Moroland (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

Moroland (Malay: نڬري مورو Negeri Moro), officially known as the Nation of Moro, the Abode of Islam (Malay: بڠسا مورو دار الإسلام Bangsa Moro Darul Islam), is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. Moroland is an archipelago comprising of 7,107 islands with Mindanao as the main island. Mindanao Island is separated from the Philippines to the north by Bohol Sea. To the southwest of Moroland is the island of Borneo across the Sulu Sea and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from other islands of Indonesia. Its capital city is Jamboanga, while the largest city is Jolo.

Spanish East Indies (1521–1916)
In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Philippine Archipelago and claimed the archipelago for Spain. During the period, the archipelago was ruled by various Islamic sultanates and animist chieftainships. The name Moros (the Spanish word for "Moors") was given by the Spanish to the Muslim native inhabitants who had a strong presence on the islands.

Following their rule in the Philippine Archipelago, the Spanish began to forcibly converting people to Catholicism. The Spanish missionaries were able to spread Christianity in Luzon and the Visayas but the Moro sultanates and the tribes in southern part of archipelago retained their Islamic faith.

The Spanish did not succeed until the late 19th century in beginning to conquer the Moro people in the south, who fought back fiercely. During the Spanish-Japanese War in 1898, the Moros maintained their independence which they fought against the Japanese during the Pacification of Mindanao and Sulu. With their fighting efficiency throughout the war, the Spanish colonial government then formed the Moro Legion for the purpose of maintaining peace, law, and order in the Spanish East Indies. Moro leaders then were awarded prominent many positions on the government and Moro sultanates and chiefdoms were recognized its existence while accepted the Spanish hegemony on their lands.

By the dawn of World War I, the Spanish East Indies was Spain's most precious colony on its empire. As the memories of Spanish-Japanese War still remained, the colonial government ordered the mobilization of Spanish Indies Army immediately after the Spanish declaration of war to the Entente on August 5, 1914. The Moro Legion which already formed in 1900 for the purpose of maintaining peace, law and order in the colony was incorporated into the Spanish Indies Army. The combined forces of the colonial army with 300,000 Spanish soldiers, 2500 Moro soldiers, 1620 Filipino recruits, and 104 warships, however, was still outnumbered by 500,000 Japanese naval infantry and 112 warships that had stationed on Takasago.

After a lengthy deliberation between political factions within the Imperial Diet, Japan finally declared war to the Central Powers on November 31, 1914 and invaded the Spanish East Indies on the night of December 1, 1914. The most dramatic naval battle between the Spanish Armada and the Imperial Japanese Navy occurred at the Philippine Sea on December 27, 1914, sunken 56 war vessels and killed more than 4000 servicemen from both sides. The battles between Japanese and Spanish forces on the Spanish East Indies were proved to be the most notable fighting on the Asian and Pacific theatre on World War I. The fighting would lasting until 1916, following the Japanese victory at the Battle of Mindanao.

Japanese South Pacific (1916–1950)
main page: Japanese South Pacific (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

In 1917, the Japanese South Pacific was declared to replace the Spanish colonial administration in the Philippine Archipelago. The Japanese colonial government included Moro lands into the Province of Mindanao (民太那部道), abolished the traditional sultanates in Mindanao and Sulu, exiled their rulers to Manila, confiscated their personal lands and properties, and suppressed the rebellious chiefs. Nevertheless, the Governor-General of the Japanese South Pacific, Katō Tomosaburō, appointed former Sulu Prime Minister, Abdul Bugui Hadji Butu, to the Central Advisory Council to represent the Southern Muslim population.

The situation in the Japanese South Pacific was relatively stable and peaceful and the daily activities in the colony were mainly undisturbed by the revolutionary waves that swept Japan between 1918 and 1924. Governor-General Katō, who had been secretly sympathetic to the Republican cause, ordered the Japanese troops in the Japanese South Pacific to maintain their neutrality and not to side with either the Loyalists or the Republicans until the winning side of the war could be clear enough to be seen.

On March 17, 1919, the Second Philippine National Assembly was convened at Manila by Philippine nationalists. The Assembly, however, was not attended by the representatives from Southern Muslims. Instead, the Muslim leaders convened their own congress at Jolo on June 28, 1919, attended by former rulers, such as Jamalul Kiram of Sulu, Mangiging of Manguindanao and Alawiya Alonto of Ramain. The conference then produced the so-called Jolo Manifesto, demanded for "protection of Muslim properties and rights of life and the restoration of the sultanates in Mindanao and Sulu".

When Katō died in office in 1923, the Republican government in Kyoto appointed the Director of the South Pacific Home Affairs Bureau, Shimomura Hiroshi, as his replacement. With the Republican Navy's support, Shimomura officially declared the South Pacific Mandate under the authority of the Republic of Japan on September 2, 1923. The colonial administration was reformed. Military officers in the government were replaced by Japanese civilian bureaucrats. Most of local chiefs, known as "datu", and former Moro rulers entered the colonial bureaucracy as well as the local councils in order to preserve their position as ruling elite class in Mindanao and Sulu.

Similarly with the rest of islands, Moro chiefs and local administrators joined the Insular Society of Emilio Aguinaldo to gain political support to be elected into the Mindanao Provincial Council and the Central Advisory Council. In 1931, several Moro local leaders, led by Abdul Bugui Hadji Butu and Datu Piang, split from Aguinaldo's Insular Society and formed the Moslem Insular Society (Perhempoenan Moeslimin Kepoelaoean, PMK) at Kotabato in 1932. The PMK simply campaigned to protect the rights and the interests of Muslims (and their local leaders) in the South from "Christian Luzon hegemony". Its membership consisted mainly by the Moro aristocrats and local administrators. Like its northern counterpart, the Moslem Insular Society dominated the local politics in Mindanao and Sulu throughout 1930s.

In 1940, more younger and radical members of the PMK, led by Ahmad Parfahn, split off and formed the Moro Nationalist Party (Partai Kebangsaan Negeri Moro; PKNM). The PKNM supported instead more secular form of Moro nationalism with Malay language should be the unifying factor of Moro people, instead of Islam. Muslims, Christians and pagans alike in southern islands who embraced the Moro national identity should be regarded as brothers, instead as enemies. The only enemy for PKNM itself was the Luzon hegemony as embraced by Benigno Ramos and his All-Philippine Nationalist Party.