Warlordism--the ugly scourge of misgovernance and the Face of Democracy's Failure

You asked why warlordism sprouted its ugly head in Mindanao and in other places in the country? My dear, credit that to a failure in governance.

For example, look at ARMM. Most warlord clans dominate the political scene in all of ARMM territories--Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Tawi-Tawi and Sulu. You have the Ampatuans dominating Maguindanao. You have the Mangundadatus dominating Lanao. You have a new clan being cuddled and taken cared of by the government in Tawi-Tawi. And who does not know the Tans in Sulu?

ARMM was used to supplant legitimate Bangsamoro revolutionary leaders with collaborators, families who owe political debts to the Arroyos and families and clans who are being armed by government and develop as counter-forces against those who want to liberate these Bangsamoro lands from the ambit of Imperial Manila.

BY doing so, government is slowly reconfiguring the Bangsamoro political and social landscape, allowing collaborators of the Bangsamoro Revolution to enjoy the trappings of power and siphoning off any dissent or those who know the true way towards Bangsamoro liberation.

Admit it--ARMM was a counter-insurgency experiment gone haywire. Its failure validates the MILF struggle towards self-governance.

Government allowed ARMM to fail so that neo-feudalism will thrive there. As public services fail to improve the quality of life of the Bangsamoro people in ARMM provinces, people naturally gravitated towards these warlord clans, relying on them for support and protection thereby strengthening these clans' hold over their lives. Naturally, these lands remain underdeveloped and backward because any change in the quality of life will consequently dilute patronage ties between warlord clans and their subjects. It is poverty that binds these ties together and as people remain poor, they remain powerless subjects.

Is anti-poverty programs the answer then? No. The answer is democratize institutions and enable and widen economic opportunities to the people. Democracy is anathema to these clans and any attempt at equalizing the economic landscape will surely meet stiff opposition.

The answer then is the complete democratization and liberation of these areas under warlord control. It is by completely disengaging these clans from the lives of the people that these areas will be free.

The Mindanao situation reflects the situation in other poor areas as well.

If you study the political landscape of the Philippines, you will find that the poorer the province is, the higher the possibility that that area is being controlled by a warlord family. A classic example is Isabela. Isabela is one of the country's poorest provinces. Why? Because for decades, the Dys dominated the political landscape. It is only now that Isabela is improving.

David Randy in his article, " Philippines: Warlords in a weak state", sums it all up for us. Randy summarize the situation as the development of parallel power centers due to the weakness of the State. Randy explains that warlord clans thrive due to the existence of an insecure leadership without a clearest of mandates.

Where there is a weak presence of the national government, surely, there is a local power center dominated by just one family. Worst, those already "liberated" or "freed from traditional warlords" are slowly reverting back to their original states because those who replaced them are using the very means of democracy to transform themselves as alternate warlords.