Mindanao peace agreements: A case of realpolitik?

How does the national government negotiate with organized Islamist factions involved in the conflict in Southern Mindanao? And how does it deal with personal rivalries among Islamists involved in the conflict there?
 

These are challenging and daunting questions to consider and yet, for me, these are the very questions that frame whether much-awaited peace in Southern Mindanao will be realized or not. The jury is still out on  whether our national government is on or off-track in addressing these questions.

 

However, based on what is happening right now, I have my doubts. It seems that the answer to these questions rests on our government’s preoccupation of pursuing shifting political strategies rather than pursuing fundamental political principles of the peace process. That is, laying the foundation of honoring previous agreements and respecting the various stakeholders as equal partners in resolving the conflict.

 

Did we do that? I am not sure. Of course, defenders of the government’s approach will spin that they did just that.

 

Yet our reality tells us that there will soon be two peace agreements:  the 1996 peace agreement between President Fidel Ramos and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by its founder Prof. Nur Misuari, and the not so concluded peace agreement between President Benigno "PNoy" Aquino III with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) a breakaway faction of the MNLF led by Al Haj Murad Ebrahim.  Pnoy, through his various addresses, is bent on having the latter passed into law before 2014.

 

While PNoy’s efforts are laudable, any sensible person will realize that having these two agreements is a looming threat to the peace process. I’d even say that the national government miscalculated the entire affair with the Islamists.  

 

For example: by underestimating the influence of the MNLF as a spent force of sourgraping “has-beens” and overestimating the influence of the MILF as the “new kid on the block”, the government displayed its acumen for “realpolitik” rather than an adherence to certain fundamental political principles of let’s say, inclusion, fairness, and respect.

 

And so, with such miscalculation, it renders the idea of peace in Southern Mindanao as disingenuous, if not, oxymoronic. How can peace be brought about together or even the possibility of it realized in the context of two rival definitions, or competing claims?

 

Moreover, we have other Islamist factions that we have to deal with. There’s the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) an MILF breakaway faction led by Umbra Kato. Then, there’s The Islamic Command Council (ICC), an MNLF breakaway led by Habib Mujahab "Boghdadi" Hashim, and another MNLF faction led by former Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema.

 

Given the messy condition we found ourselves thrown into, can we blame the likes of Prof. Nur Misuari and his MNLF group's feelings of being betrayed because the government has been “namamangka sa dalawag ilog”?

 

I raise this question not because I am partial to Prof. Nur Misuari and his faction.  I raise it because our government seems to have a penchant for shunning continuity and serious long-term solutions.

 

Case in point:  during the term of President Joseph “Erap” Estrada, he took a hardline position and deployed the military to crush the MILF. Not to be outdone, the former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo attempted to sign a Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) with the MILF. Fortunately, the Supreme Court stepped in and struck the MOA-AD down as unconstitutional. And now, PNoy is finalizing the agreement on the Bangsamoro with the MILF that is intended to replace the 23-year-old Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) pact negotiated with the MNLF, as well as recognizing the aforementioned with the MILF as the new, autonomous, political entity.

 

Personally, I don’t have a problem with leaders pursuing their own agenda and priorities, or tinkering with what is perceived as ”popular” at the moment. I realize that leaders have a need to project their own versions of power through their disparate “pet projects.” 

 

My problem is, when those “pet projects” undermine rather than support existing organizational and institutional arrangements that weaken them as well as their long-term prospect for success. I wish our leaders will realize that they come and go, while organized and institutional arrangements linger for quite some time and, without fail, outlive them.

 

The crisis in Southern Mindanao is genuine, and massive, and we should applaud every effort to address the daunting problem that we inherited. To solve it without resort to the kinds of shifting realpolitik solutions adopted in the past, which have only rendered the conflict in Southern Mindanao even more painful. – KDM, GMA News 

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Efren N. Padilla is a professor and director of Urban Studies Program at California State University, East Bay and an urban and regional planning consultant. You may send feedback to efren.padilla@csueastbay.edu