Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Philippines — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao known for?

The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was the only region of the Philippines with a government of its own, covering five predominantly Muslim provinces within the Mindanao island group. Cotabato City served as the seat. That arrangement ended with a plebiscite, and Bangsamoro took over the same ground under a new name.

Where is Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao?

Five provinces made the whole. Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi made up the region, spread across the Mindanao island group of the Philippines rather than gathered into one compact block. The region dates from 1989.

The total is modest. Something over twelve thousand square kilometres covers all five, which is small next to the island group that contains them and smaller still next to the Philippines as a whole. Cotabato City is the odd case.

It served as the region's de facto seat of government while standing outside the region's jurisdiction, a self-governing city that administered from beside rather than within the territory it served. Nothing about the arrangement was tidy on a map. Sea separates much of the rest.

Distance between the five is a defining condition rather than a detail, since an island group puts water between provinces that share a single administrative name. The five names, Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, are the whole of it, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao consisted of nothing else. Mindanao gives the region its name and its ground.

What is Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao like?

The five provinces are predominantly Muslim. That is the plain demographic fact the region was built around, and it is why the name given to the arrangement carried the word Muslim in it from 1989 onward. Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi each hold their own communities.

The region was never one culture. An island group does not produce uniformity, and distance between the provinces leaves room for local practice and local leadership to differ across the Mindanao island group. Five provinces, two names, one region.

Bangsamoro is the name now used. A plebiscite in January 2019 replaced the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, shortened to BARMM. ARMM is the older abbreviation.

Both acronyms describe the same five provinces within the Mindanao island group, and both name arrangements for regional self-government inside the Philippines. Cotabato City sat outside both. Its position as seat of government without being part of the territory it served is the sharpest illustration the region offers of how administrative lines and lived geography can fail to coincide.

What is the history of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao?

The region dates from 1989. That is when the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was constituted as the one region of the Philippines with a government of its own, drawing together Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. Cotabato City took the seat.

A plebiscite in January 2019 closed the arrangement and opened the Bangsamoro one, so ARMM belongs to the record and BARMM to the map.

What is the climate of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao?

The Mindanao island group sets the weather. An island setting moderates what a continental one would exaggerate, and the five provinces that formed this region, Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, all sit inside that same maritime frame. Sea air is the constant.

Nothing in the region is far from water, which is the single fact that matters most for what the days feel like.

How do you get to Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao?

Cotabato City is the usual entry. Much of the movement into the five provinces has run through it, even though the city itself lay outside the region's jurisdiction, and its position makes it the natural reference for any approach. Water breaks the rest of the journey.

Reaching Sulu or Tawi-Tawi from Lanao del Sur means crossing part of the Mindanao island group rather than driving between neighbouring towns.