The article entitled “Restructuring the Post-Conflict Future: Special Autonomy as a Path to Decolonization and Prosperity in Aceh and Bangsamoro” presents an optimistic reading of autonomy as the ultimate form of decolonization and development. While the narrative sounds attractive and promising, such a perspective misses the deeper historical and ideological logic of the Bangsamoro struggle. In the Bangsamoro context, autonomy is not decolonization but it is a containment. The Bangsamoro are not seeking recognition from the Philippine state but reclaiming a sovereignty that has never been extinguished.

The Fallacy of Recognition: Sovereignty That Preceded the State

To frame Bangsamoro autonomy as a "recognition" of distinct identity misrepresents history. Long before the Philippine Republic, the Sultanates of Maguindanao, Sulu, and the Rajahnate of Buayan were established polities with systems of taxation, diplomacy, and moral governance rooted in shari‘ah and adat (McKenna, 1998). These were not proto-states awaiting modernization, they were fully functioning civilizations connected mostly to Southeast Asian countries like Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and even China.

In this light, the Moro nation does not need any recognition from Manila since their sovereignty does not emanate from the state. As articulated in the ideology of “Resurgencism”, sovereignty is a moral and historical condition embedded in divine law and ancestral legitimacy. Recognition-based frameworks operate on the assumption that legitimacy flows from the postcolonial state. Resurgencism reverses this logic by affirming that sovereignty has always flowed from moral order, not constitutional permission.

The Myth of Genuine Autonomy: Centralized Control under a Decentralized Mask

The article mentioned in the first paragraph argues that the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is an already successful embodiment of autonomy. Yet, beneath this institutional surface lies the persisting presence of national intervention. Fiscal dependence on Manila remains via national budgetary allocations and limited revenue powers. Even the President of the Republic appoints the Interim Chief Minister and some members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, while critical sectors such as policing, defense, and foreign affairs remain outside regional jurisdiction. Hence it is a form of internal colonialism, a political arrangement that gives symbolic autonomy but retains structural control. Rodil (1994) referred to it as the "minoritization of indigenous communities," where state power intrudes into the very cultural core of Moro autonomy. The institutions of BARMM are thus bound within the constitutional framework of a unitary state; autonomy serves only as an administrative means of integration, not a tool for liberation.

Decolonization Without Sovereignty: The Epistemic Contradiction

As Fanon (1961) and Mignolo (2011) remind us, true decolonization requires not only institutional reform but epistemic liberation-the right to define one's own political choice. The autonomy framework assumes, instead, that the postcolonial state is the only source of authority and modernity. The peace agreements and state funding are markers of success, while in fact, the reality is that these are negotiated within a colonial constitution that nullifies precolonial sovereignty.

Resurgencism rejects this epistemic dependency. Resurgencism looks at the Bangsamoro not as a minority within the Philippine republic but as heirs to a civilizational sovereignty rooted in divine trust or “Amanah” and ancestral law. Decolonization, therefore, does not come through bureaucratic accommodation; what is called for is recognition of a parallel legitimacy predating the state and transcending it.

From Colonization to Co-Optation: The Continuity of Intervention

The article's portrayal of autonomy as liberation overlooks historical continuity in intervention. Both the Spanish and American colonial administration exercised indirect rule-governing through Moro elites while undermining collective sovereignty. The post-1946 Philippine Republic further institutionalized this model of co-optation through land resettlement, militarization, and peace agreements. BARMM follows the same trajectory: its political elites perform and exercise under the umbrella of national law, which ensures that their sovereignty remains derivative or coped and not genuine or original.

This arrangement describes what I call “transitional sovereignty” a condition where symbols of independence are permitted but the substance of authority is denied. Autonomy becomes an instrument of pacification, a continuation of colonial process through modern constitutionalism.

Resurgencism as the True Decolonial Paradigm

Resurgencism redefines the Bangsamoro struggle not as rebellion or integration, but as reclamation, a civilizational duty of remembering and re-asserting an unbroken sovereignty. In contrast to the state-centric model of autonomy, Resurgencism argues that the source of legitimacy is founded in moral and historical continuity. Thus, Esposito (1998) explains how Islamic governance finds its source in justice ('adl) and consultation (shura), while Alfred (2005) describes indigenous resurgence as re-activating ancestral authority.

This paradigm reveals that genuine peace in Bangsamoro will not emerge from administrative devolution but from restoring moral order and historical truth. The Bangsamoro struggle, therefore, is not about aiming recognition within the Philippine state, but of a reawakening of a sovereignty which was never lost-only silenced.

Conclusion: Beyond the Mirage of Autonomy

To interpret autonomy as decolonization in Bangsamoro is to confuse permission for liberation. The current framework of autonomy is not genuine or decolonial in nature, simply because it falls under the continuous oversight and control of the central government. What exists today is not autonomy but state-sanctioned governance, peace defined by control rather than justice.

The Bangsamoro are not begging to be recognized; they are claiming continuity. Their struggle, as encapsulated in Resurgencism, is not of incorporation nor integration into the Republic but the recovery of a moral and civilizational sovereignty that has endured across centuries of conquest and compromise.

Unless this reality is recognized, the Bangsamoro autonomy will remain what it has always been: a colonial structure wearing the mask of self-determination.