Reflections on the Peace Process | Speech of Sec. Deles on the Metrobank Professorial Chair Awarding
REFLECTIONS ON THE PEACE PROCESS
Metrobank Professorial Chair Lecture
Delivered on 3 February 2012 at the Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City
Salutations
I am truly honored to be named this year’s awardee of the Metrobank Professorial Chair for Public Service and Governance, an annual project of the Metrobank Foundation with the Ateneo School of Government. I must confess, however,to being seriously intimidated by the title of the Award I have just received. I am not a professor, nor have I ever held any title which would in any way infer that I have spent any part of my life immersed in scholarship. My post-graduate credits are limited to six units in Education taken in the summer after I earned my bachelor’s degree in English Literature, which minimum post-graduatecredits I neededto be able to take on my first job, teaching English literature and composition to high school juniors at my alma mater, the school across the creek. I taught for one year and returned for one more semester as a parttime substitute teacher – and that one year and a fraction thereof constitute the sum of my career in the academe.
This being the case, I must admit to a sense of trepidation in delivering this year’s professorial lecture. I understand that lectures from past awardees were backed up by full-length papers, in turn backed up with substantial references and footnotes. The relentless pace of my current work as the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process has not allowed me the space and the luxury of time to undertake such an exercise and I would have had to decline this honorhad Dean La Vina not assured me that an academicpaper was not required. In fact, the School of Government kindly gave my presentation the provisionaltitle – Reflections on the Peace Process. I welcomed this unpretentious title, although the School would also send me a one-page brief on today’s event, which included a list of very substantive and complex questions for me to cover. Taking off from this mix of guidelines from the organizers, I have prepared a combination of expository facts and personal reflections which I hope will give you a sense of the complex state of the Philippine peace process, including government plans, collective hopes, as well as the difficult challenges that we face.
In the end, I must admit, the form and length of my presentation this afternoon were ultimately shaped by the state of my calendar this week – which was very heavy, includingseparate working sessions with our different GPH panels and working groups dealing with the NDF, MNLF, and MILF, respectively, and a day-trip to Maguindanao last Wednesday to launch some projects for conflict-affected communities with DSWD Secretary Soliman and the newly installed ARMM OIC officials. As well, the state of my speech wasdetermined by my appreciation of the limits of your patience and attention as the audience of my so-called lecture. I have tried to be mindful that students compose a good segment of our audience. Then, again, I have tended lately to talk longer than I should.If I do that today, I do plead for more patience from youand I apologize to our reactors, Etta Rosales and Cesar Villanueva, for sending them their “advance copy” of my speech so late.
I was asked to give an update on the current progress of peace talks, including what’s new in this administration’s peace strategy, what are our concrete plans, timelines, targets, expectations, and the challenges of structural reform – all these in 30 minutes (I was actually initially give 15 minutes for my presentation but I asked for more time). In the past four months, I have spoken at at least ten fora, all constituting briefings on the peace process. On these occasions, I have imparted a basic set of core messages over and over again, adding points and perspectives depending on the audience. I am afraid that, to some people who have heard me before, some parts of my speech might sound like a broken record. Still, I have no other way of explaining what we are trying to do and what we are trying to achieve except in this way, in these core words.
But let me start by recounting the reason and the cause why we have to win the peace in our country and win it now. Indeed, we are a country weary of war. From our revolution to our bloody birth as a nation a century ago, we fought Spain and, later, the Americans and, much later, in the second world war, the Japanese. The perceptionof anunjust peace ensuing from World War II compelled some of our countrymen and women to take up arms once more, this time against government. And so, the question of justice and equity has continued to haunt all our efforts at nation-building.
What is labeled as the longest-running insurgency in our part of the world has torn families, communities, and the country apart. In Mindanao, the conflicts have furthermore been multi-layered and reflective of peoples’ historical assertions for self-determination. On the ground, dire realities of extreme poverty and negligence, political exclusion and manipulation, and cultural subordination leading to issues of contested identities have combined with the paucity of law and order, the preponderance of rugged and forested terrains across a scattered archipelago, and porous borders in thesouth,to provide fertile ground for all forms of armed violence, including the entry of trans-national terrorism.
