The Government of the Republic of the Philippines has at last signed a Peace Pact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Can – will – both sides deliver on the promised requirements for Peace soon enough?
Instead of focusing on the current event, the Gardener has chosen to go back a bit in time…to understand.
American companies were almost unhampered in their operations, even acquiring mineral rights, timber rights and agricultural lands to the thousands of hectares beyond constitutional limits. They were matched only by home-grown oligarchs who not only enriched themselves from the wealth of Mindanao but also contributed directly to the sufferings and deprivations of the local people.
Thus it happened that Moros who owned all the land in Mindanao and Sulu on the eve of colonization now owned less than 17 percent of it in remote and infertile mountain areas which lacked marketing and infrastructure facilities. Over 80 percent of them had now become landless tenants.
(Second Part)
To strive in the Way of Allah
It was then inevitable that the valiant Moro would fight again, and fight again they did – this time for independence from the Philippine state in which they had no future. All-out war ensued between the Moro secessionist fronts and the Philippine government. This particular stage of the centuries-old Moro wars has been going on since the early 1970s. For many long periods the government was spending more than a million dollars a day and playing with 5000 lives daily in military operations. Said former Secretary Eduardo Ermita who has been close witness to these chapters of our history from the very start: “Sixty-one percent of our Army and Marine battalions…more than 40 percent of our artillery capability and 50 percent of our armor assets…63 percent of our tactical aircraft [were committed to the Mindanao conflict].”
It may not be wise but it is quite possible to forget that in our lifetime hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions dislocated because of the Moro wars. The past four and half centuries have seen many changes in the Philippine archipelago but the chronic Moro war resurgence remains the same. It is one of the longest lasting wars in the history of the world. At root is the fact that so many of us just continue to close our eyes and deny the existence of a Moro nation afraid that such an acknowledgment may undermine the unitary character of the Philippine state.
A Catholic priest, Father Romeo Intengan, S.J., urges us to see clearly before all else, in the interests of peace, that there exists a Moro nation separate and distinct from the mainly Christian Filipinos. The Philippines is a nation of nations. Nationhood being an analogous concept, there exists in our country two distinct nationalities with their particular patriotism, the mainly Christian Filipinos and the predominantly Muslim Moros. “Between the two,” says Intengan, “Bangsa Moro nationality and patriotism are older. The Bangsamoro were ahead of the Filipinos in developing state structures and in acquiring a unifying ideology – Islam. They developed the capacity for resisting invasion by their control of international trade in Southeast Asia in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.”
“The second nationality in our country,” Intengan continues, “is that of the Indios and mestizos, later called Filipinos, who became politically one because of the unitary political structure of the Spanish colonialist regime. Our ancestors also found a unifying ideology in their Catholic Christian faith.” By the late 19th century “they acquired enough resources – the wealth of the native and mestizo ilustrados and principales – to assert our nationhood and to struggle to throw off the colonial yoke when we launched the Revolution of 1896.”
Salaam, Shalom (Peace)
But where are we today as war and talk of all-out war constantly hug the headlines? How deeply do our moral leaders care for peace in our times?
Following the government’s peace dialogue with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in 1996, Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla and the late Mahid Mutilan, president of the Ulama League of the Philippines, held the Bishops-Ulama Forum to discover the role of religion in peace and development in Mindanao. In 1997 Protestant bishops in Mindanao led by Bishop Hilario Gomez joined the forum, which was changed to a conference in 2003. So the Bishops Ulama Conference or BUC now has a membership which includes all Mindanao bishops of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), members of the Ulama League of the Philippines (ULP), and bishops of the National Council of Churches of the Philippines (NCCP).
This group, the BUC, intimately knows the human cost of war in Mindanao. They know how unarmed civilians outnumber casualties of armed combatants by a ratio of more than 90 to 10, how so many have become casualties not because they were attacked by soldiers, but because of the havoc wrought by the fighting. Together with the destruction of lives and livelihoods, war inevitably destroys croplands, forests, water and sanitation systems, and other key resources that support communities.
And, of course, war has never been good for business because it creates an environment of insecurity and fear. The BUC said fourteen years ago: “We recognize that peace is the key to development. We recognize that without peace in Mindanao, sustainable development for the Philippines cannot be attained.” Or, as one poster put it then: “War is simply not good for babies, animals and other living things.”
At their 13th Assembly on May 18th 2000 they urged “the government and the MILF to heed the overwhelming cry for a cessation of hostilities.” They urged the two “to return to the negotiating table and begin traversing the road to lasting peace in Mindanao. We recommend that the peace panels of both sides be given sufficient authority so that agreements like the April 27th accord be honored… Towards this end, we suggest that a neutral but concerned third party should be invited to sit with the negotiating parties.” Looking back the past 8 and 6 (14) years, this desire of the BUC actually came to pass. Malaysia heads the International Monitoring Team.
