SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
A new political era began on Friday in the Southern Philippines. Lawmakers took their seats in a newly elected local parliament, marking a major milestone in ending one of the country's last separatist insurgencies. It lasted eight decades and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Last month, reporter Jan Camenzind Broomby was at the polling stations as former fighters traded weapons for ballots. And a warning, this story has sounds of gunfire.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #1: (Non-English language spoken).
JAN CAMENZIND BROOMBY, BYLINE: In the Southern Philippines, a university gymnasium in Cotabato City has been transformed. Instead of sports fans, the stands teem with attendees of a grand political rally. Hundreds of supporters for the political wing of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF, a local Islamist militant group.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: Mingling in the crowd, dozens of men who call themselves mujahideen fighters.
You're a combatant?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah. All of us. We are all combatant.
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: Among them, Bhong Dalama.
BHONG DALAMA: We fight them in the battlefield.
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: He's a deputy base commander for the MILF who once fought a guerrilla war against the Philippine government.
DALAMA: If jihad will call us...
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: Manila may have viewed it as a secessionist conflict, but to him, it was a form of jihad, a term whose meaning is contested globally, but many here interpret as a religious struggle to defend one's own beliefs. Now, after years of armed insurgency for the sake of the next generation, he hopes for peace.
DALAMA: We are more than willing to accept, based on the peaceful means.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Singing in non-English language).
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: The Philippines might be almost 79% Roman Catholic, but here in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, also known as the BARMM, Muslims are in the majority.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Singing in non-English language).
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: Locals have fought for autonomy for hundreds of years, including against the United States, which colonized the region in 1898, and then against the Philippines government after independence in 1946, which many people here viewed as a continuation of outside rule.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Non-English language spoken).
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: A key figure in the struggle, Murad Ebrahim, chairperson of the MILF. In one of the Rebel group's strongholds, he tells us the time for violence is now over.
MURAD EBRAHIM: The real meaning of Jihad is struggle. We have struggled so much. We even wage war.
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: Under a peace deal signed in 2014, the MILF and Manila have agreed that BARMM will stay Filipino, but will have its own local government. Ebrahim says jihadi struggle, once expressed through violence, will now be expressed via democracy.
EBRAHIM: So now we have our own government, and we have to protect it. And this can only be protected by the balance.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: (Singing in non-English language).
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: As the morning prayers ring out on election day, we head to a polling station.
There's a queue that stretches all the way around the corner, with probably hundreds of people lining up.
Inside, we find Mohammed Bedtikan, a Cotabato local.
MOHAMMED BEDTIKAN: I feel great because this the first parliamentary election here in BARMM. We're hoping that this election will be safe.
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: And the fears, they're valid because in the last few hours, there have been two explosions in this city alone and numerous people shot dead in what is thought to be election-related violence.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: A ba da ba da ba.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: A reminder that even though lawmakers are now taking their seats, peace is fragile.
GEORGI ENGELBRECHT: The interim government has failed to curb violence.
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: This is Georgi Engelbrecht, from the Belgium-based think tank International Crisis Group. He says combatants must now build political coalitions that deliver for locals, because after the votes are counted, no party has won a clear majority.
ENGELBRECHT: If malgovernance will persist, it might be just a matter of time until a new group will emerge and fight for the rights of the people.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORN HONKING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: (Non-English language spoken).
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: And another challenge. While some 26,000 of the MILF's combatants have been decommissioned, 14,000 remain active, guarding militia camps.
EBRAHIM: What we are asking now is that they will deliver...
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: Chairperson Ebrahim says decommissioning will continue once Manila provides mujahideen fighters with the support needed to reintegrate into society...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: (Non-English language spoken).
CAMENZIND BROOMBY: ...With the hope that the fate of their homeland can now be decided not on the battlefield, but at the ballot box instead.
For NPR News, I'm Jan Camenzind Broomby in Cotabato City, the Philippines.
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