Codex Philippinensis [Maintenance Thread, Closed, MT]

[Bagong Luzon]

It was February 25th, AD 1986.

The EDSA Revolution had been crushed, compliments of the hardliners of the Marcos regime. Machine gun fire swept the ranks, driving the masterminds of the coup to fight back. The gunners were indiscriminate in their firing; teachers, churchmen, students, and professionals alike were gunned down before the loyalists.

Total casualty counts were finally tallied two weeks after; at 1200 dead, the death toll left by the EDSA Massacre would only be exceeded three years after, on June 4th, 1989...

The immediate aftermath led to the sowing of seeds; seeds of rebellion that would bear fruit the following year.

OOC INTRODUCTION

The Codex Philippinensis is a maintenance thread dedicated to worldbuilding information and history behind the three successor states to the Republic of the Philippines that were formed after the Philippine Civil War of 1988, videlicet, New Visayan Islands, Bagong Luzon, and Bangsamoro Rojo. That I, NVI, am using this specific puppet as OP is deliberate; one cannot speak of the three nations without taking a look at this outcome of alternate history. Who knows what might have happened had Marcos not have been 86'd in '86? We may not really know, but some of us might be able to make a few good guesses.

New Visayan Islands
OP of thread as: Bagong Luzon

[Bagong Luzon]

In the weeks after the failed EDSA Revolution, Martial Law was restored, along with all the unpleasantries that followed. The Anti-Subversion Law saw to even more extreme measures used by the man who would become King Ferdinand I; not even churchmen, government officials, and executives were spared from the sweeping tide of zeal directed at protecting the State.

While such extreme measures were taken to preserve the State, that same State also took pains to ensure that the populace was placated. Overseas Contract Workers, for example, were lionized in speeches; on May 1st, 1986, then President Marcos declared that any OCW with ten consecutive years of tenure was eligible for the Presidential Medal of Merit.

[New Visayan Islands]

Cebu had been a focal point for the first wave of secessionists ever since the Pink Sisters offered sanctuary to the architects of EDSA. What helped immensely was the fact that the local government did its best to keep the Constabulary honest; the intensely devout Cebuanos would not, for example, abide attacks on churches, and the Archbishop of Cebu had enough influence to keep the Church in his province unmolested in the months leading to the Civil War.

It was due to the relative stability in Cebu that it became a safe place for the men who would become the Founding Fathers of the Confederation. Juan Diego Cortez had been chosen by the Founding Fathers for what at the time was simply being their Face. As the months passed, this proved extremely effective in rallying the disgruntled masses and those members of society's elite that did not like the way Marcos and his cronies continuously violated the country alike.

[Bangsamoro Rojo]

After the reactionary hardliners had their way with EDSA, there was little choice left but for the CPP-NPA to consolidate its numbers. Mindanao had been determined as both a refuge for the Party and a training ground for the NPA; in addition to government forces, the religious fanatics already seeking to secede would be good practice for the Army.

Six months after the EDSA Massacre, armed struggle had reached its peak; NPA attacks intensified, but they were merely diversions. In many cases, the true objective was to distract forces loyal to the Marcos regime while opening an opportunity for most of the forces to escape. The scale of the bloodbath even drove the point home; those troops who fought as the distraction died to the last man, but not without taking at least the same number of loyalists with them.

[Bagong Luzon]

Unrest continued to plague the still-unified Philippines as rebels wreaked havoc in far-flung areas, civil society groups continued to protest against the excessive use of force that had become the modus operandi of the twilight years of the Marcos presidency, and foreign countries expressed their gross displeasure with the actions taken by the President and his inner circle. Not a week would pass by without word of another attack on government buildings and the inevitable retribution that would follow; an NPA attack on a PC-INP station, for instance, was answered with mass arrests and the occasional summary punishment of CPP-NPA-NDF affiliates.

