On December 23, 1976, in Tripoli, the government of President Ferdinand Marcos and the MNLF signed a peace pact granting full autonomy to 13 provinces in Mindanao, to end the separatist war. By the time, the fighting had cost the lives of about 120,000 people and displaced 300,000 more. The scripts of both the 1976 and 1996 events are practically the same, the key players are nearly similar but for a few new actors, and the direction of the negotiations that culminated in 1996 was just a bit more polished than in 1976. In both periods, the MNLF was perennially angry and fractious yet equally deferential to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). The government, on the other hand, always had difficulty distinguishing the concept of negotiation from co-optation.

Source: M.D.Vitug & G.M.Gloria, Under The Crescent Moon; Rebellion Mindanao; Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs