Members of the Philippine navy’s elite special operations forces conduct a vessel capture exercise off the coast of Zamboanga. (Martin San Diego/Washington Post)
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - For a half-century, Philippine soldiers deployed on the southwestern edge of the country have been dedicated to squashing separatist movements led by Islamist rebels. Now, the troops here are being retrained to confront what their leaders see as a different and urgent threat: China.
Chinese forces in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway claimed in part by the Philippines and six other governments, have become increasingly assertive, not only posing a threat to Philippine security but also challenging a Western-led effort to contain
China’s power in the wider region, according to Philippine leaders and Western security analysts.
The Philippine military must overhaul its capabilities after decades of focusing on internal guerrilla wars, military analysts say.
Recently, Philippine lawmakers, for the first time, allocated the biggest share of a military modernization budget to the navy. After spending billions of dollars to fight in jungle battlegrounds, the government is now increasing purchases of missiles, fighter jets and warships.
Philippine leaders say they can make this pivot because the country has secured relative peace with the rebels in the southern islands. Money that had been funneled into counterinsurgency campaigns can be reallocated to air and naval patrols, these leaders say. The Philippine marine corps can be retrained to fight foreign forces, rather than militants.
But while violence in Muslim-majority Mindanao has ebbed from its peak, the situation is more precarious than Philippine leaders have indicated, according to data from conflict-monitoring groups and interviews in seven cities and towns in the area, which is rarely visited by international journalists.
“The whole idea of the Philippines re-posturing toward territorial defense, it doesn’t work unless you have real, sustainable peace in Mindanao,” said Brian Harding, a Southeast Asia analyst at the U.S. Institute of Peace who has called for Washington to be more engaged with peacemaking efforts in the south. “It’s in Mindanao where the rubber hits the road.”
The Muslim Moro people of Mindanao, a minority in an overwhelmingly Catholic country, have fought outside domination for centuries, first against Spanish and American colonizers, then against the Philippine military. Radical Moro groups linked to the Islamic State and to al-Qaeda have carried out kidnappings, beheadings and bombings.
In 2019, a peace deal and plebiscite paved the way for part of Mindanao to be ruled semiautonomously by its largest separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), ushering in a period of calm. Tens of thousands of rebels have laid down their arms, the national government says. Towns where the fiercest clashes took place have been declared “insurgency free.”
But in Mindanao, locals say insecurity is again on the rise, fueled by Moro infighting and frustration over unfulfilled promises of new jobs and development.
Some rebels who ostensibly surrendered have returned to secluded hilltop bases with their guns. Government efforts to decommission hundreds of thousands of firearms have been underfunded and severely delayed. In half the provinces in the
Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), conflict was higher between 2021 and 2023 than in the previous three years, reversing a decade-long decline, according to Climate Conflict Action, a Philippine watchdog group.
This creeping violence bears on the international contest over the Pacific, said Navy Capt. Cesar Pangan Jr., who is assigned to the Western Mindanao Command headquarters in Zamboanga. To mount a credible defense against China, the Philippines cannot afford to be spending money fighting its own citizens, he said.
Think of the Philippines like a house, Pangan added. “How can you deal with an intruder in your backyard,” he asked, “if you have a fire in your living room?”
The naval forces of the Western Mindanao Command have long supported the Philippine army in fighting the rebels. But in July, military leaders replaced the command’s task force on counterterrorism with a new one on maritime security, placing the navy in charge for the first time.
Called the Joint Task Force-Poseidon, its mission is to tighten control over waters surrounding the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, and specifically over the Basilan Strait and Sibutu Passage - two key channels linking the South China Sea to the western Pacific. To lead the effort, the military tapped the deputy commander on the island of Palawan, close to the disputed reefs where there have been repeated collisions between Chinese and Philippine vessels.
The Basilan Strait is within Philippine territorial waters but open under international law to foreign vessels making “innocent passage” - in other words, passing in a peaceful fashion. In 2024, a total of at least 10 Chinese naval ships passed through the strait on three separate occasions, according to the Philippine navy, which shared data that has not been previously reported.
The Chinese ships have not violated international law, but Rear Adm. Francisco Tagamolila Jr. said he has been “aggressive” in monitoring the strait and has expanded surveillance by upgrading undersea radar systems. Officers at the command are attending lectures on when foreign vessels can legally be stopped and searched under international law. Training exercises that used to concentrate on chasing down rebels in small speedboats are now focusing on boarding large hostile vessels.
In the coming years, the military plans to add “forward operating bases” on Basilan and other islands that will support an increased presence at sea, commanders said. And instead of buying rifles and grenades, which it did for years to fight the militants, the command will stock up on weapons that help the Philippines assert its maritime claims and resist intruders, said Col. Allen Van Estrera, head of operations.
The shift toward what Manila calls the West Philippine Sea has drawn sharp criticism from China, which has warned the Philippines against “playing with fire” in the disputed waters and vowed to “crush hostile encroachment.”
In a statement, the spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, said China has the right to “enjoy freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea in accordance with international law” and blamed the maritime tensions on Philippine provocation. “Every time the maritime disputes between China and the Philippines escalate, it is caused by the Philippine side’s infringement and provocation,” Liu said.
The densely forested island of Basilan is the birthplace of Abu Sayyaf, considered by many as the most extreme of the Moro separatist groups. As recently as five years ago, the black flags of the Islamic State flew over much of the island. Philippine helicopters, aided by American drones, carried out airstrikes on secretive bases.
Today, Abu Sayyaf has been reduced to a handful of militants camped out in the wilderness, authorities say. Former rebels in new, government-issued uniforms carry out joint patrols with Philippine military and police. Probably before the end of the year, officials say, the entire island will be declared “insurgency free.”
But local residents said in interviews that there are swaths of the island still too dangerous to visit. Some personally know of rocket launchers and machine guns stashed in the mist-covered hilltops. In August, hours after the hamlet of Tipo-Tipo, a former Abu Sayyaf stronghold, held celebrations to declare itself rid of the organization, two bombs were set off outside municipal buildings. Ibrahim Fernandez, 45, a former Abu Sayyaf commander from the area, said it was Abu Sayyaf. “It was a message,” Fernandez said, “to say they’re still around.”
Wiry with a hunched back from two decades of combat, Fernandez surrendered in 2017. Fighters like him were promised amnesty, jobs, housing and health care, but little of that has materialized, he said. He knows insurgents who have returned to their old bases, frustrated. He has stuck it out, taking security jobs to support his family as he searches for more lucrative work. “I am a very patient man,” Fernandez said with a tight smile. “Not everyone can wait like me.”
In Marawi, a city in central Mindanano where the Philippine military waged a months-long battle against Islamic State-linked militants in 2017, frustration is mounting among residents waiting to be compensated for the destruction of their homes. In Cotabato, seat of the BARMM leadership, violence is surging among rival Moro groups, some of whom don’t believe the war for autonomy is finished.
Naguib Sinarimbo, a prominent Moro leader, has long advocated for the military to reduce its presence in Mindanao. But speaking in September from Cotabato, amid a spate of political killings carried out by Moro assailants, Sinarimbo, 52, said the military cannot step back if instability keeps increasing. Without the military, he said, the police will not be able to handle the violence that could accompany the election campaign scheduled for next year.
These concerns about instability stand to make the military’s pivot more difficult. Just in recent months, two Black Hawk helicopters that were to help monitor sea lanes were instead deployed inland near Cotabato, commanders said, to look for enemies there.
Bobby Lagsa contributed to this report.
