Bangsamoro peace process takes center stage in International Meeting for Peace

From the Philippine Information Agency (Sep 10): Bangsamoro peace process takes center stage in International Meeting for Peace

Peace advocates from all over the world once again lauded the Bangsamoro peace process as a model for peace building during the International Meeting for Peace in this southern European country.

In the panel discussing the deteriorating situation in Syria and the Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Bangsamoro peace process provided examples and hope of how peace can be made possible.

Government of the Philippines (GPH) chief peace negotiator Prof. Miriam Coronel-Ferrer underscored the role of trust and faith in the Bangsamoro peace process which led to the signing of the peace agreement between the GPH and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“What made the peace agreement that we are now implementing possible? How did we get this far in our peace process despite the huge gap that divided us? [T]here were definitely two things that made the comprehensive peace agreement between us possible. Without these two, we would not have gone this far. These two elements are none other than trust and faith,” said Ferrer in her speech Tuesday.

Entitled “Peace is Always Possible - Religions and Cultures in Dialogue,” the three-day international meeting, which opened Sunday, was organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio in cooperation with the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania and the Albanian Episcopal Conference.‎

Ferrer shared how “[i]t took 17 years of negotiations to get us that peace agreement. Many mini-wars before and even during the talks had erupted in the southern part of the Philippines, where the minority Muslims or Moros, lived. More than 120,000 people have died since the 1970s up to the 1990s. Millions have been displaced from time to time. Children missed school, properties were destroyed, and sickness haunted the evacuation centers.”

The government and the MILF signed on March 27, 2014 the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) to end the decades-long armed conflict in Mindanao and to improve the lives of people in the conflict-affected areas through socio-economic interventions. The CAB also served as basis for the drafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) – a bill aimed at institutionalizing a parliamentary autonomous government to replace the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Ferrer has received international acclaim for her work for peace. She has been given the 2015 Hillary Rodham Clinton Award for Women in Peace and Security, which cited Ferrer’s historic role as the first female chief negotiator to sign a comprehensive peace agreement.

A report released by the New York-based International Peace Institute (IPI) earlier this year also feted Ferrer along with Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos-Deles as ideal women peacemakers. The report highlighted the breakthroughs in the country’s peace process from the time Deles, the Philippines’ first woman peace presidential adviser, took the lead in the peace talks in 2010, and underscored the critical roles played by Deles and Ferrer in the GPH-MILF peace negotiations.

The chief peace negotiator together with MILF negotiating panel member Prof. Abhoud Lingga were joined in a panel discussion by Mario Giro, Undersecretary of State to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy; Mauro Garofalo of the Community of Sant’Egidio; Vidya Jain, Director of the Centre for Gandhian Studies of India; Ignatius Ayau Kaigama, a Catholic Archbishop from Nigeria; Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos from the Institute of Geopolitics in France; and Din Syamsuddin Chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council Center.

“The Mindanao armed conflict is after all not a simple problem. There are many other armed groups and different stakeholders such as the migrants who have settled here, and the non-Moro indigenous peoples. Many see the complexity as reason to doubt the process, or any process for that matter, as all complexities cannot be solved by one process alone,” Ferrer shared.

“Trust alone was not enough to sustain our process. We needed to have faith because that trust is challenged by every difficult phase of the process and unwanted incidents. It can be challenged especially by those others who do not trust – politicians, other leaders, or ordinary folk who do not believe in giving this peace a chance,” she added.

“Without the trust in each other and the faith that our good intentions will see us through, our process would not have withstood all the challenges. We would have doubted and wavered. Only with trust and faith can we have the generosity of spirit and the compassionate understanding that are essential to make peace in Mindanao, peace on earth possible,” she added.

International partners have also been helping in the conduct of the peace process; for instance, the International Contact Group, which observes the conduct of the peace negotiations between the government and MILF, is composed of Turkey, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Saudi Arabia along with four international non-governmental organizations such as the Community of Sant’Egidio.

Members of the international community are also providing valuable support for the Independent Decommissioning Body, which facilitates the turnover and decommissioning of MILF weapons and forces, and the Third Party Monitoring Team, which is tasked to monitor the compliance of the government and MILF to all signed agreements.

Back in the Philippines, members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate continue to work hard on the passage of the Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BLBAR), the amended version of the BBL endorsed by the House ad hoc committee on the BBL and the Senate committee on local government for debates in their respective chambers.

“Without trust in the other we become stingy – for instance in the kind of law that we will pass to institute the Bangsamoro autonomous government. Or even begrudge our patience, openness and understanding, and our financial resources,” Ferrer said.

She added that the government continues its efforts in building the trust and the faith in the peace process on the Bangsamoro, before the greater Filipino public and the bigger community of nations.

http://news.pia.gov.ph/article/view/3001441802186/bangsamoro-peace-process-takes-center-stage-in-international-meeting-for-peace