March 16-22, 2014:: The adage “there is no rocky hill for an iron will” is what pushes the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) to work on March 31 as the timeline it commits itself to submit to the Office of the President the draft of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).
This was what President Benigno Aquino III wished when the BTC commissioners paid him a courtesy call last January 30.
This indeed is a tall order and the BTC is not balking from this challenge. But BTC has a self-imposed work norm; i.e., never to accept failure unless it has tried. After all, there is no real failure, may be, at most, a partial failure. It isn’t an end game for our hopes and desires.
Yes, the GPH-MILF peace process has been dragged for almost 17 years since 1997. But in all those long years, the MILF has been feeling the heat and sting of working under tight schedules. There has never been a light moment in this engagement.
The same situation is to be expected once the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) formally assumes power in 2015. One year transition is too short by any standard. Imagine within this span, the BTA has to set up institutions, write the local government code, the administrative code, and the election code for the Bangsamoro. More importantly, it has to provide leadership and unify the Bangsamoro people and rally them towards the vision set forth more than 40 years ago by the late MILF chair Salamat Hashim.
Can the MILF-led BTA manage to do this in a limited time and succeed? Don’t ask the MILF. As stated, the MILF has accepted all sorts of challenges for the last more than four decades of struggle, and surely, it will also accept this challenge, as it is committed to do so when it signed the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) on October 15, 2012. It is a commitment that it will abide for better or for worse.
However, like a conflict situation, a post-conflict is also multi-dimensional phenomenon and cannot be understood in terms of one single factor, as they result from a complex interaction and overlap of various issues such as security, from a state, community and personal perspective; political/governance; economic; social, broadly defined to include ethnographic, cultural, religious; and many others. More seriously, spoilers especially those coming from outside can mount their last-ditch act to disrupt and destroy the gains of the peace process. Of relevance is what is happening in
The real challenge now is whether a partner in the peace process like the MILF can stand up to the challenge given the short transition. The people have the final say.
http://www.luwaran.com/index.php/editorial/item/882-‘no-rocky-hill-for-an-iron-will’
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.