When word got out that Jose Maria Sison had escaped to Mindanao, the AFP sent even more boots on the ground. As CPP-NPA and MNLF forces razed buildings and shot each other up, the AFP would finish off whoever was left. It was not unfamiliar for an MNLF-affiliated private armed group to be dislodged by the NPA, only for the Reds to be swept off by the AFP shortly after. Likewise, NPA-held territory might be conquered by the MNLF, but the AFP would finish the depleted Moros off. This calculated move worked in the short term, but as the rebels wised up, Mindanao ultimately became a powderkeg that would not be lit up until 1988, with Zamboanga held by the AFP, Cotabato held by the MNLF, and Davao held by the NPA.

[New Visayan Islands]

The degree of violence employed in EDSA put paid any hope for a non-violent revolution, solidifying the resolve of more radical elements.

Before they became the Founding Fathers of the Free Visayan Republic, the Visayan Initiative pushed for more social participation in the Visayas; due to centralization, Manila had become saddled with the "Imperial" epithet at the expense of the rest of the country. Officially, it operated well within the limits of the law as a nongovernmental organization that advocated for a Visayan voice in Philippine society. Unofficially, it had a more radical side; that side advocated secession from an increasingly unstable Philippines and independence for the Visayas.

As time passed by, dissent piled up all over the country; armed rebels across virtually every ideological bent wreaked havoc, and the response of Manila was as swift as it was merciless. Yet it wasn't enough; for every rebel cell crushed by PC-INP or AFP forces, five cells carried out attacks. In many cases, the cells had support from a sympathetic populace. A Constabulary armory raided would yield weapons that saw use a few weeks down the line, while the assassination of officials loyal to Manila inspired dissidents, many of whom took to Cebu and its support for giving the provinces a voice as an alternative to Imperial Manila, cultural hegemon of the Philippines.

[Bagong Luzon]

The Philippine National Anthem often reflected the timeframe; the original hymn was in Spanish, the Anthem in the Commonwealth Era was in English, and the modern Anthem is in Filipino. The multilingual roots of the Anthem made for what would eventually become an identifying factor; Loyalists sang the modern Filipino Anthem, while the other two languages distinguished the Visayan revolutionaries, who sang in English, from the Communists, who sang in the original Spanish.

The Royal Philippine Anthem

Bayang magiliw,
Perlas ng silanganan,
Alab ng puso
Sa dibdib mo’y buhay.

Lupang hinirang,
Duyan ka ng magiting,
Sa manlulupig
Di ka pasisiil.

Sa dagat at bundok,
Sa simoy at sa langit mong bughaw,
May dilag ang tula
At awit sa paglayang minamahal.

Ang kislap ng watawat mo’y
Tagumpay na nagniningning;
Ang bituin at araw niya,
Kailan pa ma’y di magdidilim.

Lupa ng araw, ng luwalhati’t pagsinta,
Buhay ay langit sa piling mo;
Aming ligaya na ‘pag may mang-aapi,
Ang mamatay nang dahil sa ‘yo.

[New Visayan Islands]

The Philippine National Anthem often reflected the timeframe; the original hymn was in Spanish, the Anthem in the Commonwealth Era was in English, and the modern Anthem is in Filipino. The multilingual roots of the Anthem made for what would eventually become an identifying factor; those loyal to Manila sang the modern Filipino Anthem, while the other two languages distinguished the Free Visayans, who sang in English, from what would become known as the Bangsamoro Rojo, who sang in the original Spanish.

The Free Visayan Anthem

Land of the morning
Child of the sun returning
With fervor burning
Thee do our souls adore.

Land dear and holy
Cradle of noble heroes
Ne’er shall invaders
Trample thy sacred shores.

Ever within thy skies and through thy clouds
And o’er thy hills and sea
Do we behold the radiance
feel the throb
Of glorious liberty.

Thy banner dear to all our hearts
Its sun and stars alight
Oh, never shall its shining fields
Be dimmed by tyrants might!

