“In a world looking for peaceful solutions to all troubles, we are grateful that we have found ours. Let us all seal it—and nurture it. The best is yet to come,” said Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita “Ging” Deles on the occasion of the signing of the Annex on Normalization.
This is the last of the four Annexes to the Framework Agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Its signing completes the comprehensive peace agreement between the two entities, bringing to an end, as this paper’s reporter Nikko Dizon said, “four decades of fighting in central Mindanao that has killed tens of thousands of people and helped foster Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia.”
By Deles’ admission, the attainment of this “major milestone of the peace process” was reached only after traveling down “a very difficult road.”
As she recalled: “The crafting of each of the four annexes, together with the Addendum on Bangsamoro Waters, underwent painstaking deliberation by the two parties, backed up by thorough discussion and internal consensus-building on each side of the negotiating table, and grounded on extensive consultations with concerned local government units, religious and civil society leaders, and communities especially in the conflict-affected areas.”
Indeed, the “painstaking” effort to gather consensus from and consult with other parties was worth it, as the success of the peace agreement will hinge on not just the acceptance of the principals of both panels but also, and more important, on the acceptance of the Moro community and the rest of the Filipino people.
And as the Zamboanga crisis early last year showed, the peace process is not and will not be accepted wholeheartedly by other parties—whatever their reasons. For Nur Misuari and his Moro National Liberation Front, the motivation was apparently his sentiments that he and his loyalists were ignored by the talks with the MILF, and their desire to be once more in the center of negotiations.
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But what are the reasons advanced by those who look upon this singular achievement as nothing remarkable and even dangerous?
Some commentators still bring up, to this day and despite evidence to the contrary, that Christian Filipinos cannot “trust” Moros. And that those working for the fulfillment of the peace negotiations are naïve at best, or at worst traitors to their country for “handing over” the nation’s interests to hostile forces.
I want to know: What’s the alternative? What’s the alternative to peace? Would they prefer protracted negotiations that can only lead to frustration, leaving the MILF no alternative but to resort once more to armed violence?
Others may have gotten so used to “bad news” from Mindanao that they still cannot believe that the 40-year-old conflict, once so intransigent nobody considered it could ever end, IS at an end.
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Of course, the agreement will have to pass through the Philippine Congress which needs to enact the agreement into law.
“In moving forward,” added Deles, “our legislators will take on the crucial role of enacting the Bangsamoro Basic Law, which the Bangsamoro Transition Commission is now drafting. There will be new arrangements and mechanisms set up for the government and the MILF, assisted by selected third-parties and independent bodies, to work together on the multiple tracks that will ensure the transformation of MILF forces and conflict-affected communities from the harsh ways of war into the nurturance of partnership and cooperation—all these to unleash the unlimited potentials for the development of Mindanao, especially for the communities so long left behind.”
This is the “long view” we should adopt even as we take time to celebrate the end of the negotiations before the government and the MILF iron out arrangements for the Bangsamoro entity. The point of the peace process, after all, is not just an end to conflict or the easing of tensions (even if these are worthy and important goals) but also the advancement of the “left-behind” communities. The Mindanao conflict has long been hampering national development and holding back the tremendous promise of Mindanao’s resources and people. Maybe this time that promise will finally be fulfilled.
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Be contemplative bishops for the poor, that was the message of new CBCP president, Archbishop Socrates Villegas, at the latest plenary assembly of the conference.
Villegas called on the prelates to “allow our flock to transform us their pastors into contemplative shepherds of the people.” Transformation into contemplatives, said Villegas, would allow him and his fellow bishops to “truly serve and teach the flock in full freedom—freedom from seeking one’s ‘own interests, not those of Jesus Christ,’ freedom from the fascination of political or social gain, freedom from the insane and unreal attraction of popularity in the world.”
But what struck me most in Villegas’ message was his description of what being contemplative would mean to the bishops personally: “to become truthfully honest, cheerfully loving and passionately zealous teachers of the flock, bishops serving the Lord in total freedom detached from vainglory.”
I do hope and pray his brother bishops heed Archbishop Soc’s words. Just before reading his message, I heard over the radio that a few bishops had paid a call on former President Gloria Arroyo and issued a public appeal to release her from hospital arrest. This, even as she has yet to tell “the truth, and nothing but the truth” on all the charges lodged against her.
I wonder what this falls under: pursuit of personal interests (or sympathies) as opposed to those of national good; fascination with political or social gain; or just vainglory?