’Tis still long, complex, uncertain road to peace
THE SENTRO ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (Sentro) applauds—although again guardedly—the negotiating panels of the Philippine government (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for signing on Jan. 25, 2014, the last document in the peace talks, notably the Annex on Normalization. This document is admittedly the most contentious for it deals with the decommissioning of the armed wing of the MILF and the disarming of private armies in the proposed new Bangsamoro region in Mindanao.
Last month’s historic agreement virtually concludes the more than 16 years of painstaking, on-and-off negotiations to end the four-decade armed conflict in Mindanao, a conflict that has killed about 120,000 people, and has plunged this region deeper into the abyss of injustice, poverty, violence and stagnation.
However, Sentro views this event with cautious optimism. Although the negotiations have been finished and the four annexes—transitional mechanisms, wealth-sharing, power-sharing and normalization—of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro have been signed, the comprehensive agreement has yet to be inked by both sides. Likewise, the road map to peace has still to undergo a long, complex and arguably uncertain process: the drafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law by the 15-member Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC); the submission of this “law” to Congress and its certification as an urgent bill by the President; if enacted, the holding of a plebiscite in the proposed region to approve the law; if passed, the abolition of the BTC and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM); the appointment of a Bangsamoro Transition Authority in an interim capacity; an election to elect the Bangsamoro government officials; and finally, the signing by both sides of an exit document.
Indeed, we can only hope for the best considering the lessons gained from “peace pacts” forged in Mindanao in the past 40 years—the 1976 Tripoli Agreement between the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Marcos dictatorship; the Jeddah Accord of 1987 between the MNLF and the government (during the Cory Aquino presidency), which spawned the ARMM; the 1996 Final Peace Agreement between the MNLF and the Ramos administration; and even the botched Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the MILF and the Arroyo regime in 2008.
In this regard, the current Aquino administration and the MILF should even consider the suggestion of a group of Muslim intellectuals to “integrate” the 1996 GPH-MNLF pact and the recent GPH-MILF accord, and for them to “cooperate and work for the convergence of the two peace processes.”
Moreover, Sentro wishes to reiterate and affirm the views and apprehensions expressed by its affiliate organization, the Alliance of Progressive Labor, during the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro between the GPH and MILF on Oct. 15, 2012: While “already a momentous step forward in achieving a lasting peace and justice in Mindanao … the peace deal by itself will not automatically and fully end the ‘Moro problem’” if the current unjust socioeconomic and political structures remain.
We should keep in mind that the struggles for self-determination of the Moros and other indigenous peoples, like the lumad, in the place we now call Mindanao, started in the 15th century with the Spanish rule. Centuries of foreign occupation of the entire country, including bloody attempts to subdue the indomitable Moros, went on during the American rule and Japanese occupation. But the political and social changes have failed to address the Moro selfrule aspirations and to equitably distribute the riches of the area’s vast natural resources to the majority, especially the Moro masses. Transnational corporations and national and local elites are lording over the impoverished peoples of Mindanao until now.
Hence, for the peace efforts to be effective and sustainable, they must be transparent and democratic, and include comprehensive—not selective and sham—consultations with all the stakeholders. It must also necessarily be inclusive.
While recognizing the MILF’s leading role in this initiative, other non-MILF elements—MNLF factions, non-MILF Muslims, the lumad and other ethnic communities, the Christian inhabitants, as well as the region’s organized ranks or the civil society, which include the trade unions and other people’s organizations—must be provided active roles in formulating the Bangsamoro Basic Law and the rebuilding of the Bangsamoro into a zone of justice, peace and progress.
—JOSUA MATA, secretary general, Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa