MNLF member Khalifa used to have the rosary in his house along with images of Catholic saints and in elementary school he went to church services.

Bentley had assumed that all Moros practiced sharia and prohibited intermarriage of non-Muslim men with Muslim women and that MNLF was an Islamic movement.

[14] Samuel Kong Tan mentioned the use of "jihad", Marxist-Leninist program by the MNLF, Nur Misuari, the Sulu movement and the Corregidor Massacre in "The Filipino Muslim Armed Struggle, 1900-1972".

Most serious fighting yet between gov't forces and Muslim rebels in Southern Philippines has occurred in Jolo City, the capital of Sulu Province.

In late January, MNLF rebels began to harass AFP units at Jolo City airport with mortar fire.

c.      On Feb 4 AFP forces landed on south coast of Jolo in attempt to retake several MNLF controlled municipalities.

Phil military sources in Zamboanga City told an American observer that airport had been "lost" twice and retaken from rebels between Feb 7 and 9.

AFP Intelligence Chief General Paz told embassy officer Feb 13 that 40,000 persons have been made homeless in Jolo City.

Govt relief officials report that by Feb 10 some 6,000 refugees had been transported by coast guard boats to Zamboanga City and more have presumably been moved since.

Initial govt relief efforts include sending funds, Nutribuns and clothing for refugees in Zamboanga City.

Major trouble spots may be Zamboanga City, where overflow of embittered refugees is present, or in Cotabato area, where several thousand rebels may be tempted to take advantage of concentration of AFP forces in Jolo to launch new attacks.

The policy of attraction which had been followed for past five months by SOWESCOM head Admiral Espaldon would also appear to be major casualty of renewed fighting.

He will probably be retained with SOWESCOM but credibility of his policy of attraction will suffer as result recent events[16][17] Dr. Abas Candao of Maguindanao, a UP College of Medicine graduate, Batch 1971, wrote the following journal entry of those days while assigned at the Sulu provincial hospital in Jolo:[18]The fire which started about three o'clock in the afternoon from the eastern sector was blown into town by strong southeasterly winds leaving behind its path nothing but scrap and ashes as it devoured its way through, swallowing the business sector and rapidly spreading towards Asturias.

The heinous column of fire and smoke mushroomed high into the air sending out fiery tongues and swaying ominously to where the wind would lead it.

As I was growing up, the horrors and agonies of that war was repeated in stories from my grandparents, parents, uncles and aunties, and elders cousins.

In his article "February 7, 1974: The Jolo-caust," Said Sadain Jr. wrote:[19]I was in Jolo in 1974, in that conflagration, as a fifteen-year old high school senior expecting to receive in another month, my graduation diploma... [I]n the dark dawn of Feb. 7, 1974, before our graduating class could even start practicing for our graduation rites, the tranquility of the municipality of Jolo was shattered by a loud explosion that was clearly heard from one end of town to the other… Jolo became embroiled in a shooting war, house to house, door to door, with the Moro National Liberation Front rebels, 'Lost Commands' as some MNLF apologists would later claim, initially marching into town to lay siege on the government army encampment at the town's airport.

My family stayed in our San Raymundo house during most of the first two days of fighting, except for some uncles who ventured out into the streets to get some drinking water...

We trudged through the center of town, through the smoking ashes of Jolo, passing by contorted, burnt shapes frozen in their final acts to reach for the sky from where they had fallen down at either side of the blackened asphalt roads… I always gave Admiral Espaldon the benefit of the doubt since it was his naval boats that mercifully plucked us out of the teeming pier of Jolo island and transported us to Zamboanga City in mainland Mindanao.

For most part of a night, we had to camp out at the open landings of the pier and wait there in the cold wind along with thousands of others in a scene played straight out of a movie.

One month after the end of hostilities, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Rehabilitation of Jolo was created by virtue of Memorandum Order No.

One man, one leader, led a government task force in lifting up the unfortunate people out of the ruins of the rebel attack on February 7, 1972 (sic) into a new social and economic rebirth.

Because of the unstinted efforts of this great leader, the people of Jolo are experiencing a new resurgence and vitality, a new direction and drive towards an economic and social prosperity never before felt in our history.

A network of streamlined roads have been plotted; neat rows of houses have risen from the ashes; a new and imposing mosque stands in place of the one that was destroyed.

To express these thanks, gratitude and wishes of the people of Jolo, we hereby present this CITATION to our esteemed and dearest leader and exemplar of public of official, REAR ADMIRAL ROMULO M. ESPALDON.