Peace in Mindanao

By Romy Teruel

Sunday Post Columnist 

 So much has been said about the Memorandum of Agreement-Ancestral Domain for the Bangsa Moro people in Southern Philippines .  At this point there is no MOA to talk about anymore. By disbanding the peace panel that negotiated with the MILF, the government has effectively terminated any effort at negotiating peace with the MILF for the remaining part of the term of the Arroyo administration.  And even if it did not, the MILF has already concluded that it could never have peace agreement during the administration of Pres. Arroyo.

 Any peace negotiation must be worked out within the new policy of DDR or disarmament, demobilization and rehabilitation.  Even the suspended peace talk with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Party-National Democratic Front (CNN) will have to be conducted under this framework.

 Reactions from both camps of the MILF and the CNN have been a rejection of this process.  This could only mean that more bloodshed can be expected in the future because, let's face it, both camps think they have a cause to fight to a successful conclusion.  If peace cannot be attained on the negotiating table then it must be fought in the battle fields.

 The CNN had already anticipated a protracted war when they launched their revolution to topple the duly constituted RP government.  The Moro fighters thought they could win their war for independence with conventional warfare.  But again almost two generations have passed and both are in nowhere near success.

 If wars can only be fought without killing civilians, all these would have ended long before.  But the collateral damage to civilians is far greater than the damage to combatants.  And so in civil strife like insurgency and rebellion, fighting will never end with victors.  At the end, if there will be any end at all, both protagonists will end up the losers.

 Pres. Arroyo already said that she would not be forced into signing any peace agreement at gunpoint.  She was referring to the rampage that MILF Commanders Kato and Bravo staged upon knowing that the signing of the MOA was stopped by the Supreme Court.

 When you are at the point of success, you don't rock the boat that would bring that success.  But Commanders Kato and Bravo thought they were doing the MILF good by throwing their forces against helpless civilians as if the sight of carnage will cow government into surrendering to their wishes.  They forgot that this is neither Nagasaki nor Hiroshima.  They killed and threw into evacuation their own people.  That is not acceptable.

 Kato and Bravo did not only rock their own boat.  They sank their boat with them.  When the MILF highest command refused to turn them over, they too sank with their renegade commanders.

   Now they only succeeded in calling from the grave the Ilagas who showed them in the 70s and 80s how the lowly farmer's weapon – the shotguns - can silence their M-14s, M-16s and RPGs.  Although I doubt those fully armed Ilagas published in the national daily a few weeks ago were the real Ilagas.  No Ilaga will publicize his presence much less boast of his prowess.  The genuine Ilagas of the 70s worked in silence.  That's why they were effective.

 The dissolution of the peace panel however should not end the efforts to look for lasting peace in Mindanao . Until such time that Congress can find ways to forge peace in Mindanao, (Malacanang is giving Congress that task now), local government units (LGUs) should be able to consult their own constituents both Muslims and Christians who now have good relations in their own localities on how to establish the environment of peace.

 LGUs must continue and succeed where the Peace Panel left off and failed.