Land Rights, Displacement, and Transitional Justice in the Bangsamoro: Insights from household-level mapping in Marawi City and Maguindanao

Land dispossession is acknowledged as a root cause of historical and contemporary conflict in the Bangsamoro that must be jointly addressed by a wide range of stakeholders: the Government of the Philippines (GPH); the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF); the recently-created Parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM); relevant provincial, municipal, and barangay authorities; alongside traditional leaders, grassroots institutions, and clans. In response, this report summarizes findings from rapid community and household-level participatory and IDP-led mapping processes and dialogues conducted from late 2021 to mid-2022 in displaced neighborhoods in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur and South Upi and Firis Complex in Maguindanao. We present parcel-level evidence on the effects of protracted displacement and land tenure instability on Mranaw, Tëduray-Lambangian, and Maguindanaon internally-displaced persons (IDPs), along with concrete recommendations to aid in the resolution of land conflicts and dispossession, from the point-of-view of displaced residents themselves.

Download PDF copy.