commission for National Integration (CNI) in the 1960s, which was later replaced by the
Office of Muslim Affairs, and Cultural Communities (OMACC) and later on as OMA.[citation needed]
As they thought, concessions were made to the Moro after the creation of these agencies, with the
Moro population receiving exemptions from national laws prohibiting polygamy and divorce which the
Moro has already been exercising. In 1977, the Philippine government made another palliative attempt
to move a step further by harmonizing Moro customary law with the national law which has no bearing
at all for the Moro. Naturally, most of these achievements were seen as superficial. The Moro, still
dissatisfied with the past Philippine governments' policies and misunderstanding[by whom?] established
a first separatist group known as the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by Nur Misuari with the
intention of creating an independent country. This initiated the modern Moro conflict in the Philippines,
which still persists, and has since deepened the fractures between Muslims, Christians, and people of
other religions. The MNLF is the only recognized representative organization for the Muslims of the
Philippines by the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC). By the 1970s, a paramilitary
organization created by settler mayors in collusion with the Philippine Constabulary, mainly of
armed Hiligaynon-speaking Christian settler residents of mainland Mindanao, called the Ilagas began
operating in Cotabato originating from settler communities.[38] In response, Moro volunteers with
minimal weapons also group themselves with much old traditional weapons like the kris, spears
and barong, such as the Blackshirts of Cotabato and the Barracudas of Lanao, began to appear and
engage the Ilagas. The Armed Forces of the Philippines were also deployed; however, their presence
only seemed to create more violence and reports that the Army and the settler militia are helping each
other.[39] A Zamboangan version of the Ilagas, the Mundo Oscuro (Spanish for Dark World), was also
organized in Zamboanga and Basilan.[citation needed]
In 1981, internal divisions within the MNLF caused the establishment of an Islamic paramilitary
breakaway organization called the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The group continued the
conflict when the MNLF signed a Peace Deal with the Philippine Government in 1994. It has now
become the biggest and most organized Moro armed group in Mindanao and Sulu. The Moro Islamic
Liberation Front is now on the final stages of the required annexe for the Framework Agreement on the
Bangsamoro that has a set time-frame for full implementation in 2016.