Beautiful land of love, o land of light
In thine embrace ’tis rapture to lie
But it is glory ever, when thou art wronged
For us thy sons to suffer and die.

[Bangsamoro Rojo]

The Philippine National Anthem often reflected the timeframe; the original hymn was in Spanish, the Anthem in the Commonwealth Era was in English, and the modern Anthem is in Filipino. The multilingual roots of the Anthem made for what would eventually become an identifying factor; those loyal to the reactionaries of Manila sang the modern Filipino Anthem, while the other two languages distinguished the Capitalist Visayans, who sang in English, from the Bangsamoro, who sang in the original Spanish.

The Bangsamoro Anthem

Tierra adorada
Hija del sol de Oriente,
Su fuego ardiente
En ti latiendo está.

Patria de amores!
Del heroísmo cuna,
Los invasores
No te hallarán jamás.

En tu azul cielo, en tus auras,
En tus montes y en tu mar
Esplende y late el poema
De tu amada libertad.

Tu pabellón, que en las lides
La victoria iluminó,
No verá nunca apagados
Sus estrellas y su sol.

Tierra de dichas, del sol y amores,
En tu regazo dulce es vivir.
Es una gloria para tus hijos,
Cuando te ofenden, por ti morir.

[Bagong Luzon]

Officials loyal to the President found themselves in mortal peril almost every day; targeted killings by dissidents aligned with the Communists and to a lesser extent the Visayans created an atmosphere where government officials refused to travel alone. While high-profile officials were relatively insulated from the attacks, insulated did not necessarily mean untouched; the future Viscount Lim of Manila, for example, survived six assassination attempts in the period spanning from the EDSA Massacre to the declaration of Visayan Independence on December 8th, 1987.

The intelligence community were hard-pressed to fight the shadow war, with agencies reeling from deaths and defections; when the Regional Directors of NISA/CISA and NBI Regions VII and XI had gone dark, their respective headquarters feared the worst. The Regional Directors of Region VII had defected to the Visayans, while the CPP-NPA killed off their opposite numbers from Region XI.

[Bagong Luzon]

Evidence that the CPP-NPA-NDF had used the mounting unrest to purge its ranks had surfaced in some of the clashes that saw NPA forces dead to the last man; in Tarlac, which after the EDSA Massacre saw both NPA forces and private security groups loyal to the Cojuangcos fighting each other along with parts of the AFP, mass graves located far from known hotspots were discovered. Hidden in those mass graves were writings indicating loyalties within the NPA had fractured, the narrative as discovered implying that the dead did not have the ideological purity demanded by the Party.

It wasn't only in Tarlac that signs pointing to a purge were found; mass graves found in Rizal province, Leyte, and even Surigao del Norte told similar stories. Photographs were so graphic that even the President initially thought against releasing the pictures before realizing that the shock value alone would be useful in dissuading people from joining the ranks of the NPA.

The first of these mass graves were discovered on May 4th, 1987; the last would not be definitively identified as a mass grave until November 21st, 1995.

[Bangsamoro Rojo]

There was no denying that the conflicts leading to civil war were something that caused old sentiments to rise to the surface. Considerable counterrevolutionary influence in Tarlac, for example, meant that cadres whose loyalties were put into question proved their loyalty to the cause by the ultimate means: they died standing, valorous comrades who made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that the CPP-NPA would live on, ready to fight when The War finally broke out in 1988.

In what used to be a place of backwards superstition lies a monument dedicated to those men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in the months prior to the War of Independence. Tens of thousands of names adorn the walls of what the reactionaries called the Davao Cathedral, each name inscribed in the memory of the dead who fought on and proved their loyalty to the CPP; every year, on June 4th, the Bangsamoro Workers' and Peasants' Party visits this place in memory of the loyal fallen.

