The Philippine government’s recent decision to expand sharia law into majority-Christian regions has surprised local pastors and missionaries.
In August, President Ferdinand (“Bongbong”) Marcos Jr. signed a law which created three new sharia judicial districts and 12 circuit courts across the country. Six of the seven evangelical leaders contacted by CT only learned about this decision several months later, when approached for interviews.
Some Christian leaders expressed concern that the new law was the beginning of a subtle and gradual increase of Islamic influence that would affect all Filipinos, including Christians. Others saw it as a positive step in making justice more accessible to their Muslim neighbors.
Regardless, the law “will influence the dynamics of doing the Great Commission with the culture and communities where [the sharia law] will take effect,” said Gab Nones, a lead pastor of the megachurch Victory Antipolo.
Under this decision, the Islamic court system will spread beyond the Muslim-majority territory of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in southern Philippines, where former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. first established the courts in 1977. The new judicial districts include areas that are majority Christian: northern Mindanao and the Davao region, provinces in the Visayas, and parts of Luzon and Metro Manila.
The legislation “acknowledges the importance of the sharia judicial system and brings it closer to the communities it serves, ensuring that justice according to Islamic law is more accessible to all,” said Bangsamoro Parliament member Amir Mawallil after the bill passed unanimously through the Senate.
These reforms also acknowledge a minority community (depending on sources, Muslims make up between 6 and 11 percent of the population) that for many years was violently oppressed under Spanish and American authority.
In the 16th century, when Spain colonized parts of the archipelago, the Spanish empire mobilized Christianized Filipinos to conquer and fight the Moros, a diverse group of indigenous Muslims. When Americans came to rule over the country in 1898, the US military created Moro Province, which was administered separately from the rest of Christianized Philippines. Many Moros resisted their new colonizers, which led to casualties, including more than 600 Moro men, women, and children killed in the 1906 Bud Dajo massacre.
Today, Muslims make up 90 percent of the population of BARMM, which was created in 2019 as the result of decades of peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim separatist armed group in the region. Prior to BARMM’s creation, MILF did not recognize the local government in the territory, claiming it did not meet the basic needs of the Bangsamoro people.
One missionary, who has been based in BARMM for more than two years, said Muslims and Christians get along in the region except in far-flung localities inhabited by militants who do not recognize normalized relations with the Philippine government. The missionary, who asked not to be named, noted there are still ISIS-affiliated groups in the area, which poses a threat to peace and stability.
He believes the MILF still aims to turn the island of Mindanao into an Islamic state with a broader agenda to convert every Filipino to Islam. “They won’t say it publicly because it will be politically incorrect,” he said. “But we need to understand their agenda for the future: If we Christians have the Great Commission, they have a comparable aim.”
The Philippines’ Muslim population has increased in recent years, boosted by converts from Christianity to Islam, known as Balik-Islam, which means “return to Islam.”
As evidenced in predominantly Muslim countries, the missionary noted, sharia is integrated into society. When fully implemented, it prevents Muslims from converting to other faiths. This is currently not the case in the Philippines.
A missionary who has served for 26 years in southern Philippinessaid that in her area, which she asked not to disclose, Muslim leaders are asking for Islamic teachings to be integrated into the curriculum, even for Christian schools. She had also seen fellow missionaries beaten as they evangelized to Muslims.
The expansion of sharia law is “alarming,” said the missionary, who asked not to be named for security reasons. “Gradually but surely, they [aim to] establish their belief and teachings on sharia law,” she said, noting that non-Islamic faiths are given “limited religious rights.”
In Davao City, Lakan Sumulong, an evangelical theologian and founder of the Mennonite-supported Peace Builders Community, believes some evangelicals’ concern about the expansion of sharia court is driven by “ignorance, prejudice, discriminatory attitude, [and] Islamophobia.” Having spent time with the MILF in 2016, he found Muslims to beaccepting of his Christian belief system.
“I lived among them,” he said, “I understand how sharia is implemented.” Sharia codifies Islamic laws in the areas of marriage, divorce, and inheritance and only applies in cases when both spouses are Muslims. It operates under the Philippines’ judiciary system, and its courts do not handle criminal cases.
“Because we Christians are in the majority like in America … our religiosity has an imperialist nature,” Sumulong said. “When it comes to minorities like Muslims here in the Philippines, it’s as if we don’t care about their rights.”
He noted that evangelicals should be more concerned about the Philippines’ justice system, “which came from the Spaniards [and] Americans [and] is not working out for the whole Philippines. The justice system of the Philippines is only for the rich.”
The creation of sharia courts in 1977 did little to provide Muslims access to judicial services, according to a 2012 study by legal scholar Gregory Chiarella. “The sharia courts are understaffed and underutilized,” he noted. He recommended legal changes to “increase knowledge of and access to” sharia courts, as well as “an increase in the use of customary law, and for the creation of more leadership roles for Muslims.”
Rey Corpuz, the former head of the Philippine Missions Association and a Filipino Christian scholar in Islamic studies, also cited the shortcomings of the 1977 law. For example, if a Muslim in the northern Philippines needed to settle a concern about inheritance or divorce, he would need to travel to the southern part of the country for a sharia court to hear his case. “Your access to justice is too far,” he added.
Currently based in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, Corpuz said Muslims around the world have laws guiding their personal life. Marcos Sr.’s 1977 law created the court system to deal with those issues, and now it is simply being expanded. He noted that it wouldn’t impact Christians living in those areas.
“Back in the ’70s, ’80s, maybe even ’90s, the concentration of most of our Muslim brothers and sisters was there in Mindanao,” Corpuz said. Today, that’s no longer the case. Corpuz said some evangelicals’ concern about the new law stems from their view of the Philippines as a nation with a single dominant faith tradition.
Yet a democracy should be pluralistic. He believes the government should promote unity as a nation where we “come together underneath the banner of justice, righteousness, and fairness as a nation.”
“There are 10 million Muslims in the Philippines, and we say we are a Christian nation and the Philippines is for Jesus,” noted Corpuz. “How about the Muslims?”
