Isabela City 6.03

Isabela, officially the City of Isabela, is a 4th income class city and the former capital of the province of Basilan, Philippines. It is also colloquially known as Isabela de Basilan to differentiate the city's name from the province of Isabela in Luzon.While administratively the island province of Basilan is part of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Isabela City itself is not part of this region, being instead placed under the Zamboanga Peninsula region. Isabela is still being regulated by the Basilan provincial government and provincal services are provided by Basilan but regional services are being provided by Zamboanga Peninsula. The Philippine Statistics Authority lists Isabela as statistically independent from Basilan.Institutionally, the military has played a major part in Isabela City's and Basilan's volatile history, due to the ongoing conflicts borne out of the Moro Secessionist wars of the 1970s, and more recently, by Al Qaeda backed Islamic fundamentalist groups fomenting a running gun-battle with the Philippines' armed forces for more than a decade.Also exerting great influence in everyday life is the Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic mufti and imams, religious scholars and leaders who exercise a moral ascendancy over their respective groups.Trading and commerce are still predominantly in the hands of the East Asian (Hokkien Chinese), aided more so by a recent influx of immigrants from Taiwan and by Koreans as well.