Following calls by former president Rodrigo Duterte for an independent Mindanao, a YouTube video claimed that the island has now seceded from the Philippines. This is not true. Mindanao remains part of the country.
Uploaded on Feb. 5, the video’s headline read:
“KAPAPASOK LANG. SHOCKING NAGULAT ANG LAHAT! MINDANAO TUMIWALAG NA! DINAAN SA LEGAL MANNY DI SANgAYON! (Just in. Shocking, everyone was surprised! Mindanao has seceded! Through a legal way, Manny was against it!)”
Its thumbnail also bore the text: “CONFIRM HIWALAY NA! ITO ANG MALAKING PAGBABAGO SA PILIPINAS (Separated! This is the big change in the Philippines).”
Duterte on Jan. 30 called for the secession of Mindanao via a people’s initiative through the collection of signatures.
The former president said that his proposal for Mindanao independence will be made through a United Nations-sponsored referendum, similar to that of Timor-Leste in 1999. No such move is underway.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. condemned Duterte’s separatist calls. In a speech during Constitution Day on Feb. 9, Marcos said Mindanao’s secession is a “grave violation of the Constitution” and is “doomed to fail.”
Other government agencies such as the Department of Justice, Department of National Defense, Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity also rejected calls for Mindanao’s secession.
Several officials from Mindanao, including those from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), have also opposed Duterte’s idea of an independent Mindanao Republic.
Mindanao, particularly the Bangsamoro region, has been the center of separatist movements primarily led by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The MNLF and MILF eventually abandoned their demands for independence through peace deals that paved the way for greater regional autonomy. This led to the creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in 1989 and later its replacement by the BARMM in 2019.
Uploaded by YouTube channel Showbiz Sports Fanatics (created Aug. 9, 2021) with around 87,500 subscribers, the erroneous video received 2,857 interactions.
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