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December 21, 2005

Philippines: Balik Islam - From Christianity to Islamism?

There are many Christians in the south Philippine island of Mindanao, who mainly live in the western Zamboanga province and the north of the island. Their neighbours on Mindanao are mainly Muslim, and most of these belong to the Moro or Bangsamoro people. Increasingly there is a new phenomenon among Filipino Christians - conversion to Islam. Many of these Christians turned Muslims live in the northern island of Luzon, and around Manila, the capital.

There are among these converts a minority who espouse Islamist terror, who belong to a group called the Rajah Solaiman group. This group was founded in January 2002 by Ahmed Islam Santos, a convert from Catholicism, who became Muslim in 1993.

We reported on October 26 that Santos had been arrested in San Jose town, Zamboanga city, with eight members of the Rajah Solaiman group.

Santos (pictured above) had formerly been Hilarion del Rosario Santos III before his adoption of Islam. His group has strong connections with the Islamist terror group Abu Sayyaf.

The most extreme act of Abu Sayyaf was to bomb a ferry (pictured) on February 27, 2004, which was carrying 900 people. In the ensuing fire and panic, 116 people lost their lives. Christian Science Monitor reports that police have said that a Catholic turned Muslim confessed to setting a bomb on the ferry.

These converts do not see themselves as converted as much as "reverted". They generally call themselves the Balik. The name means "return". There are two explanations. Those who"revert" are said to be reverting to the faith of Islam that would flourished, but for the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, a view put forward by Dan Mariano in abs-cbn.news.

The other notion of being a member of Balik Islam is based on the premise that all people are naturally born Muslim, but have been misled by false (Catholic) teachings. By accepting Islam, one is "returning" or "reverting" to that initial Muslim state. This is the view presented by ADN Kronos yesterday.

The subject of Balik Islam had come into the news again because security forces have recently announced that last week in Zamboanga on the island of Mindanao, they had captured the second in command of the Rajah Solaiman Group, Pio de Vera. The announcement came shortly after the publication of a report by the International Crisis Group on the danger posed to the nation by radicalised Muslim converts.

A summary and a pdf download of the full ICG report, entitled "Philippines Terrorism: The Role of Militant Islamic Converts" can be obtained here. In this and another summary it is said that Santos had originally been a member of Abu Sayyaf before he founded the Rajah Solaiman Group (RSG) in 2002. The need for the group, which is named after the Muslim ruler of Manila at the time of the Spanish conquest, came about to draw military attention away from the Abu Sayyaf group based in Basilan.

Most of the Rajah Solaiman group are based in Luzon and Manila. ICG state that most of the Catholics who convert become involved in Islam initially while working as migrant workers in Middle Eastern Muslim countries. Both RSG and Abu Sayyaf are ideologically guided by the Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah who are based in Indonesia and set off the Bali bombs in 2002 and on Oct 1 this year.

Today, according to abs-cbn.news and News Inq7 and abc news, the Philippines military put on show two individuals - Pio Abogne de Vera, the No 2 of the Rajah Solaiman Group and Mohammad Guiman. It is alleged that the pair were planning to set off bomb attacks in Metro Manila.

Pio de Vero (left, in orange) was arrested on December 1, and Guiman (right, in orange) had been arrested on November 30. Guiman had been arrested in Makati City, and had apparently been plotting to bomb the recently completed 23rd Southeast Asian games.

We mentioned how three Islamists were given death sentences on October 28 for a bomb attack on a bus in Makati, Manila's financial district, which killed four and injured 60 on February 14 this year.

One of those sentenced was Angelo Trinidad, a member of Rajah Solaiman. Trinidad, aka Khalid Trinidad and Abu Khalil, had identified Guiman as the supplier of the explosives which were used in the bus bomb.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 21, 2005 12:20 PM

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