IF YOU want peace, the ancient Romans advised, prepare for war. But that was the maxim of a warrior race, with a finely-honed and ably-led army thirsty for the plunder and glory of empire. At the heart of it was a preparedness to unsheath the sword of war no one could doubt, but that certainty required everyone assuming they could never call the Romans' bluff if they threatened war. Taken to extremes, as the late Barbara Tuchman chronicled in "The Guns of August," about how Europe blundered into World War I, it can lead leaders and nations to suicidal aggression.
I have never forgotten an observation made in 2006 by Paulynn Paredes Sicam at a conference organized by then Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza. She observed that the past 20 years had seen the disappearance of a "peace constituency" and that the urgent task at hand was to rebuild one. Since then, of course, Dureza has mutated from peace promoter to Palace propagandist; and while the Palace lines trumpets the RP-MILF agreement as a daring undertaking to achieve peace, everyone else is wondering if it will, instead, be an invitation to war.
In another one of her books, "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam," Tuchman pointed to Troy (think of the famous wooden horse), the Renaissance popes provoking the Reformation, Britain losing its American colonies and then America in Vietnam, as examples of folly. Folly, according to her, has several elements: there had to be actions that went against the interests of the authorities that pursued them; they must have been perceived as counter-productive in their own time; also, an alternative course of action must have been available; and furthermore, the actions had to have been endorsed by a group, and not just an individual, and possibly deranged, leader.
Tuesday evening after my show, I had a chance to sound out some Moro students from UP Diliman about what they thought of the RP-MILF deal. Overall, they seemed not only unimpressed by it, but categorically opposed. I asked them why. They outlined their reasons as follows.
First, it would result in fratricidal strife among the Moros themselves, since not all of the 13 tribes have been consulted: and there is perception of the MNLF primarily representing the Tausugs and the MILF speaking mainly for the Maguindanao and Maranao peoples. Simply out of ethnic pride, one Moro student ventured, some would bitterly oppose the deal, protesting that one group could not speak for the whole or dominate the political settlement. Would it not be best, I ventured, for there to have been a gathering of leaders to hammer out a common position, then? Yes, they replied. And who would have the prestige and authority to make that call, I asked. Most shrugged; one suggested that ideally, it should have been the governor of the ARMM.
Second, the Moro students had misgivings about the expansion of the present ARMM into a larger Bangsamoro Juridical Entity. In the first place, there was, in general, already peace at the fringes of the existing ARMM, and now, all of a sudden, all the areas proposed for inclusion would be swept by popular passions fanned by irresponsible politicians. At the same time, the leaders within the ARMM have proven neither to the Moros nor to anyone else that they are actually capable of efficient and stable administration, including maintaining the peace when Moros vote for their own leaders. It would have been wiser, some of them suggested, for the Moro leadership to prove its capacity for sustained and stable leadership before proposing the expansion of its territory. With a proven track record, the expansion would be supported by public confidence among the Moros themselves and their neighbors.
Third, and I think this particular opinion has less to do with their being Moros and more with their being Filipinos, they simply do not want to be a party to a plan that could potentially result in the extension of President Macapagal-Arroyo's stay in office.
I do not know, and therefore cannot say, if their opinions reflect the majority opinion among their fellow Muslims. I do think it provides an insight into something that has been drowned out by the ferocious rhetoric emanating from all sides. And that is: an abhorrence of war, which means an insistence on peace, can unite Christian and Muslim Filipinos, both in Mindanao and the rest of the country at this time. This includes discerning that the more tenuous peace becomes, the more we should all be wary of leaders who would either beat the war drums on one hand, or who, on the other hand, knowing they themselves will never be in the front lines or be caught up in forced evacuations, either pretend that a peace settlement can't actually provide the pretext for war or worse, who view war as a risk worth taking with "larger" political calculations in mind.
There is no difference between the bandit chieftainship of a Zaldy Ampatuan and a Chavit Singson, except the religion they profess. Christian and Muslim leaders share a proprietary attitude towards their home provinces and inhabitants, and they are subject to surrendering to ethnic passions without asking whether it is rational or responsible to surrender to those passions. As for those the leaders claim to lead, could it be that a growing number of these constituencies recognize that when it comes to their leaders, Muslim and Christian officials, have in common the principle that their loyalty to their country--however defined--ends where their loyalty to their own crude ambitions and personal good fortune, to the exclusion of their constituents, begins?
Which must lead every one of us to ask: Is it worth dying for them? Upon their orders, in their service, and to further their, and not our, ambitions?