All of these have made it imperative for our government to make conflict resolution a priority. However, we have not managed to successfully move away from repetitive cycles of violence. Conflict parties have approached the negotiation tables with the best of intentions, yet the hard questions that need to be addressed have too often gotten lost in circuitous processes and complex protocols. The comfort of so-called “creative ambiguity” – certainly, a useful stance to take just to keep negotiations going at the start – tendedto take over straightforward exchanges, leading to many years of dribbling along.
I had said at the opening of the resumption of the peace talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF in Oslo almost one year ago that “ours has been a failure of nerve, a failure of will, a failure of the imagination. I say a failure of nerve because, having marched for so long to the drumbeat of war, we are unnerved by the fear of losing our step. I say failure of will because we would rather stick to our old formulas rather than risk losing ground and losing face. I say failure of imagination because we cannot let go of our fossilized ways of thinking and doing things, blind to the fact that the way to life is to make all things new.”
Along the way, THE PEACE PROCESS WAS HIJACKED BY THE PRESIDENT’S LEGITIMACY CRISIS. The peace process and most of her early reform agenda were compromised by her political survival needs, along with the competing policy thrusts of her lieutenants. Challenges to her legitimacy after allegations of cheating her way in the2004 presidential election and corruption scandals implicating the First Family further dovetailed the government’s national security policies to meet her political survival needs. The peace process became an adjunct to this overarching quest for survival, even continuity beyond 2010. This negated the well-intentioned attempts of her peace advisers and negotiating panels to find pacific settlements to the armed conflicts that have challenged the stability of the Philippine state and hobbled development in the last 45 years. (From Prof. Miriam Coronel’s paper, The Peace Process under the GMA Administration, delivered at the UP NCPAG, December, 2011, as part of the series on the Assessment of the GMA Administration)
In 2010, when we assumed office upon the election of President Aquino, the peace process was in a bad place. We had to pick up from where the past administration left off, with (1) a seven-year impasse in the negotiations with the CPP/NPA/NDF, since talks were suspended in 2004 and a perceived state of impunity arising from the President’s order in 2006 for the armed forces to end the insurgency in two years; (2) with the MILF, the outbreak of hostilities in 2008 after the MOA AD fiasco, which left nearly 700,000 persons displaced and provoking soaring levels of distrust on all sides; and (3) signed agreements still not fully delivered and brought to proper closure – namely, the Final Peace Agreement with the MNLF in 1996,and the respective ceasefire agreements with the CPLA in 1986 and with the RPMP-RPA-ABB in 2000.
In the face of this disarray of peace tracks, the election and assumption into office of President Benigno Simeon Aquino IIIinJune, 2010, ushered in a shift in perspective in making and building peace. Even while he was still a presidential candidate, P.Noy had given time to focus on developing a peace and development agenda for Mindanao. The issue of peace in Mindanao was part of the 16-point agenda,articulated as no. 14, in his Social Contract with the Filipino People, which was published as a full-page ad when he and Mar Roxas filed their certificates of candidacy for the 2010 elections in November, 2009. On April 22, 2010, he delivered a speech at the Peace and Security Forum held at Mandarin Hotel, where he laid out his national security policy and articulated his commitment to the search for peace.
The next administration will have to pick up the pieces and resume the quest for peace with vigor and clarity of purpose. Our quest must not only focus on ensuring the stability of the state and the security of our nation. Our ultimate goal must be the safety and well-being of our people…
We must revive the peace process on the basis of a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of the conflict, under clear policies that pave and clear the way ahead, and driven by a genuine desire to attain a just and lasting peace.
We shall endeavor to restore confidence in a peace process that is transparent and participatory, and renew our faith in our shared vision of a peaceful, secure and prosperous future under one sovereign flag.
Today, the presidential candidate’s words of commitment to the search for peace have been translated into national policy. Chapter 9 of the Philippine Development Plan for 2010-2016 is entitled “Peace and Security.” (The entire PDP may be downloaded from the NEDA website (www.neda.gov.ph.) As its title connotes, the Chapter covers two sections: the first, sub-titled “Winning the Peace,” and the second sub-titled “Ensuring National Security.”
