W: On several occasions I’ve mentioned that, while visiting Mindanao, I was struck by how little the average “Muslim rebel” was motivated by the Koran

It’s all about pesonality. I visited Mindanao for about two weeks last year, and I saw exactly one Muslim. He had a little washcloth on his head and was walking through the Gaisano Mall in Butuan. There’s a nasty little road with weeds growing in it connecting that place with the southern part of Mindanao where they have a higher concentration of Muslims. Everywhere there is such grinding poverty, of course, that ideology takes a back seat. The recent rice crisis means people are being taken out of productive work merely to stand in a queue to get the government-subsidised PHP18.25/kg rice. You don’t become a first world nation by having your workforce stand in line all day.