A critical analysis contending that the resolution of the Mindanao problem is unmistakably conditioned upon the resolution of the land issue which in concrete terms, at present, means having to reckon with the combined forces of local bureaucrats and entrepreneurs (constituting the politico-economic elite) and their foreign masters, mainly the American imperialists and their Japanese counterparts. Until then, all pronouncements on Moro-Filipino brotherhood will serve no useful purpose except to divert the attention of the vast majority from the real causes of the problem.