The Bangsamoro people have endured centuries of struggle, but no period was as devastating as the years under Ferdinand Marcos Sr. His regime was not just a dictatorship—it was a reign of terror, a systematic attempt to erase the Moros from their own homeland. Entire villages were burned. Mosques were turned into execution chambers. Thousands of men were slaughtered, women were raped, and children were gunned down in cold blood.

This was not war. This was genocide.

Yet today, the family responsible walks free. Their legacy has been rewritten, their atrocities whitewashed, and even some young Moros have chosen to forget. But for those who lived through it, the wounds never closed.

Jabidah Massacre (1968): The First Betrayal

The massacre that sparked the Moro revolution did not happen in Mindanao. It happened in Corregidor, far from home, where young Moro men were lured with false promises. They were told they would be part of an elite force, trained to become soldiers who would serve the country.

Instead, they were to be used as pawns in Operation Merdeka, Marcos’ secret plan to invade Sabah, Malaysia. When the recruits discovered the truth—that they were being ordered to kill their fellow Muslims in Sabah—they refused. For that, they were sentenced to death.

One by one, they were taken from their barracks and shot. Some fought back, only to be executed faster. Some tried to run, only to be hunted down. Some, knowing their fate, carved their names into the walls of their prison—begging the world to remember they had existed.

Only one man, Jibin Arula, survived. He escaped by jumping off a cliff into the sea, wounded and bleeding. When he was rescued, his testimony exposed the massacre to the world. Yet no one was punished. No justice was given. And for the Marcos regime, it was only the beginning.

Manili Massacre (1971): When Prayers Were Answered With Bullets

On June 19, 1971, in the village of Manili, more than 70 unarmed Moro men, women, and children sought refuge inside a mosque, believing they would be safe.

They were wrong.

The Ilaga, a Christian paramilitary group backed by the Philippine Constabulary, entered the mosque and opened fire. Men fell first. Women tried to shield their children, only for bullets to rip through both bodies. Infants were shot in their mothers’ arms. When the guns fell silent, the mosque floor was covered in blood.

This was not a battlefield. There were no soldiers here. Only civilians—families—exterminated like animals. Once again, the government did nothing.

Palimbang Massacre (1974): The Day 1,500 Moro Men Vanished

If Manili was an execution, Palimbang was a purge.

On September 24, 1974, government soldiers stormed the town of Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat. Thousands of Moro men were rounded up and taken to a mosque, their hands bound, their eyes blindfolded. For weeks, they were beaten, tortured, and starved.

Then, one by one, they were dragged outside and shot. 1,500 Moro men were executed that day. Their wives, sisters, and daughters begged for their lives. In return, they were raped. Some were barely teenagers. Some were as young as nine.

The military did not stop until there were no men left. The women who survived were left alone to bury their dead, to grieve for their sons, fathers, and husbands. But where could they bury them? The government refused to acknowledge the massacre. There were no official graves, only shallow pits and mass burial sites—forgotten by history, but never by those who lived through it.

The Slow Death: Land Grabs, Starvation, and Displacement

Beyond the massacres, Marcos waged another war—a slow, suffocating war of erasure. Moro lands were stolen and given to Christian settlers. Villages were burned, forcing thousands to flee as refugees. Paramilitary groups like the Ilaga mutilated bodies, collecting ears, scalps, and fingers as trophies. Mosques were bombed. Schools were destroyed. Entire communities disappeared.

The Moros were not just being killed. They were being erased.

The Women Who Became Warriors

While history remembers the men with guns, the true backbone of the revolution were the women. One of them was Bai Annisa Alonto-Biruar.

At just 18 years old, she could have chosen to live in safety. Instead, she chose to fight. She smuggled food and supplies to MNLF fighters, risking her life on dangerous river crossings. She watched as her brother, Abul Khayr Alonto, led the resistance—knowing he might never return. When the military tried to silence her, her uncle stood firm. "I cannot stop her, because she is an Alonto," he said. She was born from warriors, and she would not be tamed.

She was not alone. Thousands of Moro women fought—not with weapons, but with resistance, survival, and defiance. They were the heart of the revolution.

Today, the Bangsamoro people still bear the scars of Marcos’ rule. The massacres may have ended, but the pain remains. Yet, some Moros have chosen to forget. They praise the same family that hunted their ancestors. They dismiss the massacres as "exaggerations." They campaign for a name that once marked them for death.

We are still here. Bruised but unbroken. Scarred but standing. The massacres may have ended, but the war against our erasure continues. It is fought in history books that omit our suffering, in leaders who distort the past, and in our own people who have been made to forget.

But we remember.

We remember the prayers that turned into screams, the hands that dug graves for their own kin, the names that were never carved into tombstones because the dead were never found. We remember the warriors who rose, the women who fought, and the children who never got to grow up.

And we will not be silent.

If we forget, we betray those who died. If we let them rewrite our past, we allow them to shape our future. We owe it to the next generation to fight—not just for justice, but for truth.

We were never meant to survive, yet here we stand.

We will remember. We will resist. And we will never let this happen again.

References:

https://www.4icu.org/reviews/3686.htm

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1A51W3ajhN/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18jqYhjkV1/

https://bangsamoro.gov.ph/news/latest-news/remembering-jabidah-and-the-seeds-of-the-struggle/

https://bangsamoro.gov.ph/news/latest-news/remembering-manili-massacre-a-step-towards-healing-progress/
https://history.upd.edu.ph/?rsrch_publications=book-chapter_martinez_2023_1