Between legal and legit: Local security arrangements between state security actors and irregular forces in Bangsamoro region, Philippines

Abstract

Gaps in state reach and historical challenges to state assertion of authority in Philippine peripheries account for the multiplicity of irregular forces. Rebel groups, private armies, militias, vigilantes, and criminal gangs crisscross legal and shadow spaces, and engage co-located military and police units. They are rooted in traditional social structures in terms of membership and legitimation source. They are pragmatically contracted by the state for local security provisioning and counterinsurgency, shoring up the decentralized power structure where local oligarchs and strongmen act as political brokers between the state and the communities. Negotiated peace agreements with two rebel groups and government-initiated reconfiguring of private armies into auxiliaries portend to a pathway of more formal integration or linkage between these irregular forces and the state security apparatus.