Are prospects for the proposed new peace panel dead before it even begins? While the new government nominees have been called ‘good men,’ observers believe they do not reflect or speak for those groups and interests whose support will be crucial to ensure a just and sustainable peace.
One of the organizations leading the peace movement in Mindanao has called on the government to pick peace negotiators from the ranks of the Supreme Court, Congress and from Local Government Units if it is really serious about resolving the long-running crisis once and for all.
Reacting to the recent announcement of three government appointees to the peace panel which hopes to resume talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Mindanao Peoples Caucus (MPC) is asking instead for the Supreme Court to appoint its best representatives to the negotiating team. It added the Senate and Congress should also choose their best legislators to join the panel to ensure all three branches of the government will be intricately bound up in negotiations from the start and so help avoid a repeat of last August when one branch of the government rejected the work of another.
Three weeks ago, the President named Foreign Affairs undersecretary Rafael Seguis as the chair of the new government panel, an appointee not known to peace advocates in Mindanao. He replaces retired Army Lieutenant General Rodolfo Garcia, whose panel was dissolved September 3.
The President later named Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman, T'duray native Ronald Adamat, former South Cotabato Rep. Adelbert Antonino and lawyer-businessman Tomas Cabili as the new peace panel members.
According to Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon, Adamat would represent the Lumads in the panel, replacing Datu Al Saliling who was on the panel before it was dissolved in the wake of the collapse last year of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).
But Mary Ann Arnado, secretary general of the MPC, said that while they had nothing against Adamat, she suggested the government should first consult the different indigenous peoples’ groups “before naming somebody to represent them”.
"Pangandaman will represent the Muslim community while Antonino will represent the Christian community in the talks," Esperon told reporters.
But Arnado suggested that Pangandaman should first resolve the "unpeaceful situation" his family was embroiled in- a not-so-veiled reference to a widely reported incident on the fairways of a gold club in Antipolo late last month.
The MILF has already flagged that it will only go back to the negotiating table if the government returns to the issue of the MOA-AD, something which is probably unlikely in its present state.
Ustadz Rahib Kudto, National President of the United Youth for Peace and Development (UNYPAD), said the defunct government panel had Muslim members in the persons of former Sultan Kudarat Governor Pax Mangundadatu and Datu Ali Sangki, but added it was “not enough that Muslims are on the panel."
Kudto argued it was more important to select negotiators with “genuine appreciation of the Mindanao conflict and recognition of the historical injustices done against the Bangsamoro People."
"Pangandaman cannot represent the Bangsamoro People because he was given no mandate. We do not recognize him as our representative,” he said.
Kudto added: "If the government doesn't change its framework which centers on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, peace will be all the more become elusive."
Esperon has said Manila has yet to set the date of the resumption of peace talks with the MILF while announcing they were still conducting "consultations" on the peace process in provinces in Mindanao.
The government had been pushing on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration as a new framework for the talks in the event it goes back to the negotiating table with the MILF, a proposal that the Moro group has consistently opposed.
Bobby Benito, Executive Director of the Bangsamoro Council for Justice and Peace warned "even if the best people are named as government negotiators, talks will not prosper unless they start off where they stopped.”
He added that whoever the President appoints as negotiators for the government, it will “not make sense” unless they do not enjoy the full backing of all parts of the government.
He claimed the President sought only to try and keep international opinion on her side by suggesting the peace process was still ongoing, “but the truth is she does not have any intention of resolving the conflict."
Given the fact that the aborted MOA-AD was four years in the making, she may also be fast running out of time – a belief shared by Mindanao Attorney Zainudin Malang who says the new panel only has eighteen months to work on a final accord.
While calling the new members “good people as were their predecessors,” Malang also predicted that the new panel will be hampered because it does not appear to have clear support from the Christian community in northern Mindanao which was instrumental in working to have the previous initialled agreement nullified before it could be formally signed.
And while the row over the peace panel appointees and their mandate goes on, the number of displaced persons in evacuation centers continues to grow as does the number of fire-fights reported between government troops and the MILF.
More than 300 families were among new evacuees forced from their village of Dado in Alamada town in North Cotabato, in late December. More than 6,000 individuals are also said to have fled Kalamansig town in Sultan Kudarat.
The new wave of evacuations was triggered by an attack on Christmas Eve by MILF rebels. (Romy Elusfa / Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project. The author is a freelance journalist and volunteer of Bantay Ceasefire.)
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