The attack on Ipil did not emerge from nowhere. For more than two decades, Muslim separatist groups had been fighting for an independent Islamic state on Mindanao, a conflict rooted in centuries of marginalization of the Moro people under Spanish, American, and Filipino governance. The Moro National Liberation Front had been engaged in peace negotiations with the government of President Fidel Ramos, reaching a bilateral ceasefire agreement in 1994. But the Abu Sayyaf Group, a more radical faction that had splintered from the MNLF, rejected compromise. For them, the peace talks were a betrayal. Ipil itself had already known violence between Muslim insurgents and Christian vigilantes as early as 1972, in one of the first clashes of the Moro insurgency. The town's history was a microcosm of the broader conflict.

The armed men struck in the morning. They attacked multiple targets simultaneously -- government buildings, commercial establishments, and at least seven banks. The town's chief of police was killed. Close to a billion pesos were looted. Buildings burned. Civilians were seized as human shields as the militants fought their way through the town and then fled toward the mountains, looting farms along their route. The violence was indiscriminate and devastating, killing scores of people in a matter of hours. In the days and weeks that followed, the attackers continued to take hostages. On April 14, thirteen people were seized in the nearby municipality of Tungawan. Others were taken later, some held for ransom. The attack was called the worst single act of violence in twenty years of the Muslim insurgency.

President Ramos responded by deploying five infantry battalions -- roughly 3,000 soldiers -- along with Ranger and special forces units. He gave military commanders sixty days to capture Abu Sayyaf leader Abdurajak Janjalani, who became the country's most wanted rebel. They failed. The manhunt stretched across the mountains and coastline of western Mindanao, producing eight major gunbattles that killed 46 of the raiders. MNLF chairman Nur Misuari condemned the attack and denied his organization's involvement, but the military suspected some raiders had retreated to MNLF strongholds. Both the Abu Sayyaf and the Islamic Independence Congress claimed responsibility. Criminal charges were eventually filed against 20 respondents, including robbery, multiple homicide, kidnapping, and destructive arson. Janjalani eluded capture until his death in a firefight in 1998.

The national government committed significant resources to rebuilding Ipil. The Department of Public Works and Highways led the construction of a new public market and the rehabilitation of the municipal water system. The Departments of Trade and Industry and Agriculture launched livelihood programs for displaced families. The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company installed satellite communication terminals to connect the town to the outside world in ways it had never been connected before. Five years after the massacre, Ipil had been fully rehabilitated -- so thoroughly, in fact, that it became the capital of the newly created province of Zamboanga Sibugay, carved from parts of Zamboanga del Sur. The town that militants had tried to destroy became the administrative center of an entirely new province. The Commission on Human Rights cited the attack as one of the major human rights violations committed by rebel groups in the Philippines, ensuring that what happened in Ipil would not be forgotten even as the town itself moved forward.