Whereas the first round of referendum voting saw an overwhelming response in favor of including five of six southern Philippine provinces and cities in a new autonomous region called "Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao" (BARMM), the second round held on 6 February 2019 yielded more
mixed results, as Benar News reported on 12 February 2019. Despite this, autonomy is beginning to take shape.
Thomas Muller, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, comments: "All six communities of the Lanao del Norte Province which called for the referendum had previously
rejected the Bangsamoro Organic Law (Rappler, 7 February 2019). Lanao del Norte has always been contested space, where Christians feel insecure. It marks the boundary between a predominantly Catholic area (with cities such as Illigan and Cagayan de Oro) and the predominantly Muslim Lanao del Sur province,. At the same time, it is one of the strongholds of Muslim insurgency group MILF, which will widely rule the new entity BARMM. Some commentators now see a
real danger (Jamestown, 8 February 2019) that the autonomy for the province might end up like Indonesian
Aceh (Asean Today, 11 February 2019), with the implementation of Sharia law and adverse repercussions for Christians."
Thomas Muller continues: "Meanwhile, the increasingly authoritarian government of the Philippines continues to act against critics harshly. The CEO and executive editor of the news-platform Rappler was arrested on 13 February 2019 on cyber libel charges going back to 2012, a move decried by international observers such as
ASEAN Parliamentary Group for Human Rights reporting on 14 February 2019. In another interesting development, the former national police chief responsible for initiating the president"s heavy-handed, two-and-a-half year "˜drug war"
asked for forgiveness from a Catholic archbishop for the estimated 20,000 thousand suspected drug users and dealers killed by government officers, as reported by UCA News on 7 February 2019."
