Land governance in the Bangsamoro

This policy brief identifies the legal and administrative remedies that should be undertaken to address the land-related disputes that trigger much of the violent conflict in the Mindanao region of the Philippines.

The peace pact between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) includes comprehensive agreements on wealth sharing, political power sharing and normalisation.

It is seen as the antidote to the decades-long armed rebellion that brought so much economic hardship and suffering to the southern Philippines. However, the agreement falls short of addressing the multitude of land-related disputes that trigger much of the violent conflict in Muslim Mindanao.

This policy brief identifies the legal and administrative remedies needed to fill this gap and offers a feasible course of action to prevent or resolve land-related conflict between and among families and clans in the region.

The principal recommendation is to establish a Bangsamoro Land Commission that will design a pluralistic institutional framework for land governance. Such a framework would allow the productive use of land resources, accommodate customary institutions in land governance and traditional institutions of dispute resolution, and devolve the management of land classification, registration and land development functions to local government units.