The books

2024Free to read

Abhoud Syed M. Lingga

Institute of Bangsamoro Studies

Writings by the founder of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies on the Bangsamoro’s road to self-determination: its history, the law and politics of the peace process, and what it means for peacebuilding elsewhere. Published for the 10th anniversary of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro.

2024Free to read

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

A survey report on the voters of the BARMM ahead of its first regional parliamentary elections. It profiles likely voters, how ready they are for the polls, where they get news of political parties, and the issues that drive their choices.

2024Free to read

World Bank

World Bank

An edition of the World Bank's Philippines Economic Update whose special focus is poverty in the BARMM. It looks at how poverty in the region fell and what is needed to keep it falling.

2023Free to read

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

A study of how vulnerable or resilient the madrasah system is to violent extremism, and where it is heading in the Philippines. It weighs how public policy and the BARMM's regional autonomy can support madrasah development.

2023Free to read

Benedicto R. Bacani, Norma Tillo-Gomez, Ofelia Durante and others

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

An assessment of how the national plan against violent extremism is being carried out in the 5 provinces of the BARMM. It draws on interviews with 50 officials, 10 focus groups with 78 community leaders and a survey of 150 programme beneficiaries.

2023Free to read

Initiatives for International Dialogue

Initiatives for International Dialogue

A research report on land loss and displacement in Marawi City and Maguindanao, based on household-level mapping. It argues that land dispossession is a root cause of conflict in the Bangsamoro that transitional justice must address.

2022Free to read

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

A follow-up to IAG's 2017 study that tracks how urban Bangsamoro youth's views and attitudes toward violent extremism have changed. It adds the views of young people living in conflict-affected rural areas of the BARMM.

2021Free to read

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

A study, done with the UP Institute of Islamic Studies, of Filipinos who convert or 'revert' to Islam, building a profile of converts and their reasons for conversion. It also gathers Muslim and non-Muslim opinions on Islam and looks at converts' links to violent extremist groups.

2020Free to read

Starjoan Villanueva

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

A study of how civil society organisations take part in politics and governance in the new BARMM during the transition period. It takes stock of what civil society has gained, the obstacles it faces in dealing with leaders and institutions, and where it can do more.

2020Free to read

International Alert

International Alert

The 2020 Conflict Alert report, analysing conflict data and trends in the Bangsamoro from 2011 to 2019. It tracks how long-running clan, political, criminal and extremist violence continued into the first year of the BARMM.

2020Free to read

World Bank

World Bank

A long study of how health services are delivered and paid for in the BARMM as the region takes up the national Universal Health Care law. It maps gaps in facilities, staff and financing and sets out options for the new regional Ministry of Health.

2019Free to read

Tengku Shahpur

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

What the survivors of the 2017 siege of Marawi told listeners about their losses, life in the evacuation centres and the city they want rebuilt.

2019Free to read

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

A baseline study of the traditional madrasah system in the ARMM and nearby regions, funded by the Australian Government. It gathers data meant to guide public policy on traditional madaris and on the education system of the new BARMM.

2019Free to read

eds. Liezl PG. Bugtay, Nikki Philline C. de la Rosa and Judy T. Gulane

International Alert

The 2019 Conflict Alert report on the fall in violent incidents in Muslim Mindanao after the Marawi war, even as extremist violence continued. Its title borrows Charles Tilly's line that war makes states, as the BARMM was being set up.

2019Free to read

World Bank

World Bank

A World Bank report on the Alternative Learning System, the second-chance education programme for out-of-school youth and adults, in the Bangsamoro region. It looks at who needs it and how the new BARMM can expand and improve it.

2019Free to read

Jeremy Simons and Radzini Oledan

Initiatives for International Dialogue

A research study and resource guide from IID's Bangsamoro Transformative Justice Initiatives project, 2017 to 2019. It explains transitional justice, dealing with the past and reconciliation, and records community stories of survival and truth-telling.

2018Free to read

Congress of the Philippines

Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines

The law, signed on 26 July 2018 and ratified in January 2019, that created the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and its parliamentary government. Free to read at the Lawphil Project.

2018Free to read

Salah Jubair (Mohagher Iqbal)

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

The speeches of the MILF’s chief negotiator from 2005 to 2018, which follow the peace process with the government through the eyes of the Front.

2018Free to read

International Alert

International Alert

The 2018 Conflict Alert report, written after the 2017 Marawi siege, on the threat of violent extremism in the Bangsamoro. It looks at what that threat means for the peace process and the region's future development.

2017Free to read

Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict

Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict

A report, written while the siege was on, on who the Marawi fighters were, how Indonesians and Malaysians joined them, and what it meant for the region. Free to read.

2017Free to read

Tengku Abdul Ghafar

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

Malaysia’s facilitator of the government–MILF talks on how they reached the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro in 2014, and how he got the two sides past their deadlocks.

2017Free to read

Alfredo Ferrariz Lubang

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

A community survey on what trust means to people living with the government–MILF peace accords, what builds it and what wears it down, with advice for the parties and those carrying the accords out.

2017Free to read

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

Institute for Autonomy and Governance

A survey-based study, done with the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, of how vulnerable young people in the ARMM are to violent extremism. It aims to give government agencies and communities an early picture to shape their response.

2017Free to read

International Alert

International Alert

The 2017 Conflict Alert report on the causes, costs and trends of violent conflict in Muslim Mindanao from 2011 to 2016. It shows illegal guns, the drug trade and pro-ISIS extremist groups such as the Maute Group becoming major drivers of violence.

2016Free to read

Abhoud Syed M. Lingga

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

The stories of almost 300 Bangsamoro men and women, from Maguindanao, the Lanao provinces, the Zamboanga peninsula, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, of decades of conflict and their hopes after the 2014 peace agreement.

2016Free to read

Conciliation Resources

Conciliation Resources

First-person stories of Moro and Teduray women: fighters, wives of combatants, women caught between armies, and peace advocates. It was made jointly by 3 Bangsamoro women's organisations and Conciliation Resources.

2015Free to read

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

Interviews with 10 of the 145 MILF fighters who handed in their weapons at the first decommissioning, in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, in June 2015, on the lives they hoped to build.

2015Free to read

World Bank

World Bank

A review of how public money for basic education is spent and managed in the ARMM, where learning outcomes are the lowest in the country. It recommends ways to make that spending reach schools and children.

2015Free to read

Bangsamoro Development Agency

Bangsamoro Development Agency

The 6-year development plan for the Bangsamoro drawn up by the MILF through the BDA, with government and donor support, under the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro. It covers the history of the conflict, community consultations and plans for each sector, in 15 chapters.

2014Free to read

Government of the Philippines and Moro Islamic Liberation Front

Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity

The peace agreement signed in Malacañang on 27 March 2014 between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, with its annexes on transition, revenue, power sharing and normalisation. Free to read.

2014Free to read

Ebrahim F. Ampuan and Juwairiya U. Lingga

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

What the Subanen, an indigenous people of the Zamboanga peninsula who are not Muslim, thought of the Bangsamoro entity then being negotiated, and what they asked of it.

2014Free to read

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Philippines

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Philippines

A short profile of the non-Moro indigenous peoples living in mainland ARMM: the Teduray, Lambangian, Dulangan Manobo and Higaonon. It covers their society, culture, economy and population, and was made with EU support.

2014Free to read

International Alert

International Alert

The first report from the Bangsamoro Conflict Monitoring System, built with police data and university partners. It maps violent incidents in the ARMM from 2011 to 2013 and links them to rebellion, clan feuds, politics and illicit economies.

2013Free to read

eds. Francisco J. Lara Jr. and Steven Schoofs

International Alert

The shadow economies of Mindanao, from guns and drugs to the informal credit and trade that ordinary people live by, and how they feed and are fed by the conflict. Free to read.

2013Free to read

Edna E. A. Co

UP National College of Public Administration and Governance

An assessment of how democracy works, and does not, in the ARMM’s provinces and towns, by the University of the Philippines’ public administration college with International IDEA and the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy.

2013Free to read

Abubakar Datumanong, Parido Rahman Pigkaulan, Maguid Makalingkang and others

Institute of Bangsamoro Studies

Four ways Moro communities settle disputes and feuds by custom, set out by researchers from those communities, with the case for building them into the formal justice system.

2013Free to read

Fermin Adriano and Thomas Parks

The Asia Foundation

The Mindanao case study of a multi-country Asia Foundation research project on aid in long-running subnational conflicts. Using field research and a perception survey by Social Weather Stations, it asks whether development aid in conflict areas of Mindanao has helped or hurt peace.

