Rebel Leader Turns to Ecotourism : How a Former MILF Combatant Found Peace in Zamboanga Sibugay
Eleven years after the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed a historic peace agreement, a former rebel leader has reinvented himself—not as a fighter, but as an entrepreneur, building an ecotourism destination in a province once synonymous with banditry and kidnapping.
Barahama Ali, a former senior leader of the MILF’s 113 Base Command in Tungawan, Zamboanga Sibugay, says the 2014 peace pact “opened a new door for us.”
For more than two decades, Ali lived the life of a revolutionary—constantly on the move, sleeping under trees, and navigating the risks of armed struggle. Coming back to mainstream society was never easy.
“People will always see you as a troublemaker, an outlaw,” he admitted. “But that is normal because most of them do not understand our struggle and the ideology we fought for.”
Even after the agreement, Ali said he was often tagged by law enforcement in criminal activities—allegations he denied. “The MILF combatants were not bandits. We were revolutionaries fighting a just war,” he insisted.
Despite the stigma, Ali pressed on. The peace accord gave him and his comrades what he called “a new lease of normalcy.”
MILF Signs Peace Agreement
The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), signed on March 27, 2014, capped 17 years of negotiations and ended over four decades of armed struggle for Moro self-determination. It paved the way for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), replacing the ARMM.
For Ali, peace meant more than politics. It meant family. He returned home to manage their small landholdings, including a tiny island off Naga town in Zamboanga Sibugay.
Reunited with his children, he finally had the chance to play the role of a father.
Today, he beams with pride as he shares their stories: one is an engineer with the provincial government, another a nurse in a government hospital, another a public school teacher, and another in business and became the village chair of Barangay Tenan after he won the last barangay elections.
‘Normalcy’
“There is now a sense of normalcy,” he said. “Something I never had in my tumultuous life as a revolutionary.”
That normalcy also gave birth to a dream: turning Coba Islet into an ecotourism site. Just 20 minutes by boat from Barangay Tenan—once a conflict zone—the islet is now dotted with cottages, a treehouse, and a conference hall, all built around its preserved mini-forest.
“I want it to be different from other beach resorts,” Ali explained. “Nature has a very special place in my heart. I lived in the forests and mountains for years.”
But his vision goes beyond tourism. For Ali, Coba Islet is proof that change is possible.
Editor’s Note: This was first published in Rappler in 2021. The Daily Sun Chronicle re-run this story with some updates.
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