Promotion of the peace process shall be the centerpiece of the internal security program as a testament to a government’s commitment to a policy of peace, reconciliation, and reunification. Peace is not just the absence of war or conflict, but it is the sum total of the conditions that ensure human and social well-being in all its dimensions. This entails the winning of hearts and minds of the aggrieved and the afflicted while retaining the allegiance of the rest.
For the first time, we have a government that states as a matter of national policy that Promotion of the peace process shall be the centrepiece – not a by-the-way, not a sideline or side effect, but the centrepiece – of the internal security program.
As stated in this Chapter, “While the government’s ultimate aim is to win the peace, the goal for the medium-term shall be to bring all armed conflict to a permanent and peaceful closure.”Towards this end, the following objectives are identified: (1) negotiated political settlement of armed conflicts, which we refer to as Track 1; and (2) effectively addressing the causes of armed conflict and other issues that affect the peace process, which is referred to in the Plan as the Complementary Track. The Complementary Track covers (1) Focused development in conflict-affected areas through the program which has been named Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan or PAMANA; and (2) pursuing an enabling policy climate for peace.
Nine policy issueswere identified in the chapter as being of special concern to the peace process.
•Bringing an end to impunity and extra-judicial killings
•Implementing the indigenous peoples’ agenda centered on the full implementation of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act
•Pursuing an affirmative action agenda for Muslims
•Enhancement of ARMM governance
•Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, conflict resolution, peace, and security
•Addressing the needs of children in situations of armed conflict
•Reform of the security sector
•Settlement of land disputes
Today, we face a troubled and complex landscape of armed conflict and peacemaking. I describe its state as complex because we have multiple armed conflicts with peace processes now spanning decades – and still counting – which have undergone circuitous routes and stop-and-go cycles under several presidencies. While it is the Mindanao peace process with the MILF which currently attracts the most interest worldwide, the reality is we still have the insurgency being waged for more than 43 years now by the CPP/NPA, with its most bloodied battleground currentlysituated in northeastern Mindanao.
We still need to put closure to peace processes with armed parties covering specific areas of the country;namely, the CPLA in the Cordilleras, which signed a peace agreement with government 25 years ago; and the RPMP-RPA-ABB, withits main base in Western Visayas, which signed a truce with government a decade ago – both break-away groups from the CPP/NPA. We say these processes are unfinished because, as you will note from the names they continue to carry – Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA), Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA) – theystill frame their existence and the structure and operations of their organizations as military. In Mindanao, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which signed a Final Peace Agreement with government in 1996(after signing an earlier accord, the original Tripoli Agreement,in 1976 under Marcos)continues to identify itself with camps, base commands, uniforms with matching military ranks.
All in all, we are currently engaged in not just one, not just two, but six peace tables. Of the six tables, only two constitute comprehensive negotiations for a political settlement: that with the MILF and with the CPP/NPA/NDF, respectively. The other tables are engaged in conversations to complete the implementation of agreements long concluded. There are six tables with five groups because RPM-P/RPA/ABB split into two irreconcilable factions in 2007.
We are determined not to pass on another unfinished business to the next administration. We are daring in our ambition to end all armed conflict in the country within this administration. We need to put a proper and peaceful closure to all peace tracks which have been pursued by government since our first people power uprising in 1986.
The imperative is to conclude political settlements or closure agreements with the different groups and ensure a firm start, if notthe completion, of implementation of these agreements within the window that we now have – that is, within the six-year term of P-Noy, now with just four years, four months and 27 days left to it. We count every month how many days are left.It is our goal to have agreements signed by mid-term of this administration, because we do not want to signat the last hour and then leave it to the next administration to implement.
a) We cannot engage in endless contestation over who is at fault for the failure of compliance. On the peace front, all these unfinished business – malingering for so many years – haveresulted in the layering and overlay of issues; permutations of formations with internal splits, splinters, further splintering; morphing and mutationof agenda; and the freezing in time of protocols and procedures that too often have taken precedence over substantive negotiations. Inevitably, these have helped fuel among our people increased levels of frustration, even exhaustion, and the temptation to resort to quick fixes and simplified answers. Hopes and expectations have too often been raised and dashed. For the sake and survival of a meaningful peace process, we just have to put an end to our meanderings. We have to be brave and bold in seeking a final resolution of all internal armed conflict because we have to win the peace for all Filipinos.
