The Philippines: Defeating Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)

By Ronel Manalo

Despite being the focus of counterinsurgency for four decades, Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) continues to pose severe security threats to the Philippines (see Figure 1[i]) and the Southeast Asian region.  Based in Basilan, Sulu, and Tawitawi of southern Philippines, the insurgency uses principally terrorism and criminality in its quest for a separate Islamist state. This objective derives from a contested polity, wherein legitimacy has been lost in marginalized areas that have been mobilized in the cause of violent radical Islamism.

ASG embraces Wahhabi doctrine.  As such, it intends to expand sectarian
violence to purify Islam by expelling government administration and Christians
from the Muslim regions of the southern Philippines, while simultaneously
forcing fellow Muslims to observe fundamentalist Islam.  Peace negotiations have been rejected, and violent
Jihad has been declared.

Ironically, current government efforts,
though appreciating the need to address the roots of conflict behind a shield
of security, have been hobbled by inadequate service delivery, often due to
widespread corruption, and an emphasis upon kinetic operations.

Figure 1

Roots of Conflict

ASG’s uprising is one of the Bangsamoro (Muslim region) armed struggles that originated from Muslim grievances against colonial and post-colonial rule. During the three centuries of Spanish colonialism (up to 1898, when the American half-century began), attempts to conver...