Editing Basilan (section)

===Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and the rise of Abu Sayyaf===
{{See also|Land reform in the Philippines}}

At the onset of the post-Marcos administration of [[Corazon Aquino]], another blow was dealt to Basilan's economy. In 1988, Congress passed a law establishing the [[Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program]] (CARP), which inaugurated a land distribution program, effectively dissolving nearly all of the corporate plantations on the island. CARP applied to Basilan's large multi-national plantations despite the plantation workers' misgivings and the landowners' objections. Almost immediately, the large multi-national corporations withdrew their investments from Basilan, leaving their plantations to ill-equipped farmer beneficiaries, who managed operations in a farmers cooperative format.

The J. S. Alano coconut plantation was converted into the Tairan Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association and Multi-Purpose Cooperative (TARBAMC), the University of the Philippines Basilan Land Grant into the Santa Clara Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Integrated Development Cooperative (SCARBIDC), and the American Rubber (B.F. Goodrich) rubber plantation was converted into the Latuan Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association Inc. (LARBAI). The vast tracts of the Enrile-owned Cocoland Plantation, was redistributed as the Lamitan Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperative (LARBECO). A number of other Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperatives have likewise taken over most of the small to mid-sized plantations on the island.

The Philippine government's initial rapprochement with the Nur Misuari-led Moro National Liberation Front throughout the 1980s established the 7,281-hectare Basilan Resettlement Area which was set aside for MNLF rebel-returnees and their communities located on the western slopes of Basilan Peak, mostly in northern Sumisip, but also in southern Isabela, and northeastern Maluso. This vast area was eventually subdivided into four Agrarian Reform Cooperatives, all of which were established in 1991.

[[File:Ph zamboanga peninsula.png|thumb|Political map of Zamboanga Peninsula]]

By the early 1990s, disgruntled youth, influenced by returning mujahideen warriors from the thwarted Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and schooled in more radical schools of thought in Syria, Egypt and Pakistan, banded together to form the Al-Harakatul Al-Islamiyah, better known worldwide as [[Abu Sayyaf]], an extremist group advocating strict Islamic governance similar to Afghanistan's [[Taliban]] regime. This group initiated test raids, kidnappings, ambushes and assassinations in some of the most vulnerable communities inland, causing the dispersal of these communities and total breakdown of the inland economy.

As more and more of the group's pioneering leaders were captured or gunned down, the group gradually transformed from being radical ideologues to becoming plain lawless elements or bandits, prone to committing heinous crimes, usually kidnapping for ransom and bombings throughout Mindanao, Palawan (Dos Palmas) and even Malaysia (Sipadan Is.).

The group's founding leader, the radical firebrand Abdurajak Janjalani of Isabela City, is a typical product of Basilan's closely mixed ethnicities and inter-marriages: he is part-Tausug, part-Yakan and part-Ilonggo.