Parameters for Peace Talks:
a.The Constitution, inclusive of the flexibilities provided within its provisions;
b.The experience and lessons learned from past negotiations and with the creation and operation of the ARMM;
c.Government’s ability to deliver – politically, economically and socially – commitments made and agreed on; and
d.Inclusiveness and transparency, sensitivity to general public sentiment as far as practicable, with the aim of restoring full confidence and trust in the peace process.
The President has issued a clear Letter of Instructions to our negotiating Panels, which establish parameters for their engagement on the peace table. It is a measure of the transparency of this administration that the President’s instructions have been incorporated in PDP Chapter 9. The panels are to uphold national sovereignty and territorial integrity and negotiate within the framework of the 1987 Constitution while also recognizing that the Constitution provides sufficient leeway and spaces for embarking on needed reforms and transformation. Present negotiations must be guided by past experience of what has worked and not worked. And, always-always, P.Noy reminds us that this government must and will implement all commitments that it makes; in other words, no false promises: GPH will not sign any agreement it cannot deliver. Finally, and this is a very important lesson from the past: Inclusiveness and transparency – we need to restore full confidence and trust in the peace process.
I was asked to provide specific updates on the progress of the peace talks on both the MILF and the communist fronts. This will not be easy. Yesterday morning, our GPH panel gave a briefing for Senators convened by the Senate Committee on Peace and Reconciliation. Chair MarvicLeonen’s presentation alone took more than one hour. Don’t worry – I will not eventry to summarize what he said.
What is most important to note is that, in the GPH-MILF process, negotiations are now in the substantive stage. After a delay at the beginning caused by issues of facilitation, 2011 saw the two sides cautiously restart talks in February; grapple with the issue of Umra Kato and recurrent outbreaks of rido;surprise and elate most – not all, but most – Filipinos with the President’s “grand gesture” (in the words of the MILF) of meeting with the MILF Chair in Tokyo in August; submitand exchange their respective peace proposals (the MILF in February and GPH in August) and almost break-down over the GPH “3-For-1” proposal, with the MILF panel rejecting it and the GPH panel “rejecting the rejection”; and then, just as preparations were underway for the resumption of talks, face down a crisis of major proportions with the public outcry for “all-out-war” following the Al Barka tragedy in October. The President didnot bow to the popular call but instead decisively restored sense and perspective with his declaration of “all-out-justice.” Two-and-a-half weekslater, talks resumed with an informal meeting in November and the resumption of formal exploratory talks in early December.
After the unexpected twists and turns of the peace process in 2011, the two parties started the new year by engaging the heart of the negotiations. Talks were held in January and another round is scheduled this month. Negotiations have moved beyond procedural or peripheral concerns into directly engaging issues of political settlement. MILF has reiterated that independence is no longer on the table. GPH has affirmed that integration is not an option. Thus, the search is for a state of genuine autonomy, which, both sides agree, the current ARMM has not delivered. Inevitably, issues of power-sharing, wealth-sharing, territory, and transitional mechanisms and duration will provide bones of contention.
Bottomlines have been exchanged and divergent road maps are being examined. Broad strokes will no longer suffice; hard decisions have to be made on both sides. The way ahead will be bumpy but the good thing is that both sides appear committed to engage at the negotiating table and not in the battlefield. Neither side seems poised to walk away when the going getsrough – and I am certain it will get rough many more times over.
...Our view of a peace agreement is that it is one that can sincerely be implemented by the administration that promises it. It is an agreement that serves as a framework for all parties to work with each other under a regime of mutual respect. It should reflect a genuine acknowledgement of history and a true understanding of the current and future needs of our peoples. Certainly, the grandest of our hopes can only be achieve if we start with the practical issues that can be accomplishedtoday while dreaming of what our worlds will be in the future… (from GPH Chair Marvic Leonen’sOpening Statement, GPH-MILF 23rd Formal Exploratory Talks – 9 January 2012)
GPH Panel Chair MarvicLeonen, in his opening statement during the last round of talks in January, described the GPH position thus: “Our proposed political settlement besides providing for a pragmatic framework workable within the next few years also provides a platform to pave the way for true deliberative democracy among all our peoples.”
Finally, it has become clear to us that the search for a lasting peace in Mindanao cannot just focus on the negotiations between government and the MILF. The peace process with the MILF faces what is perhaps a unique challenge: the reality that current negotiations with the MILF involve the same core territory and the same people that are already the subject of a peace agreement with another group, the MNLF; the reality that the Final Peace Agreement with the MNLF has already put into place an ARMM Regional Government, which practically everyone today agrees badly needs to be reformed.
Thus, on the side of government, we have come to push for a “convergence framework” that will make sure that these three strands of peace are able to come together and work together: negotiations with the MILF, completion of the implementation of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement with the MNLF, and the roadmap for governance reform in the ARMM. We cannot see the way to a lasting peace if the MILF and the MNLF are at cross-purposes with each other. A lasting peace is not possible if there are parties and peoples who feel left out or betrayed. We believe that pushing to make ARMM work now will be a good building block for whatever new political arrangement may arise as a result of the ongoing peace talks. We see the transitional arrangement which came about as a result of the synchronization of ARMM elections with national elections as a potential opportunity which further raises the challenge and imperative for all the major stakeholders to sit at a common table where each one may find and exercise their specific role and contribution.
What about negotiations with the CPP/NPA/NDF? As in the GPH-MILF process, formal negotiations restarted in February, 2011. After a seven-year impasse, the parties agreed to accelerate the process, targeting a time frame of 18 months to complete the agreements on the substantive agenda covering socio-economic reforms, political and constitutional reforms, and end of hostilities and final disposition of forces – a timeframe of 18 months to complete three major agenda as compared to the past 19 years which resulted in only one comprehensive agreement, the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Law (CAHRIHL).
The talks were off to a good start – the longest Christmas ceasefire in December, 2010, agreed on in informal talks in December and, for the first time ever, a ceasefire for the duration of the talks in February. There were many bumps on the table in February but, in the end, an agreement on an accelerated time frame, the convening of reciprocal working committees and thematic working groups, the determination to conduct consultations and complete working drafts. Very soon after that, however, it took a downturn.
In February, the two panels had agreed that the next round of talks would be held the following June. Two weeks before the scheduled talks, however, the NDF unilaterally cancelled all meetings, alleging that the GPH had not complied with the precondition of releasing alleged JASIG-protected detainees contained in a list it had submitted to government. JASIG refers to the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees which secures free movement for members of the CPP/NPA/NDF who are engaged in peace talks. GPH Chair Alex Padilla has replied that the government did not commit unconditionally to release the alleged NDF peace consultants. What was stated in the Oslo Statement last February is that the government will work to expedite the releases, “subject to verification and after undergoing due process.”
In the following months, through the proper court proceedings, five of the identified detainees were releasedfrom custody. Two of them were thereafter reported to have resumed action with the NPA, contrary to the JASIG intent of giving safe passage to members of the movement who are engaged in the peace process. In the meantime also, the verification process under JASIG has failed. When the sealed envelope stored in a safety deposit box under the custody of a bishop in a bank in the Netherlands was opened last July, the first time since the envelope was placed in the safety box in 2001, it turned out that, contrary to the agreed procedure that the envelope would contain pictures of the listed NDF consultants who were carrying pseudonyms, the envelope did not contain pictures but rather two diskettes – more accurately, floppy discs – which had, in the long period of storage, been corrupted and could no longer be encrypted. Thus, there is no longer any way to verify whether the list submitted by the NDF panel is truly JASIG-protected. Thus, on the part of government, any release of detainees partakes of the nature of a confidence-building measure and not an obligation. To be effective, however, confidence-building needs to be nurtured on both sides of the table.
It is unfortunate that while talks were restarted with government, the NPA has escalated its violent acts, including attacks on remote police outposts and militia units, abductions of persons ranging from a town mayor to mat vendors, the use of landmines, not to mention extortion going by the label of “revolutionary taxation,” with nonpayment drawing fire on buslines, telecom towers, and mines, among others. Government considers the abduction of civilians (including uniformed personnel carrying out non-combat work such as jailguards), the use of any form of landmine, and assaults on civilian establishments as a violation of CARHRIHL, which they have signed, as well as every existing human rights protocol.