[Bagong Luzon]

There was no denying that parts of Mindanao that fell to the CPP-NPA would be radically changed; part of the mandate of communism was the complete and utter eradication of religious sentiment. The mass killings of religious in Communist-held territory proved exactly that; no matter what faith you professed, those who wield the Hammer in one hand and the Sickle in the other will stop at nothing to see it snuffed out. Indeed, it is known that the Davao Cathedral had been repurposed into a memorial for the dead of what is now the Bangsamoro Rojo; rumor has it that what was once the Marawi Grand Mosque had become one of several "reeducation camps," the conditions of which can be comparable to the Soviet Gulags or the Red Chinese Laogai.

One notable effect of the mass killings is the proliferation of religious militias, most of which were so closely associated with the MNLF that they were, for all intents and purposes, MNLF. This is not to say that Mindanao's Christian population just fled north, which led directly to the Visayas, or west through MNLF-held territory in order to reach Zamboanga; the most well-known of the Christian militias was the Bag-ong Ilaga, a group that appropriated the name of the extremist Ilaga established not to fight against the Moro, but rather alongside them against the threat of the Communists.

Another effect was a refugee crisis; those religious groups that fled the Reds would be processed elsewhere. The crisis had come to a point wherein the local government and the MNLF agreed on a program to assist refugees going west, much to the surprise (and displeasure) of Manila.

[New Visayan Islands]

With parts of Mindanao falling to the CPP-NPA, the ramifications for religious in those parts was clear as crystal: the Communists would not abide their faiths with extreme prejudice. Places of worship were destroyed if not outright converted to facilities of what would become the Bangsamoro Rojo; the most iconic postwar example was the conversion of the Marawi Grand Mosque into what was informally known as the Marawi Grand Laogai. Clergy were killed off if not made to suffer dearly. Religious artifacts had to be smuggled out in droves, and a refugee crisis threatened to tax the Loyalists to the north.

When the Christian population of Mindanao didn't stand and fight, appropriating the name of the most notorious Christian extremist group while fighting alongside the Muslim Moros, they fled to safer grounds. Many of those who fled went north, where more enterprising men and women did what they could to make things easier for the refugees; indeed, the refugee crisis became a net boon for what would become the Free Visayan Republic.

By the end of the Philippine Civil War, the nascent Confederation would see refugees of every religious faith earning their place as full-fledged Visayans; one of the Confederation's tech giants, for example, was founded by a mixed-faith group of refugees. The Confederation's openness to men and women of every faith would prove to be its greatest asset time and again.

[Bagong Luzon]

It is no surprise that to this day, the Kingdom of New Luzon makes every effort to be as appealing to religious groups as possible. Indeed, religious faith is considered one of the Three Pillars of what is known today as the Philippine Reaction, alongside deference and obedience to authority and a strong sense of community. The King recognized the importance of faith in an era that sought to snuff it out; in 2020, three prominent religious leaders had their offices recognized as Titular Nobility owing to their significant cultural, religious, and societal importance: the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila, the Executive Minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo, and the Supreme Bishop of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente. Before this, prominent New Filipino religious figures were awarded with any of the Four Orders, namely (in ascending order) the Order of Rizal, the Order of Ramon Magsaysay, the Order of the Archangels, and the Order of San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila.

In an age where contempt for faith, disrespect for authority, and a warped sense of community are the prevailing values of the world, the Kingdom stands as a beacon for all who seek to be better, offering citizenship to those willing to embrace what she stands for.

[New Visayan Islands]

The Treaty of Subic Bay was signed on August 13th, 1988. Signed at USNB Subic Bay, the treaty formally ended hostilities between the three nations that spawned from the Philippine Civil War.

With both Visayans and Bangsamoro zealously earning their independence from what became the Kingdom of New Luzon, the stage was set for the divergent evolution of the three successor states of what had been the Republic of the Philippines. Indeed, rumors that American presence, which endured up until they withdrew from Clark and Subic in 1996, made it impossible for irredentist New Filipino officials to engage in campaigns to reclaim what they saw was land held by full-fledged rebels have circulated even in the early half of the 2010s.

