ABSTRACT
After over a decade of somewhat fitful peace negotiations between the Philippine Government and the armed separatist movement Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Mindanao peace process is now said to be in crisis. Many historians and social scientists trace the roots of the Mindanao conflict to the Spanish colonial period, when the conquistadores sought to subjugate the Muslims in the southern Philippines. In the various analyses regarding the MOA-AD fiasco, hardly anything has been written about the process of political decay that the Philippines has been undergoing. The Philippines’ political decay, especially the descent from traditional clientelist politics to predatory politics, is having a devastating impact on the Mindanao peace process. In playing its deceitful peace game, the predatory regime has managed to frustrate and even exploit the peace brokers, international donor organizations and peace advocates in their peace and development endeavors.
