The University of Southern Mindanao is a public university in the Philippines. Its main campus is at Kabacan, Cotabato. Its main functions are to: The USM main campus used to be a rubber plantation owned and managed by a Scot named Fleming, who was granted an area of 1,024 hectares in 1909. The ownership changed hands several times until the Japanese occupation, when it came under the control of Ohta Development Company. After the Americans defeated the Japanese in 1944, this compound was taken over by the United States government until it was transferred to the Philippine government in 1947. It was not until the 1950s that a respected Maguindanao princess, Bai Matabay Plang, started the move to establish the Mindanao Institute of Technology (MIT) with the rubber plantation areas as the proposed location. She was supported in this venture by Datu Udtog Matalam, the governor then of the Empire Province of Cotabato, together with Congressman and later House Speaker Salipada Pendatun of the same Province. With President Elipidio Quirino’s signing on June 20, 1952 the R.