University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines
Disclosure: Disclosure information not submitted.
The ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law institutes an asymmetric regional government for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and legally recognizes a Bangsamoro people who bear a distinct identity in addition to their Filipino citizenship. What is the relationship between the Bangsamoro and Filipino identities? The paper discusses the data from a series of surveys conducted by the Social Weather Stations in 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2018 among households in Mindanao asks questions on Bangsamoro identity, Filipino pride, religious beliefs, and attitudes towards the Philippine state. It also relates this data to the nationwide Philippine data of the International Social Survey Program modules on social networks and religion, which allows for the comparison of the attitudes of Muslims and Christians. Initial results reveal an ambiguous relationship between Bangsamoro and Filipino identity: while those identified as Bangsamoro were less likely to be very proud to be Filipino than those who did not in the 2011 survey, this pattern is reversed in the 2015 survey.
