Mindanao: The Autonomous Autonomous Bangsamoro Region of the Philippines has experienced significant progress during the decade since a peace agreement with a separatist group has been signed.
The region has improved access to education and health care, has attracted investments and has increased its economy.
Its poverty rate also dropped considerably from 52.6% in 2018 to 23.5% in 2023, and was no longer the poorest region of the country, according to data published last year.
In October, the self-hurlée region of the South Island of the Philippines of Mindanao should hold its first legislative elections.
But for Muslim Aboriginal people, painful memories of the long history of conflict in the region remain.
Tarhata Tarapas, member of the Moro people who are Muslim Philippins living in Bangsamoro, said that she would never have been authorized to work as an educator in the past.
“The people of Bangsamoro were denied an education. We were still hiding in remote regions. Our women hid. (They were raped. Our rights were repressed,” RNA at 57 was told RNA.
Today, she is at the head of the Sarmiento West Municipality primary school, the designated seat of the government of Bangsamoro.
The autonomous region was created in 2019 after a referendum which would give the region greater control of its resources.
He followed a peace agreement in 2014 between the Philippine government and the rebel Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which ended nearly four decades of fighting.
Push for the Truth Commission
The MILF was the largest Muslim separatist group to emerge from a rebellion that started in the late 1960s.
The movement has been rooted in years of injustice, including the forced resettlement of Northern Christians to the lands of Moro in the south.
