Also known as the Corregidor massacre, the Jabidah Massacre refers to an incident on March 18, 1968 in which members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are said to have massacred a number of Muslim recruits who were escaping their covert training to reclaim Sabah. Sources differ regarding the details, with the number of victims ranging from 14 to 68, and some sources asserting that the massacre is a myth. The Jabidah Massacre is widely regarded as having been the catalyst behind the modern Moro insurgencies in the Southern Philippines.
Background
In 1963, the resource-rich territory of Sabah, which had been under British control since the late nineteenth-century, formally became part of the Federation of Malaysia. The Philippines, however, protested this, claiming that Sabah had never been sold to foreign interests, and that it had only been leased by the Sulu Sultanate and therefore remained the property of the Sultan and by extension the property of Republic of the Philippines.
Operation Merdeka
The codename for this destabilisation program was “Operation Merdeka” (merdeka meaning “freedom” in Malay), with Manuel Syquio as project leader and then Maj. Eduardo Martelino as operations officer. The object of the program was the annexation of Sabah to the Republic of the Philippines. The plan involved the recruitment of nearly 200 Tausug and Sama Muslims aged 18 to 30 from Sulu Province and Tawi-Tawi and their training in the island town of Simunul in Tawi-Tawi.
The recruits were excited about the promise not only of a monthly allowance, but also over the prospect of eventually becoming a member of an elite unit in the armed forces. From August to December 1967, the young recruits underwent training in Simunul. The name of the commando unit was Jabidah.
On 30 December 1967, some 180 recruits boarded a Philippine Navy vessel for the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay for “specialized training.”
The training turned mutinous when the recruits discovered their true mission. It struck the recruits that the plan would mean not only fighting their brother Muslims in Sabah, but also possibly killing their own Taus?g and Sama relatives living there. Additionally, the recruits had already begun to feel disgruntled over the non-payment of the promised monthly stipend. The recruits then demanded to be returned home.
The massacre
The alleged sole survivor of the massacre, Jibin Arula, recounted how the young recruits were taken in batches of twelve to a remote airstrip where they were executed with machine guns by their military handlers. Arula, who was wounded in the left knee, managed to attach himself to driftwood long enough to be rescued by fishermen from the nearby province of Cavite.
Aftermath
The subjective truth of the massacre took some time to emerge. In March 1968, Muslim students in Manila held a week-long protest vigil over an empty coffin marked ‘Jabidah’ in front of Malacañang Palace. They claimed “at least 28” Muslim army recruits had been murdered. Court-martial proceedings were brought against twenty-three military personnel involved. There was also a firestorm in the Philippine press, attacking not so much the soldiers involved, but the culpability of a government administration that would foment such a plot, and then seek to cover it up by wholesale murder.
Insurgency
Though it has been argued that the Jabidah massacre was a myth, feelings about it in the Muslim community led to the crystallization of discontent and the subsequent formation of the Moro National Liberation Front and, later, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
For years, Filipino Muslims had been complaining of discrimination at the hands of consecutive governments and the Catholic majority. This included discrimination in housing and education, as well as lack of government funding for the majority-Muslim south. Coupled with the official government policy of settling Filipino Christians in Mindanao, a class of radical Moro intellectuals emerged, led by student activist Nur Misuari.
The Jabidah Massacre further radicalised Filipino Muslims, leading some to take up arms in the style of the Communist Party of the Philippines. This new organization, formed in the early 1970s and led by Misuari, was named the Moro National Liberation Front. Following a split over the role of Islam in a Bangsamoro state, a new, more conservative movement emerged in 1981, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Official acknowledgement
President Benigno Aquino III acknowledged the incident on 18 March 2013, when he led commemorations on the 45th anniversary of the massacre. This notably marked the first time that a ruling President had acknowledged the massacre as having taken place. Aquino also directed the National Historical Commission of the Philippines to designate the Mindanao Garden
of Peace on Corregidor as a historical landmark. — (Wikipedia)