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What Now and Where To?

by Prof. Octa Dinampo*

Eleven years of a long and arduous journey exploring peace. Three presidents were involved, each performing a different role and with a different perspective regarding peace in Muslim Mindanao. President Fidel Ramos opened the ceremonial search for peace barely a month before the signing of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). Later, President Joseph Estrada, a former actor who played tough guy roles in his movies and later portrayed a similar rough impatience for a long peace process as president, tried to take a detour by smashing the peace process with an all-out war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). With the use of US-supplied gadgets and superb intelligence networks, the government took many of the MILF’s major camps and the MILF’s venerated leader Chairman Salamat subsequently died. But the MILF did not lose its lethal force.. On the other hand, Erap – who feasted on pork and liquor on the very graveyard of Moro martyrs – was removed from office and became a true-to-life ex-convict.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) came next. The journey to peace became a road of exploratory talks and pitched battles. In 2003, she even tried to ape Erap by coming up with her own version of an all-out war, followed by a pronouncement about the "primacy of the peace process." In 2006, the much-feared outbreak of an "all-out war" finally happened. Then, there was a serious impasse in 2007 and finally, the controversy brought about by the aborted signing of the Memornadum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) last August 5.

For while exploratory in nature, the GRP-MILF peace panel facilitated by Malaysia did achieve some milestones such as the Agreement for the General Cessation of Hostilities on July 18, 1997 , its Implementing Administrative and Operational Guidelines, as well as the General Framework of Agreement of Intent achieved on August 27, 2001. With the Tripoli Agreement of Peace on June 22, 2001, the Parties agreed and acknowledged some concepts and principles and adopted the three major talking strands on territory, resources and governance.

Through these talks and agreements, the parties recognized that the Bangsamoro is a nation separate and distinct from the Filipino nation. This nation had a traditional homeland consisting of territories under the domain and control of the Moro sultanate of Mindanao and Sulu but is now reduced into the ARMM domains, with 737 barangays scattered all over Regions 9 and 12 and Palawan whose residents shall be given the voice whether to join or not in a plebiscite called forth twelve months after the supposed signing of MOA-AD. Likewise, the parties recognized that the Moro people and their homeland should be governed by the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) with a juridical personality of its own and that would seek to fully fulfill the Bangsamoro right to self-determination (RSD).

In other words, the MOA-AD contemplates the institutionalization of the Moro RSD. Its scheduled formal signing in Kuala Lumpur on August 5 was aborted as a result of the temporary restraining order issued by the Supreme Court acting on a joint petition of Governor Emmanuel Pinol of North Cotabato, Mayor Lobregat of Zamboanga City, Mayor Lawrence Cruz of Iligan City and several other politicians with senatorial or presidential ambitions.

The petition, which is made to appear as an honest attempt to stop the GRP panel from dismembering some parts of the Philippines, is actually a feeble ploy to mask politicians’ fears of losing vast estates grabbed from Moro ancestral land. It is the tyranny of the majority, if not an indication that peace in Mindanao can only be achieved through having the peace of the cemetery. Thus, gains achieved from 11 years of negotiations were trashed by a deceitful petition and a masterful legal stroke supposedly calling for “restraint.” MILF Commander Kato's participation and the ensuing skirmishes with militias complicated the matter further. Commander Bravo's reaction in Lanao del Norte also fanned a towering inferno of rage. Along with calls to arm civilians for “community defense,” passion and obfuscation sealed the fate of the MOA-AD before the Supreme Court could decide on it.

Finding a convenient excuse in Kato's and Bravo's unconventional rebellion, GMA arbitrarily buried the MOA-AD. She dissolves the GRP panel as a way of evading government obligations under the MOA-AD. A paradigm shift is also in the making: instead of talking to the MILF, she calls for grassroots consultation to be undertaken by NGOs specifically by the Bishop-Ulama Conference. There would be no talk with the rebels for as long as they do not agree to the framework of Disarmament, Demobilization, and Rehabilitation (DDR). There would be no talk specifically with the MILF until it surrenders Kato and Bravo or until the two are neutralized.

In short, military punitive campaigns against Kato, Bravo and their men shall be pursued without let-up parallel to the soft-punch of the so-called community consultations. Military offensives shall be made to appear as “law enforcement” by the Philippine National Police (PNP). This is sort of saying that instead of resolving the political controversy, this government is converting it into a humanitarian crisis that can be likened to the early 70s. With hundreds of casualties, more than half a million evacuated, the military on a rampage, economic activities disrupted, Muslims and Christians deeply divided, it is not difficult to reckon that indeed we are in deep shit, in a manner of saying.

The provinces of North Cotabato, Maguindanao, Sharief Kabunsuhan, Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte shall be thrown back to where they were four decades ago. Soon, too, when the International Monitoring Team’s term ends and there is no more referee to cry foul, this rumble will definitely spill over to nearby provinces and regions. Indeed, the current war in Central Mindanao shall not only be for Mindanaons but for those in the Visayas and Luzon and for all those who have a stake in Mindanao.

Warmongers can easily dash to Luzon and Visayas on their own convenient time. But for us living in Mindanao, our choice is between life with peace or death with war. Our human security should be tied more to peace, justice, economic sufficiency and peaceful coexistence rather than to armaments, weaponry, and military solutions. .Therefore, today more than ever, there is an urgent need to double all efforts to restrain the escalation of existing conflict. Today, not later, initiatives for peacemaking and peace-building should be intensified. Today or else never, reconciliation should be achieved; hollow consultations should be avoided. This is so because this violent armed conflict is rooted in the tyranny of the dominant Christian majority over the underprivileged Moro minority, thrown together into unhealthy coexistence. If they could not live in harmony, why not separate them?

For whether we like it or not, one major lesson learned in peace-building all over the globe is that "peoples’ sufferings, dire poverty, political marginalization, aspiration for right to Self-determination, respect, participation or inclusion” are breeding grounds for dissent, insecurity, insurgency and war. All these things are rife in the Philippines and either we settle this now or be mired with these problems for the years to come.

* Professor Octavio Dinampo is currently chair of the Mindanao Peoples’ Caucus, a network of around fifty organizations in Mindanao. He teaches at the Mindanao State University in Jolo, Sulu.

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