They’re at it again.

The misguided misfits firing bullets instead of filing ballots.

I’m talking about last week’s long-delayed parliamentary election in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Hopefully, it launched a new era of independence and freedom. What it also re-launched, however, was memories of an era most Filipinos hoped had long passed.

Some of those memories are mine. Like the first time I flew to the Philippines in 2003. My destination was Zamboanga City, not part of BARMM but adjacent to it and historically associated with violent unrest aimed at Islamic independence. And anyway, BARMM didn’t exist in 2003.

“You want to go where?” asked the incredulous woman about to check me in at Los Angeles International Airport. “Please don’t. The terrorist will cut off your head!”

Not exactly what I’d expected from a Philippine Airlines employee welcoming me on my inaugural flight to these gorgeous tropical islands. So I spent the next several hours pacing up and down a terminal corridor, only mustering the courage to board after imbibing an abundance of alcohol.

Landing in Zamboanga wasn’t much better. Attendants literally escorted us off the tarmac between lines of well-armed guards. And staying at the nearby Garden Orchid Hotel felt like a stern incarceration under the watchful eyes of yet another team of armed protectors.

“Where are you going, sir?” one of them inquired as I stood at the gate contemplating a solo walk downtown. At his urgent urging, I quickly canceled my plans.

Twenty years later, things had changed. Former terrorists were being trained as tour guides. And previous insurgents, once willing to die for land they considered theirs, now peacefully farmed it to feed their families. The situation “is relatively peaceful,” a brigadier general told reporters at the 2022 groundbreaking of a 25-million-peso reformatory then under construction by former Abu Sayyaf rebels. “For quite a long time there’s been an absence of violent clashes.”

All, he insisted, because of the creation three years earlier of BARMM, now comprising Basilan (excluding Isabela City), Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, and Tawi-Tawi.

Since then, the peace has only occasionally been broken. Two years ago, Islamic terrorists bombed a morning Mass at Marawi’s Mindanao State University, killing four students. “Security is pretty tight right now,” a friend in Zamboanga told me, adding that officials had temporarily banned backpacks, water bottles, baseball caps, and hooded jackets.

And later the same year, a 26-year-old American living in Zamboanga del Norte with his Filipino/Muslim wife got abducted at gunpoint by six angry, black-coated men. Police say they believe he died of gunshot wounds inflicted during the abduction, though his body was never recovered.

My most recent trip to Zamboanga, however, impressed me enough to write this when I got home: “Hanging out at the mall. That’s how thousands of Zamboanguenos spend their weekends these days. You see them buying groceries or strolling along the corridors with children in tow. Often elderly men gather in groups to sip coffee while loudly discussing the news of the day. The malls are so crowded that finding a place to park on Sunday afternoons is akin to navigating traffic at a major airport. But they do it because they can. And because most of the malls are brand spanking new.”

The city’s newfound prosperity, explained my Zamboangueno friend—a seasoned journalist and newspaper publisher—also stemmed from BARMM. “Lots of Muslims came to Zamboanga from neighboring islands to invest,” he said of his hometown, then 40% Muslim. “Inevitably, the city has grown.”

Which is why it’s such a shame that the recent elections inspired major shootouts in the neighboring city of Cotabato, killing five and wounding at least 20. Other incidents—including alleged voting irregularities—occurred in Maguindanao del Sur, Basilan, and Lanao del Sur. “The polls are historic because they test the durability of the peace process,” Rommel Banlaoi, a Manila-based political and security analyst, told the New York Times.

Let’s pray that process holds.

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Muslim Mindanao Misfire