2011Free to read

Elizabeth M. Padilla

Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

A way to carry what the victims of violence in Mindanao say up to the negotiators at the government–MILF peace talks.

2010Free to read

Soliman M. Santos Jr. and Paz Verdades M. Santos

Small Arms Survey

Profiles of 14 armed groups in the Philippines, the communist and Moro fronts, the Abu Sayyaf and the clan militias among them, with what is known of their arms and their effect on the people around them. Free to read.

2007Free to read

ed. Wilfredo Magno Torres III

The Asia Foundation

The first systematic study of rido, the clan feuds that take more lives in Muslim Mindanao than the rebellion, with case studies from Lanao, Maguindanao, Sulu and Basilan and the ways communities settle them. Expanded edition from Ateneo de Manila University Press in 2014; the original is free to read.

2006Free to read

Malcolm Cook and Kit Collier

Lowy Institute

A Lowy Institute Paper on the prospects for peace in Mindanao and the threats to the GRP–MILF peace process. Written as foreign terrorists were using Mindanao as a haven, it argues that backing the peace process is a gamble worth taking.

2005Free to read

Steven Rood

East-West Center

What civil society groups did and could do for peace in Mindanao, by the Asia Foundation’s long-serving Philippines representative. Free to read.

2005Free to read

Peter Kreuzer

Peace Research Institute Frankfurt

How the clans of Muslim Mindanao hold power through violence, and why the state lets them, in a report from the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. Free to read.

2005Free to read

World Bank

World Bank

The main report of a large needs assessment of conflict-affected areas of Mindanao, made jointly with the government, international agencies and local stakeholders. It sets out what reconstruction and development would need after a peace agreement with the MILF, and led to the Mindanao Trust Fund.

2005Free to read

Human Development Network

Human Development Network

The 2005 national human development report, devoted to the costs of armed conflict in the Philippines, including the Moro conflict and the communist insurgency. It treats human security as a precondition of human development and examines prejudice against Muslims as a driver of conflict.

2004Free to read

Eric U. Gutierrez and Saturnino M. Borras Jr.

East-West Center

The argument that land, not religion, is at the root of the Moro conflict: how colonial and Philippine land policy dispossessed the Moros and why the peace deals have not touched it. Free to read.

2003Free to read

International Alert

International Alert

A discussion paper on the economic roots of the Mindanao conflict and what business and donors could do about them. Free to read.

1999Free to read

ed. Mara Stankovitch

Conciliation Resources

An issue of the Accord series on the negotiations between the Philippine government and the MNLF that led to the 1996 'Final Peace Agreement'. Published with MSU General Santos and Notre Dame University, it carries essays, interviews, profiles and the key texts of the agreements.

1998Free to read

Thomas M. McKenna

University of California Press

An anthropologist’s account, from years in Cotabato City, of how ordinary Maguindanaons lived the rebellion, the datus and the state, and why the separatist story and the everyday one do not match. Free to read in the University of California Press e-books collection.

1923Free to read

Sydney A. Cloman

Doubleday, Page & Company

The memoir of a US Army officer posted to Sulu at the start of American rule, and what he made of the datus and the people he was sent to govern. Out of copyright and free to read.

1908Free to read

Najeeb M. Saleeby

Bureau of Public Printing, Manila

Sulu from its earliest written genealogies to the American arrival, drawn from the sultanate’s own documents, Spanish records and the author’s years in Jolo. Out of copyright and free to read.

1906Free to read

Jacinto Juanmartí, SJ

United States Government Printing Office

Juanmartí’s 1892 grammar translated into English for the American army by Captain C. C. Smith of the 14th Cavalry. Out of copyright and free to read.

1905Free to read

Najeeb M. Saleeby

Bureau of Public Printing, Manila

The first English account of Maguindanao’s genealogies and of the law codes and Islam of Maguindanao and Sulu, translated by an American colonial official who read the originals. Out of copyright and free to read.

1892Free to read

Jacinto Juanmartí, SJ

Tipografía Amigos del País

The Jesuit mission’s Maguindanaon–Spanish dictionary, the first for the language, compiled at Tamontaka. Out of copyright and free to read.