Traders: Peace is ‘freedom’

DAVAO CITY—Mindanao business leaders expressed optimism over the signing of the fourth annex in a proposed comprehensive peace agreement that government and Moro rebel negotiators hope would end decades of bloodshed over a Moro quest for an independent state.

“The signing itself is already a positive signal for business,” said business leader Sebastian Angliongto, founding chair of the Mindanao Business Council (MBC), on the signing of the Annex on Normalization by leaders of the two peace panels.

“But how to create a momentum (for business) will have to be worked out not only by government but by all of the parties involved,” he said.

“We are very happy with the recent signing,” said Antonio de la Cruz, president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (DCCCII).

“We believe that it will bring forth inclusive growth and development for Davao City, the region and all Mindanaoans,” De la Cruz said.

Angliongto said political leaders in Mindanao should speak as one and foster the birth of a new Mindanao. Dissatisfaction from other Moro groups, he said, needed to be addressed, however.

The government, he said, should give its all-out support to the Bangsamoro, the proposed new autonomous state to benefit businesses in Mindanao.

Angliongto said the signing of the agreement would finally liberate Mindanao businessmen from the climate of fear and constant apprehension that has limited their movement in the last four decades of the armed conflict.

He recalled how he, as a businessman in the 1950s and the 1960s, used to attend business meetings in Cotabato City, traveling back to Davao City at the early hours of dawn, without worrying about his security.

“That kind of freedom we lost in the last 40 years of conflict,” Angliongto said.

“That kind of freedom we want to retrieve once the peace agreement is signed,” he said. Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao