Rebels halt decommissioning of forces after accusing Philippines of
reneging on peace deal
[August 01, 2025]
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The largest Muslim rebel group
in the southern Philippines has suspended the disarming of its remaining
14,000 fighters after claiming that the government has not fully
complied with commitments it made under a 2014 peace deal, a Philippine
official said Thursday.
Under the peace deal, brokered by Malaysia, the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front rebels gave up their goal of a separate Muslim state in the south
of the largely Roman Catholic country in exchange for broader autonomy.
The group's 40,000 fighters would be “ demobilized ” and given
livelihoods and other help to bring them back to normal life.
The Bangsamoro region was established under the peace deal to replace a
poverty-wracked five-province autonomous region with a larger,
better-funded and more powerful area, which has been governed by former
guerrilla leaders under a transition period that was to end with regular
elections scheduled in October.
Presidential Assistant David Diciano, who has been helping oversee the
transformation of the Bangsamoro region, said in a statement that the
Muslim rebel front’s central committee has decided to “to postpone the
decommissioning of 14,000 of its combatants and 2,450 of their weapons.”
He added: “We also express our disagreement with the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front’s recent resolution, claiming that the government has
not delivered substantially on its socio-economic commitments.”
He urged the rebels to use channels under the peace deal to address
problems in its enforcement.
Rebel front leaders did not immediately comment on his statement.
Diciano outlined a range of government-provided benefits he said has
been provided to more than 26,000 former guerrillas since 2015. The
benefits included a 100,000-peso ($1,700) “transitional cash assistance”
given to each combatant after giving up weapons.
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The Philippine government has spent about 4 billion pesos ($69
million) since 2019 to provide health insurance, government
registrations, job skills training and employment to former
combatants, according to Diciano. Farm-to-market roads, bridges,
drinking water systems, health clinics, irrigation and other
infrastructure have been built in six southern rebel encampments
from 2015.
Since 2020, the government has provided the Muslim autonomous region
with grants totalling more than 420 billion pesos ($7 billion) for
infrastructure and other projects, he said.
“The transformation process necessitates a shift in mindset as the
possession of illegal firearms is anathema to a peaceful and
civilized society,” Diciano said. “This constitutes the fundamental
principle of the peace agreement, whereby armed revolutionary groups
are to be transitioned into social and political movements.”
The 2014 agreement eased decades of on-and-off fighting that have
left about 120,000 people dead, displaced large numbers of rural
villagers and stunted development in a region with some of the
country’s poorest areas. A separate communist insurgency had
weakened but has endured for decades.
Philippine and Western governments, along with the guerrillas, saw
an effective Muslim autonomy as an antidote to more than half a
century of Muslim secessionist violence, which could be exploited by
foreign radical groups to gain a foothold in Southeast Asia.
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