The cause for the cessation of war in Mindanao

In the past few days, close friends and colleagues in my facebook.com contacts are circulating a Cause application in which one is invited to join the cause of “Stop the War in Mindanao.” I joined in the cause and pledged to invite 100 people to the cause. Finally, I attained my pledge just tonight. It lightens my feeling, and also helps me to reflect again.

I am back in Mindanao but it saddens me because of the reality that war again erupted, and the peace initiatives and development are again tested. Looking back, the armed conflict started when the Supreme Court of the Philippines released a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to the supposed to be signing of the Memorandum of Agreement of Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) negotiating panels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last August 2008. The TOR was released due to the case filed by the anti-MOA-AD politicians from Mindanao and other groups. The aborted signing has created rage and flame that sparks the current conflict in several areas in Mindanao, as of today.

Civil society groups, non-government organizations, and communities have been calling for the resumption of the talks to be “inclusive”, ceasefire agreements and mechanism be upheld, the rights of the civilians must be respected by both conflicting parties, and most especially those who violated the rights of the civilians must face justice. Scenarios like these were repeated many times in the history of the conflict.

Thus, I joined the cause. I am one of those 400 members in the facebook, and thousand of people anywhere in the world who support the cause.

I joined the cause because I believe that the right to self-determination of the Bangsamoro/Indigenous people should be fully recognized and respected for genuine peace to be realized. The right to self-determination is a fundamental right in which the Declaration is finally adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 13 September 2007.

I joined the cause because I firmly believe that human rights of people should be respected at all times. Several months of armed conflict between the government military and the revolutionary group, cases of human rights violations and violations of the protocols of International Humanitarian Law has been reported. I believe that there is never a winner in war. All are losers. At the end of the day, it is everyone who suffers – women, men, children, elders – properties are destroyed, livelihoods vanished, social relationship and harmony are shattered.

The conflict in Mindanao is chronic for four (4) decades already. More than 500,000 people are already displaced in this complex humanitarian situation. Families have suffered at least 5x displacements in their whole lives. Many women and children are evacuees and displaced in their whole lives. By the time that their family starts to recover again, war most of the time disrupts them.

With the complexities of the situation and the issues emerging, the solution to the Mindanao problem is getting narrower. There are too many loopholes to be polished, and too many illnesses to diagnose and cured.