Some Ulamas of the BUC reminded others that Verse 151 of the Quran’s Sura 6 states: “You shall not kill — for that is forbidden by God — except for a just cause.” Meanwhile, Verse 191 of Sura 2 says: “Fight for the sake of God those that fight against you, but do not attack them first. God does not love aggressors.”
At that time 14 years ago the BUC came out with a Program for Peace. Like good shepherds looking at their flocks, they saw thousands upon thousands of families displaced by war and deprived of basic needs – food, shelter, health-care, schools, etc. , and so their first point had to do with demanding “immediate cease-fire in Central Mindanao, and emergency assistance for all evacuees and displaced comminutes – Muslim, Christian, and Lumad alike.” Not perfectly but quite substantively, this, too was realized – precariously, true enough, absent as yet an authentic peace agreement which had to be the fruit of a long process of negotiation that has now reached conclusion.
After urging government and the MILF to return to the negotiating table, the BUC said that “We must continue to seek a political solution that addresses the legitimate demands of cultural communities and brings about a just and honorable peace for all. “
Actually most, if not all the BUC demands have been met or are being met. Thus they would naturally now wonder why some quarters were suddenly afraid of peace 6 years ago, and its instrument, a peace agreement, when they should rather have been justifiably afraid of war and all its consequences.
Were some afraid of peace THEN because of how it might have affected their narrow personal plans for 2010, in their opinion? But NOW is 2014, and the Pact just signed did not differ much from that of 6 years ago except, unfortunately, that the realities on the ground have changed much. In 1995, the Republic concluded a peace treaty with the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) not knowing that there was still the much stronger MILF to contend with. Six years ago if the Republic signed the peace with the MILF there was still no BIFF (Bangsa Islamic Freedom Fighters) to deal with as there is now.
In their Ninth Point, the BUC had invited “the people in media to clarify their ambivalent role in the Mindanao conflict… Media coverage can slant the news towards either a culture of violence or a culture of peace.” Indeed, we cannot underestimate the prejudice that is so deep-seated among so many who silently believe that the only good Muslim is a dead one, a prejudice fanned by war-mongering individuals who think they have everything to gain from people’s fears and confusions.
In their Tenth Point, the BUC urged “the government to give Mindanaoans a bigger share of responsibility to work for peace in our land.” They themselves “offer to take a proactive role in pushing forward the peace process through consultations with our communities and attending to the root causes of conflict. Total peace, not total war, is the answer to Mindanao’s problems.”
Let the cease-fire hold
It is a wonder that what the BUC urged 14 years ago, viz. that “the government and the MILF heed the overwhelming cry for a cessation of hostilities…return to the negotiating table and begin traversing the road to lasting peace in Mindanao” actually came about.
In fact government and MILF were in third-party Malaysia ready to sign a Memorandum of Agreement when some elements who often attended the briefings on the progress of negotiations and were even given a chance to write their position papers went up to the Supreme Court to claim, less than honestly, that they were never consulted at all.
In the belligerent context that was ultimately overcome by dialogue, it is a fact that two words were initially too hot to use: “sovereignty” and “independence”. The MILF had always publicly demanded independence. Governor Zacaria Candao, direct descendant of Sultan Qudarat, hosted the first chapter of the peace talks (and continued to be the invisible consultant of all subsequent peace talks). He categorically said recently that the late Chairman Salamat finally agreed to not uttering “independence” so long as the GRP not prematurely shout “sovereignty.” The absence of these two words made possible the start of the dialogue.
Implicitly, of course, if not explicitly, the MILF recognized the Philippine Constitution, for it recognized the authority of the President of the Philippines to negotiate with them, a hitherto secessionist revolutionary group. On what was the President’s authority based? Was it not on the Constitution? The MILF agreed to the holding of plebiscites and the Congressional amendment of laws, like the Organic Act, if need be – constitutional processes all. Again, given the context of belligerence-to-dialogue, wasn’t the implicit mode of respect and recognition not good enough?
As the BUC said then, what we need to seek is not a dead-legalistic but a living “political solution that addresses the legitimate demands of cultural communities and brings about a just and honorable peace for all. “
Never underestimate what Peace Agreements can do not only in terms of lessening the people’s direct suffering but also in terms of greater chances for the increased creation of new wealth. This is the age-old story of regions and nations.
Peace, you have another chance. Shalom! Salam!
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