I am especially concerned that such actions on the ground side by side with talks of peace processes and negotiations create a sense of “disconnect” in the public mind. People begin to have the sense that the parties are just playing games. They lose trust in this particular peace track – not that there was much of it, to begin with. Once people lose their trust in the process, it means serious trouble for any peace table. But we persist. Government is determined not to be the one to leave the table. Government is committed to continue to look for ways to move the process forward one way or another in a way that will grow the support of our people.
The government is firm on its intent to pursue the peace talks. But the talks should be based on clear terms of commitment coming not just from the government but also from the side of the CPP-NPA-NDF. (Alex Padilla, Chair, GPH Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the NDF)
Formal negotiations have not resumed since February, soon marking one year of impasse. We reiterate our call to the CPP/NPA/NDF to seriously talk peace with government – to seriously talk peace on the table and wage peace on the ground. The GPH Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF released a statement on the occasion of International Peace Day, September 21, 2011, which put forward the plea: “Keeping faith in the process, we, members of the GPH panel, are committed to staying the course of peace. We therefore ask civil society organizations (including our youth), communities on the ground, everyone who has a stake in the process, to put pressure on both sides to stay at the table, to engage in debates on reforms that will make peace just and sustainable.”
While we seriously pursue Track 1 withdifferent armed groups, government also firmly believes that peace will be won not only on the negotiating table but must also be waged vigorously on the ground. PAMANA, which also means “legacy,” is government’s framework and program to bring development and good governance in conflict-affected areas. It stands on three pillars: Pillar 1 seeks to address policy issues which create conditions of unpeace in an area; Pillar 2 brings convergent and community-driven socio-economic services into identified conflict-affected barangays; while Pillar 3 aims to address regional development needs to connect these communities to larger economies and markets so that no community will be left behind.
Within the term of P.Noy, an estimated total of 28.5 B pesos worthof inter-agency programs will be converged in conflict-affected areas located in seven conflict zones: (1) Cordillera, (2) Southern Tagalog-Bicol corridor, (3) Western Visayas, (4) Samar, (5) ComVal-Caraga corridor, (6) Central Mindanao, and (6) ZamBaSulTa. PAMANA catalyzes partnerships betweennational, provincialand local governments, private enterprise, and civil society organizations. Together with DILG, we are designing a capacity-building program to develop conflict-sensitive and peacebuilding governance among local government executives.PAMANA is about doing things differently and bringing a new element into the exercise to ensure that development does not bring about new sources of grievance and inequity but will truly lead to sustaining community efforts to address the root causes of injustice, insecurity and conflict.
In congruence with the convergence perspective is the importance of realizing that what happens on the peace table does not happen in a vacuum. As 2011 drew to a close, we saw how the peace process can be extremely vulnerable to the politics in the country. The peace process is moving during a time of great debate, or even political adversary. There is the issue of bringing GMA and her cohorts to accountability. Given this context, the peace process will need the vast support of people. It is naïve to think that one can work for peace without engaging the political arena. The debate that came out after the Al Barka incident was not only and not mainly about the peace process. It was also about politics, including the politics of 2013 and the politics of 2016, and, certainly, the politics of an ex-president that had misused power for 9 years and led us to this multiplicity and complicity of problems.
Having experienced in the past 20 months of the PNOY administration difficult – at times, painful – interrogationfrom our own media and publics, I can only say that my commitment to the peace process have been strengthened over this period simply because the President took it upon himself to make a stand. In a major test of this administration’s resolve for peace, I will again recall howthe President stood firmly and honestly in quashing the agitation of the war mongers in the wake of Al Barka.
Running the peace process office has fortunately been a different experience under the leadership of P.Noy. Unlike my former boss, P.Noy will not sign or approve anything he doesn’t first scrutinize and that he thinks government cannot deliver. Our President is engaged and involved not only in the big picture but also in the details, being especially meticulous about figures and funds and the specificities of our commitments. He is intent in ensuring that our plans do not only sound good, but that they are doable and won’t create new problems. Inter-agency work has been rigorous and always involves the funding perspective of DBM. We try to foresee and prepare for implementation stresses by already discussing post-conflict scenarios even as we craft plans and strategies to address today’s challenges.