[Bagong Luzon]

I, (name here), do solemnly swear to the Lord our God this sacred oath that to His Majesty, supreme commander of the armed forces; that I shall bear true faith and obedience to His Majesty; that as a soldier of His Majesty's Armed Forces I shall forever serve the Kingdom he rules over by the Grace of the Almighty God; that I shall support and defend the Kingdom of New Luzon and the ideals she so embodies; that I shall suffer no insult to the honor that is my duty to our King; that I am willing to lay down my life for the honor that is my service to our King. So help me, God.

The above oath is sworn by all members of His Philippine Majesty's Armed Forces, which encompasses four service branches, viz. the Royal Philippine Army, the Royal Philippine Navy (and under it the Royal Philippine Marines), the Royal Philippine Air Force, and the Royal Philippine Constabulary (and under it His Philippine Majesty's Integrated Police). It is also sworn by the Royal Philippine Coast Guard, which in peacetime is an agency of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, but becomes attached under the command of the Royal Philippine Navy in wartime.

[Bagong Luzon]

When His Majesty King Ferdinand II ascended to the throne, hotter heads have indeed called for bringing the breakaway nations back into the embrace of the Kingdom. It is a testament to his astuteness that His Majesty has cooled them off, even in 2005, when a clique of officials had sabotaged a weapons test. Intended to self-destruct after a preset altitude, a prototype artillery rocket had been fired into Occidental Mindoro--one of the provinces that joined the Visayans and united with Oriental Mindoro in the process--killing 3 and injuring 14 after hitting an office building.

The resulting tension of what Visayan media conflated with an attack was of such a scale that when the ringleaders were sentenced to death the following year, the King himself invited the Visayans and the Bangsamoro to their executions.

Despite this, His Majesty's Embrace remains a long-term goal of the Armed Forces.

[Bangsamoro Rojo]

One must concede to the fact that it was the Capitalist Visayans whose actions contributed to the independence of the Bangsamoro from the grip of Manila's fascists. Indeed, were it not for the Visayans, superstitious and greedy they may be, the Bangsamoro People's Republic would not have been formed; they fought the hardest to free themselves, and in doing so, free the Bangsamoro.

It is no surprise, then, that the reactionaries of Manila would first target the Visayans every time the irredentist calls from that reactionary fool playing at monarchy begin to sound. The last time the cries were made was in 2005, where what Manila claimed was a weapons test hit the Visayans; tensions were high enough that even the monarch invited the delegations to the American-brokered Treaty of Subic Bay to the executions of those responsible.

Manila's reactionaries called their irredentist philosophy "His Majesty's Embrace" for a reason, however, and it is the duty of the Bangsamoro Rojo to refuse that Embrace with extreme prejudice.

[New Visayan Islands]

Sandwiched between two extremes--an absolutist, reactionary state to the north and a communist haven to the south--the early years of the Confederation were of particularly high tensions. To the north, New Luzon's leadership unamused at the successful independence of both the Free Visayas and the Bangsamoro. To the south, communist-aligned extremists seeking to undermine the Free Visayas. The geopolitical pressure coming from both neighbors meant that if what would become the Confederation had to be strong enough to defend against both at once, so be it.

Reforms were made; a significant number of veterans of the War for Independence had the foresight to understand that a strong Confederation was one that could repel any attack by New Filipino and Bangsamoro alike. The Ramos-Sy Reforms of 1995 not only saw basic education reforged into a system that could keep up with improved global educational standards, it also reorganized both the military aspect of Citizenship Advancement Training and the Reserve Officer Training Corps, in anticipation of a transition of the Armed Forces into an all-volunteer force, which took place in 2005.

Materiel was also factored in; the claim that the entirety of the Visayan arms industry could arm every single Visayan several times over is a minor meme dating back to the late 1990s, where the withdrawal of American presence from the Philippine Islands and the Bangsamoro Annexation of Sabah saw a spike in arms sales. A smaller spike followed the Tagbilaran Riots of 2003.

