Aquino government’s lack of response to MILF peace proposal worries groups
MANILA, Philippines—Civil society groups have expressed concern about the direction of the Aquino government’s peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation.
In his inaugural address in 2010, President Benigno Aquino III underscored the goal of bringing “to a final closure the armed conflict in Mindanao.”
After a year of high expectations, hope remains but anxieties have surfaced over whether significant leaps can be achieved in the peace process in record time.
Negotiations recently hit a snag when government failed to deliver on a promise to respond to the MILF’s proposed peace pact, which has been on the table since February.
Submission of its counterproposal could have facilitated the formulation of a working draft of the peace pact and signaled the start of “real, hard negotiations.”
It was “a big disappointment,” said some 20 civil society organizations who launched a formal countdown last June 27, in time for the panels’ meeting, to keep track of their commitment.
Peace negotiations with Moro rebels have been at the ‘concluding phase’ since mid-2009. The remaining work for negotiators is crafting a comprehensive compact. Amid the setback, the advocates remain hopeful of the peace process.
Mary Ann Arnado, secretary-general of the nongovernment group Mindanao Peoples Caucus (MPC), said the continued presence of lawyer Marvic Leonen and political scientist Miriam Coronel-Ferrer in the government peace panel has been reason enough to be optimistic of a turnaround in the peace of negotiations.
Prior to their respective stints as government negotiators, Leonen and Coronel-Ferrer have been engaged in peace advocacy through civil society.
Coronel-Ferrer oversaw independent monitoring of the implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and the International Humanitarian Law between government and Maoist rebels through the movement Sulong CARHRIHL.
For a long time, Leonen helped advance indigenous people’s struggles for self-determination principally through the Legal Rights and Natural Resource Center which he co-founded.
Mohagher Iqbal, chief MILF negotiator, said the personal comfort of interacting with the “articulate and amiable” Leonen “hastens the process.”
“It is, in itself, a gain,” Iqbal pointed out.
After three formal meetings of the panels, the Mindanao peace process has, at best, achieved modest gains in the negotiating table under the year-old Aquino administration.
“In every undertaking, how to start is very difficult; and we have started…. Despite the initial rough-sailing, we are slowly inching our way forward,” Iqbal said.
Iqbal stressed that “the most outstanding gain is we have continued the journey of peace.”
He also cited as gains the agreements on important issues in the side agenda, especially the participation of the peace talk’s International Contact Group in plenary sessions of the panels.
This expanded the number of independent entities, apart from the Malaysian facilitator, who have a direct look at and feel of the negotiation’s dynamics.
Another significant achievement was the conduct of parallel public consultations by both the government and MILF panels, which aided the build-up of a critical peace constituency.
So far, each panel has conducted at least 15 consultations with various sectors throughout the country, although most of these were in Mindanao.
On assuming his role, Leonen vowed “to come to where the people are.”
For the MILF, the consultations helped clarify less understood notions about its demand for a Bangsamoro sub-state, said Iqbal.
“We have put our key messages across” in especially dispelling the usual suspicion that the MILF proposal was veiled demand for independence and would lead to dismemberment of the Philippine republic, he added.
Although it was not revealing much, the government panel’s consultations especially with local governments, according to sources, sharpened its negotiating positions and provided clues on how to manage a future peace transition.
Largely, Leonen had succeeded in his promise to make the process “inclusive, consultative and, as far as practicable within the negotiating framework, transparent” to avoid previous mistakes.
Owing to public outreach efforts by the MILF, top Mindanao business leaders have strongly supported a negotiated political settlement to accommodate the Moro aspiration for self-governance. This is a first in the peace process’ 14-year history.
The business leaders found the peace process an opportunity to help address the wide regional disparities in the national government’s policy and resource allocation priority that has long bedeviled development efforts in Mindanao.
Early on, Leonen revealed that “the president is engaged” in the peace process with Moro rebels.
“We have worked with the president; (he) sits down with your panel and engages in interesting discussion,” Leonen told a public gathering in Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, in late 2010.
Leonen stressed that this should allay fears the government panel would be constrained by the Cabinet’s bureaucratic maze in firming up its negotiating positions.
The continued expectations the Leonen panel is still poised to deliver significant results is partly founded on its bold perspective of dealing with the negotiations.
“We accept the framework of the MILF (that) the kind of negotiation that we are to continue should be… how to solve the Bangsamoro problem,” Leonen has declared.
“Only by virtue of problem-solving can we really have a sincere chance of being able to bring about peace,” he added.
Leonen said the starting point for an earnest look at the problem is that both parties come to a “common understanding how it (Moro conflict) got to be that way.”
“We hope we will not spend too much time on that,” he added.
Leonen was optimistic about magnifying the ethno-linguistic nuances of Philippine society as basis for political accommodation without abandoning the concepts of national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“For truly we have a lot of histories, which have not been justly recognized,” he emphasized.
“The fullest measure of government’s sincerity can only be gleaned from its overdue peace formula,” a joint statement from 20 peace groups stressed.
Iqbal said the current lull in substantive negotiations “is certainly feeding on the appetite of both the spoilers and the hardliners” within the ranks of government and the MILF.
Telling Aquino to “seize this moment,” Iqbal said a peace settlement might be “hard to push in his third or fourth year in office.”