As a result and as our partners in Mindanao are aware, our panels and staff are on the ground and consulting with as many groups and stakeholders as possible. Our panel hasheld more than 70 of such consultations, and counting, including the Chair’s meeting last Monday with almost all battalion, brigade, division, and unified command leaders of the AFP and PNP counterparts in the ARMM and contiguous regions. During the first consultation held by the panel in a military camp in Mindanao, the soldiers told them that it was the first time ever that they had been consulted by the panel. The same was said by some of the Senators in our meeting with them yesterday.Unlike GMA, P.Noy has no plans of staying forever or even one day longer than his elected term in Malacañang, and he is therefore very conscious of his plan and of his actual capability to push the agenda and deliver it within his term. Thus, what is re-echoed by our panels and our peace process office at every opportunity is the intense desire of this administration to have a signed agreement as soon as possible, hopefully, before 2013 or the midterm. Otherwise, we may run out of time for properly implementing what we have signed.
Finally, P.Noy is truly in the peaceful path to peace: he sees the need and imperative for peace with such clarity. As we keep on trying to explain to critics and supporters alike: the President’s advisers and his peace team did not bring the President to Narita to meet with MILF chair Murad. Rather he brought us, his advisers and panel, there. We did not have to convince him to take the stand he took after Al Barka; it was for him the only viable option.
As for the prospects in 2012, let me still say that the prospect for peace has never been this good. It is better than it has ever been,and a major reason for hope is the steadfast political leadership and supportive political climate, as manifested by the high trust and satisfaction ratings of the president and the equally high hopes of our people. At the end of the day, after a fierce roller coaster ride of a process, peace talks with the MILF is back on track, with both parties having been able to explain their positions, exploring road maps, and remaining open and hopeful that shared, lasting solutions can be found.
Meanwhile, the process for a determined reform of the governance of ARMM has been set in motion. The closure tracks have been proceeding significantly as well, with forthright actions and discussions with the CPLA and RPMP-RPA-ABB, respectively, proceeding on the matter of profiling of combatants, registration of firearms, security and livelihood concerns. The CPLA has initiated its transformation into an unarmed, potent socio-economic force with a series of leadership trainings and its registration with SEC under a new name, the Cordillera Forum on Peace and Development.
There is so much more to reflect on, so many lessons and insights we are gaining everyday: such as those about the nexus between peace, development, and good governance; about the politics of peace; the requirements of policy and institutional cohesion; the roles, contributions, and recognition of women particularly in Track 1;about security sector reform – onthis last topic, I cannot but be amazed over the pace and depth, continuously accompanied by introspection and dialogue with partners, by which the current military leadership across the terms of three chiefs-of-staff – hasturned and continues to turn the institution around.
We are proceeding with tempered optimism, knowing how, despite best efforts from both sides of the table, some things can still be hard to predict, many things can still go wrong. I know that we will continue to be interrogated and questioned, as the season will get even more political as midterm elections approach. Some sectors of our media will continue to craft headlines that will sell and catch people’s attention, never mind the truth. Some sectors, including those closest to us, will again probably not be around in times when we need them most.
But we will persevere because we know that the status quo is not an option. So every morning, we will wake up and be ready to face the worst even as we profess to reaffirm the faith and keep the hope. We will continue to reach out to a larger audience to explain until we are blue in the face that there is another way of resolving our differences other than by force of arms. The peace process will need a vast constituency and we will be ready to speak until our voices grow hoarse to make our message be heard above the din of the noise. We will continue to toil in search for solutions instead of just criticize and complain. We will continue to build relationships based on dignity, mutual trust and respect, and hope these relationships will continue to hold ground, especially in times when the ground we stand on become shaky. And we will turn to each other for help to prolong our shelf-lives as peacemakers, in what could be a demanding and tiring process ahead until we see the light at the end of the tunnel.I know that in our hearts, peace has won. I do believe – I persist in believing – that on the peace table are miracles starting to happen.
Maraming salamat po and good evening to everyone.
