At the outset, I’d like to ask for your understanding for the passion that my short reflection may evoke.

Sometime in June 2007, the United States Institute of Peace Process (USIP), the U.S. agency currently suspected as having been responsible for influencing the GRP-MILF peace process requested me and a few others to answer this question: Is the Philippines ready for peace in Mindanao?

Without batting an eyelash, I responded in negative more so when I commented on a specific question - Is the Arroyo Administration ready to sign a final peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)? It’s negative, I remarked. This is not to mean, however, that I am against the peace process, I am simply critical of the way and timing the government is handling the peace talks with the MILF.

The reasons I cited are the following: constraints of time, government’s lack of interest, and sense of urgency on the peace talks (napipilitan lang), absence of GRP’s comprehensive peace framework, fear to make commitment, evasive attitude, shifting peace policy, legal and policy hurdles the government has to contend, lack of vision and determination, and the wrong use of an inverse method of negotiations (from top-bottom to bottom-top approach), and finally people’s reaction on territorial delineation if done without consultation. In this regard, I wrote in part in June last year: “Delineating the affected areas as either part or not part of the BJE is expected to elicit controversy and reaction from thousands of people living in those barangays.”

These reasons are indeed mouthful enough to convince me that nothing would happen in the GRP-MILF peace process in the administration of President Gloria Arroyo.

But came the news of the MoA-AD signing in Malaysia; the euphoria was everywhere. As the red carpet in Putrajaya was rolled open, I opened this file of my old paper and told myself: It’s good I was dead wrong! Thank God. Like everybody else I felt the contagion of euphoria. Even as the forging of the MoA-AD and its eventual initialing was hastily done to come just a few hours before the State of the Nation Address of President Gloria, I gave her the benefit of doubt. The dawning of peace must be primary above anything else; not even my pessimism can harangue me from supporting the MoA-AD. I reminded myself with the UP slogan: “Kung hindi ngayon, kelan pa?”

But, again, like many others, my euphoria degenerated into travails with the recent turn of events. What is difficult to accept is the folly the government has succumbed to on the passion of the day.

Why is there propensity to destroy a peace process in just few days that has been built for more than a decade?

The imperative of the MoA-AD should be to build the peace – not to destroy it. This way peace and progress can finally dawn on Mindanao and the coming generations are saved from the specters of conflict.

The Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) stands as the only agreement in the annals of peace process in the Philippines that elicits much euphoria to supposedly end the age-old secessionist challenge in southern Philippines. Yet, eight days before the scheduled signing at Putrajaya in Selangor, Malaysia, the promise of the MoA-AD degenerated subsequently triggering a new round of war that has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians, women and children while destroying countless properties in central Mindanao.

No doubt the incremental and cumulative approach of the peace process has elicited windfall concessions in favor of the MILF. Starting in 1997, the GRP-MILF peace process has undergone twists and turns making the peace process hanging in the balance at times. With the MoA-AD, the MILF has made the Philippine government through the contemplated BJE to commit in order to secure, preserve and use the ancestral domains of the Bangsamoro people. In turn, the Philippine government was in the verge of ending the last vestige of secessionist movements in the country.

By radical twist, the travail started when the Supreme Court granted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on the MoA-AD halting thus its scheduled signing. The highest court of the land responded to a group of opposition mostly local government officials in North Cotabato, Iligan and Zamboanga who questioned its constitutionality and for the lack of transparency and consultation in the making of the MoA-AD. They alleged that the MoA-AD arbitrarily included some of their areas without their consent and without consulting their people. As response, a group of frustrated MILF renegades led by Commanders Kato and Bravo attacked areas in North Cotabato, Lanal del Norte and Saranggani triggering massive military response from the AFP and putting on hold the peace talks with the MILF leadership.

The Supreme Court’s granting of TRO to halt the MoA’s signing was a case of premature intervention by the judiciary on the power of the chief executive to forge a peace deal with the MILF. The Supreme Court preempted too the fundamental function of Congress to craft laws. Thus, it practically lorded it over the political and legislative functions of both the Executive and Legislature, a sheer case of throwing a monkey wrench into the principle of separation of powers under Republican system of government.

This happens because the Executive has been remiss in engaging a comprehensive approach to the peace process, a fundamental defect that has been shown since day one of the peace talks. If the Executive has been in full control, transparent and pro-active in dealing with other branches of government including the concerned local government units, the Supreme Court would not have turned frantic with the MoA-AD, and thus, it would have not succumbed to pressure from few vested interests in Mindanao which have been opposed not only to the MoA-AD but to the peace process as a whole.

The Executive’s pitfalls are shown more fundamentally when, upon close scrutiny, Malacanang lacks a clear timetable of the peace process. It should have made the peace process a national policy and should have closed the peace deal with the MILF much earlier so that the remaining years in office of President Gloria Arroyo could be used to shepherd the implementation of the peace agreement with the MILF.

Short of that, the MOA-AD has now unleashed a national uproar especially from the Opposition with presidential ambitions. They ride on speculation that the MoA-AD is surreptitiously hatched by Malacanang to justify constitutional amendment in order to change the Philippine unitary set-up to federalism including a possible shift from presidential to parliamentary system of government allowing President Arroyo to extend her term beyond 2010.

Whatever the veracity of such claim, the MoA-AD and the whole peace process have been “held hostage” by politics and bickering within the national government transforming a promising legal document into a source of ferment while triggering anti-Moro sentiment nationwide.

The government has nothing to be ashamed of after being made to commit with the MoA-AD. To unleash the dog of war and hijack the peace process won’t help. It only aggravates the government’s folly. The armed offensives of Commanders Kato and Bravo should not be used as alibi to circumvent the MoA-AD, to shortchange the MILF outside of negotiation and to further derail the peace process. Their case can be addressed by the ceasefire committee to do the appropriate actions the moment the peace process is resumed immediately. I am pretty sure the MILF will help in making the two commanders answerable for whatever crimes they committed. In short or long term, the only option is for both the GRP and MILF to go back to negotiating table.

But with the recent and conflicting pronouncements of the government on the MoA-AD and the peace process, it is uncertain what the future of the peace talks will be as President Arroyo adopts a policy of disarmament and demobilization even as a new third party is being considered. This is a 180 degree turn from the 11 years of GRP-MILF peace process.

And now, with Malaysia not relinquishing its role as a third party in the GRP-MILF peace process and with the MILF just waiting for the GRP to regain its sanity to go back to negotiating table, why should the Philippines look for another third party? By looking for a third party when Malaysia, as requested, has pursued its role to facilitate the talks all along is symptomatic not only a crisis of sportsmanship but it reveals what may be called VDS (value deficiency syndrome) the GRP has succumbed to. It is akin to a losing player who after enough desperation cries foul and protests to start the game anew, change the present referee in favor of presumably sympathetic ones. Yet, even if there is a third party like Sweden or Britain, would it make a difference unless there is a change of attitude of the government in the peace process? I doubt it.

It must be remembered that President Arroyo in 2001 practically begged then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed to help her resolve the conflict in Mindanao. And Malaysia acceded; that’s why Kuala Lumpur has been the venue of many exploratory talks between the GRP and the MILF. A few years later, the International Monitoring Team led by Malaysia was formed too. Now that the GRP has self-inflicted itself over a bungled MoA-AD it has the propensity to blame others and replace a peace partner while mouthing childish alibis to save its face. How severe is the disease!

Today, our time requires rational leadership and statesmanship of the highest kind.

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Julkipli Wadi is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, UP.