Since long ago the inhabitants of Mindanao specifically the Moro’s want secession and invoked the right to self-determination. Until up to date still government forces are engaged with a bitter conflict with these people so we ask the question does the right of self-determination and secession apply in Mindanao?, But before we delve in to the issue let us define first the right of self-determination and know its parameters.. In both documents of UN namely the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)[1] and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)[2]reads: "All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue…show more content… Yes, as the provisions follows all who are ethnically distinct and or indigenous have the right to self-determination but there is also a conflicting part because self-determinations applies in situations where the existence and extension of territorial sovereignty is altogether uncertain in which very contrary to the status quo and none of its actions should be construed as being inconsistent with the principles of territorial integrity and national unity. May it be the Philippine Republic might be challenged by rebels but still it has clear territorial sovereignty over those so called Bangsamoro places and to use self-determination as to justification to secession cannot be done nor can they claim Unilateral Secession. Also in addition to that we adhere to the principle of uti possidetis juris in which the statement on the Conference of Yugoslavia Arbitration tells us that whatever the circumstances; the right to self-determination must not involve changes to existing frontiers at the time of independence except where the States concerned agree otherwise[7]. This is because the international community cannot afford to grant every ethnic group the right of independence because it will result in the emergence of an enormous number of states in the international community, which will be intolerable. Futhermore, the international…show more content… In a case that reached the Canadian Supreme Court it was held that the Quebec population did not have a unilateral right of secession. As Mario Guariña III, a former associate justice of the Court of Appeals, carefully states “Self-determination is generally considered fulfilled, not by secession, but through an internal democratic process whereby a people’s pursuit of political and social development occurs within the framework of the existing state. Self-determination had both internal and external aspects as stated above. External self-determination means an independent state secession while internal self-determination means autonomy. When we talk about External self-determination that fact is that it would not happen but if we talked about internal self-determination it makes the story different as to the the legal issues involved in the western Sahara dispute by the committee on the united nations it state that internal self-determination “applies to all groups that meet the definition of peoples under international law, provides for a set of respected rights within the central state, including the people‘s right to the ―pursuit of its political, economic, social and cultural development within the framework of an existing state. It is a guarantee of autonomy and self-governance; in short, an ―exercise in