[Bagong Luzon]

V: While those who seek to extinguish the Light of Faith still draw breath,
R: Peace is never an option.

V: While all who seek to undermine Ironclad Authority still thrive,
R: There can be no room for Rest.

V: While the sworn destroyers of Unified Community exist,
R: Honor demands nothing short of Total Victory.

The above oath, officially referred to as the Oath in Defense of the Reaction, is sworn by New Filipinos who are knighted in any of the orders of the New Filipino Honors System. Foreign recipients of the Order of San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila are, theoretically, not obliged to swear the oath; in practice, the oath is sworn by local and foreign recipients alike, the latter as a matter of custom.

[New Visayan Islands]

The geopolitical realities faced by the Confederation meant that up until the 2005 transition to a volunteer force and even after then, it was not uncommon for Visayans to be openly armed. This is even more pronounced in certain territories in the Confederation; the Province of Bohol, for example, is seen as the poster child for open carry in the New Visayan Islands, even before the aftermath of the 2003 Riots made open carry virtually mandatory. This led to the New Visayan Islands being seen as a bit of an aberration in Southeast Asia, where most nations enforce a state monopoly on firearms, monopolies so absolute that enforcement under pain of death is very likely indeed.

The Sabahan displaced by the Bangsamoro annexation seeking refuge in Sarawak, North Kalimantan, and Palawan were among the numerous refugees who witnessed how the fierce, visibly armed exterior of the Visayans hid behind it a caring people who, in times of hardship, look out for themselves and by extension those that they see as part of "themselves." Be it a squad of reservists from Palawan, recruits from Panay fresh out of boot camp, or a retired veteran from Mindoro, the impression was that of disciplined gunslingers willing to help others help themselves.

[Bangsamoro Rojo]

"Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party." By this principle, it is the vanguard of the Bangsamoro Revolution that may take up arms in defense of the Revolution. Thus, only those who have proven themselves trustworthy and reliable comrades, loyal to the principles of the Bangsamoro Rojo, may take up the gun; servicemembers of the Bangsamoro Liberation Army and the various police forces of the Bangsamoro People's Republic are what most have in mind, with training backed by political reinforcement a guarantee of reliability, even if Party membership is completely voluntary among the enlisted—contrary to popular belief among the successor states, Party membership is mandatory only in the officer corps of the BLA.

Yet membership in the Bangsamoro Workers' and Peasants' Party is no assurance that a Bangsamoro may freely take up arms; there is a process that must be followed, with stringent vetting from a member's immediate superiors designed to guarantee that a party member who is not part of the police or military has the requisite mindset. That this vetting process happens to be similar to that prospective commissars from the BLA undergo is deliberate; the civilian Party member with a gun must, as a matter of principle, be an embodiment of Party control, especially when attached to law enforcement or military units.

[Bagong Luzon]

It was established fact that in antebellum society, the government enjoyed a near-absolute monopoly on arms. This monopoly ensured that malcontents dissatisfied with the leadership of He Who Became The First King could never devolve into outright rebels, troublemakers easily put in their place, and foreign powers with malicious designs could not easily force their will. This near-absolute monopoly still exists in the Kingdom. The free carriage of arms being a privilege reserved for the State and those it trusts endures even today; like in the antebellum, there must always be those in charge and those under them. Some must lead where most will follow.

It is no surprise that the privilege of bearing arms is one that must be paid by the private subject. The price is, naturally, a steep one; this is to ensure that those His Majesty’s Crown Government entrusts this to are among the best of the best that New Filipino society offers. That in practice this translates to so-called "High Commoners," that is to say, those private subjects who have the standing to be equals of the Nobility were it not for lack of a title, is deliberate; the Nobles themselves are, after all, as much of a part of His Majesty’s Crown Government as the loyal serviceman or the hardworking civil servant, and thus already enjoy every privilege warranted for those of their level.