50 years of conflict have passed. Will it end in the Duterte presidency?
IF you haven’t noticed, Mindanao is the current hotspot for all internal conflict. The different contending groups have their main force on the island.
Unfortunately, this also fits in the previous Manila government’s main strategy to keep the conflict as far away as possible from the capital’s gates. The fact is that all of these groups have been engaged by all postEDSA governments. All have some form of peace deal in place.
Thus, their terms came and went, handshakes and hugs traded, while the climate of fear and conflict remained over us. The latest unmet expectation on the BBL had its own scare.
The post negotiation behavior of all groups shows the outcome: more conflict. Why? Because its roots have yet to be killed. They remain growing in the soil of poverty and the climate of neglect.
Mindanao is the locus of the conflict since it remains the poorest of the 3 main island groups, with a diaspora of peoples and historical pains adding spice to the heat that poverty brings.
Moreover, we do not know how much of a hold these groups have on their own people. What skirmishes take place in the hinterlands are known by their leaders? These remain our challenges.
Yet, winning the peace is not mere accommodation to the opposing armed groups, it is making sure that the reasons, the root causes for this conflict are addressed.
We now have a President who is taking the bull of conflict by its horns, taking a direct hand and will not depend on subordinates alone to win the peace. With the release of political prisoners and the inclusion of Left personalities in his Cabinet, the President has given the advocated social and political reforms a chance.
Likewise, by speaking directly to the contending parties, Duterte means business and will not toyed with.
All his predecessors save for FVR didn’t really know what the conflict meant to many of us, having been oriented from within the gates of the metropolitan capital, their appreciation of the mainly rural conflict conditioned by reports of mainstream media outlets or the politico-military briefing papers that have not done much to expose its root causes. They never lived the conflict. Lost lives and displaced families have little meaning to them.
Recent actions, though, have given many of us hope. Duterte’s directives to make the office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace process a developmental function gives the effort even more credibility.
What is also going for him is that social media has allowed viewpoints and mass based journalism to validate, and therefore, expose, vent and crystallize issues that have long been lost in the fog of war. For once, we will not be seeing things as a neighborhood brawl or a discussion among kingpins. His public statements on the peace process encourage us all to join him.
All other things being equal, and even considering the recent barbs between President Duterte and the CPP, many in Mindanao have nonetheless feel that the track to peace is the right one, the climate engendered by Duterte builds confidence and sparks hope, with the tools available allow more to take part in the discussion that has defined their last 50 years, that they hope will not last beyond the next 6.