Jolo blasts raise worries about peace process

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Oscar Albayalde inspects on Monday, Jan. 28, 2019 the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, Sulu, where twin blasts during a Sunday Mass left at least 20 killed and 112 injured. Photo courtesy of PNP

The bomb explosions at a Catholic cathedral that killed 25 people in Jolo, Sulu province, on Sunday put fresh pressure on Monday on peace efforts aimed at ending decades of Muslim separatist violence.

Two explosions tore through the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the Sulu provincial capital, shattering pews and windows and killing worshippers at Sunday Mass and responding security forces in one of the Philippines’ worst bombings in years.

Impact on peace process

Experts voiced concern on Monday over the impact the attack would have on a decadeslong push for peace that culminated last week in voters approving expanded Muslim self-rule in Mindanao.

The vote was the result of negotiations started in the 1990s with the nation’s largest rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and will give it considerable power over the Bangsamoro region.

Sulu, home to a faction of the smaller Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by Nur Misuari, voted against the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), charter of the proposed Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The MNLF signed a peace agreement with the government in 1996 and opposed the BOL, the ratification of which was the last step to completion of a peace accord signed with the government by the MILF.

Sulu is also home to the Abu Sayyaf bandit group blacklisted by the US and Philippine governments as a terrorist organization because of years of bomb attacks, kidnappings and beheadings of foreigners.

The group has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State jihadi group in Iraq and Syria, but the Philippine military sees the move as propaganda to attract support rather than actual alignment of forces.

The Abu Sayyaf and small cells militants in the region that are not part of the Mindanao peace process are prime suspects in Sunday’s bombings.

Big challenge

“This is a big challenge for the Bangsamoro government,” said Rommel Banlaoi, chair of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research.

The former rebels need to show they will be able to pull the region toward peace in order to attract much-needed investment to ease poverty and counterextremism, Banlaoi told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“[The] MILF needs to prove it can make a difference … the gravity of the problem faced by [the] MILF is wow, so overwhelming,” he added.