(Paper delivered at the forum "Kalinaw! The Quest for Lasting Peace in the Philippines" at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands, September 29, 2000.)
Four years ago, the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), with the mediation of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), signed what was billed as "the final peace agreement", an agreement ending nearly three decades of armed conflict between the two sides. The agreement provided for the establishment, after a transitional period, of a regional autonomous government in the Muslim areas of Mindanao. The government and the MNLF had hoped that in the course of the implementation of this peace accord, they would be able to attract and win over the great majority of the Muslims in Southern Philippines – or the "Moro" people – including the leaders, members and supporters of Moro rebel groups still fighting for secession, and that the accord would eventually pave the way for the attainment of a just and enduring peace in Southern Philippines.
Today, instead of the much longed-for peace, what the people of Mindanao, particularly Central and Southwestern Mindanao, are confronted with and see with great foreboding ahead of them is its very opposite: war – a spreading and intensifying armed conflict. After countless violations by both government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) forces of a July 1997 ceasefire agreement, President Joseph Estrada declared an "all-out war" against the MILF in March this year. Two months ago, following the capture by government troops of the rebels' main base, Camp Abubakar, MILF chairman Salamat Hashim called on the Moro people in a radio broadcast to rise in jihad against "the enemy of Islam." GRP-MILF peace talks, which officially begun in January 1997 but started tackling the substantive issues of the conflict only in October 1999, have collapsed.
Since the fall of Camp Abubakar, violence in Central and Southern Mindanao appears to have increased. There have been direct clashes between government and MILF units but the deadliest incidents have been bombings and shootings directed at innocent civilians – both Christian and Muslim – perpetrated by unidentified armed groups. According to Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, and Bishop Romulo Valles of North Cotabato, fighting between government troops and secessionist rebels is spreading to previously unaffected areas despite the Estrada administration's assurances of a "war of rapid conclusion." Major urban centers have swelled with refugees.
Meanwhile, in Western Mindanao, in the island of Jolo, the government has launched a massive military offensive against the more extreme Moro separatist group, the Abu Sayyaf, which has been responsible for a series of kidnappings and hostage-taking of civilians, including foreigners, in Jolo, Basilan and two neighboring Malaysian islands. The kidnappings, which the Abu Sayyaf has virtually turned into a multimillion-dollar "cottage industry", have drawn worldwide attention and concern. The government has cordoned off Jolo and virtually placed it under martial law. In the military operations against the Abu Sayyaf, many civilians have reportedly been caught in the crossfire and thousands of families have been forced to flee their homes.
Since the outbreak of the armed conflict in Mindanao thirty years ago, the people of Mindanao and the entire Filipino nation have yearned for a just and lasting peace in Southern Philippines and in the country as a whole. Faced with the prospect of a deepening war, the Filipino people are now compelled to take a good, hard look at the situation they now find themselves in and to study very well the options before them in the pursuit of that elusive peace. Does the solution to the long-standing "Moro problem" lie in secession, regional autonomy or a federal system? To resolve the problem, is war the only viable recourse left, or is a negotiated political settlement still feasible? Difficult choices, but they have to be made.
The historical roots of the ethnic conflict in Mindanao can be traced back to the Spanish and American colonial periods, when the indigenous Muslim communities resisted subjugation, encroachment into their lands and the destruction of their communities. In a long series of wars waged against the Mindanao Muslims known as the "Moro Wars", the Spaniards compelled the indios – natives who had been converted to Christianity – to fight with them against the Muslims, called moros, who counter-attacked equally ferociously. Under the Americans, especially during the Commonwealth period, thousands of Christian Filipinos from Luzon and Visayas were encouraged to settle in Mindanao, "the land of promise", even in traditional Muslim areas. When the Philippines gained independence in 1946, most Muslims could not identify themselves with the new republic, whose laws were clearly derived from Western or Catholic moral values and whose public school system was too Americanized and alien to Islamic tradition. And they resented the continued influx of Christian settlers to Mindanao and the displacement of Muslims from their ancestral lands.
The resentment deepened as decades of Christian transmigration transformed the demographic picture of Mindanao completely. The Muslims were reduced from about 75 per cent of Mindanao's population at the turn of the century to about 25 per cent in the late 1960s and to less than 18 per cent in 1990. In 1918, there were 110,926 Muslims and only 61,052 non-Muslims (mostly Christians) in Cotabato province, a ratio of nearly two Muslims to one Christian. By 1970, the ratio was completely reversed: 711,430 non-Muslims and 424,577 Muslims. Since then, Cotabato has been split into five provinces. Christians constitute the majority in four, and Muslims, only in one – Maguindanao.
Over the past half-century, the Muslims in Mindanao have also felt greatly disaffected by the inability of the government to adequately meet the basic needs of the Muslim community or to at least bring them to the same level of socio-economic development as the Christian majority. Muslim areas are among the Philippines' most backward. Two predominantly Muslim provinces, Sulu and Maguindanao, are the two poorest provinces in the entire country, and the three other predominantly Muslim provinces – Basilan, Lanao del Sur and Tawi-Tawi – are also listed among the twelve poorest. Furthermore, the Muslims in Mindanao have chafed under "the perennial discrimination against [them] in many levels of the national life as well as the misrepresentation or distortion of their true image as a historic people."
In the late 1960s, in a prelude to the current armed conflict, Mindanao Muslims became particularly restive following the expose of the "Jabidah Incident" of 17 March 1968, in which at least 28 Muslim trainees of the Philippine Army, reportedly recruited to infiltrate the Malaysian state of Sabah, were slaughtered by their superiors on Corregidor island. In the wake of the Jabidah massacre, Datu Udtog Matalam, a powerful Muslim political leader, established the Mindanao Independence Movement. Young MIM militants were sent to Malaysia for military training. Tensions in Mindanao grew; disputes over land heated up. Christian politicians identified with landed and logging interests formed paramilitary units and bands of goons; traditional Muslim politicians did the same.
Then the guns barked. The "Christian" paramilitary groups, known in general as the "Ilagas", and their "Muslim" counterparts – the "Blackshirts" and "Barracudas" – attacked and terrorized Muslim and Christian communities, respectively, killing mostly innocent civilians. As the violence escalated, many Muslims increasingly felt that the government and its armed forces were actually colluding with the "Christian" warlord-politicians. One particular incident that so enraged the Muslims was the massacre of 19 June 1971, when Ilagas attacked Manili, a barrio in Carmen, North Cotabato, that had been put under Philippine Constabulary control, shooting down or hacking to death at least 70 Muslims, mostly old men, women and children, the majority of them inside a mosque.
In September 1972, President Marcos imposed martial law, citing "Muslim secessionists" as one of the two biggest threats to national security. All hell broke loose in the Muslim areas. The MNLF, set up in 1969 by young Muslim militants led by former University of the Philippines lecturer Nur Misuari, took to the fore of the Muslims' armed struggle for self-determination. It appropriated for the Muslim people the very epithet by which they had been branded in the past, a name that had evoked contempt but also fear among their enemies: Moro. In 1974, the MNLF issued a manifesto condemning the "genocidal campaign" of "Filipino colonialism" against the "Bangsamoro people" and declaring their disbondment from the Philippine government and the establishment of the "Bangsamoro Republik". The area of secession covered the islands and island groups of Mindanao, Basilan, Sulu (including Tawi-Tawi) and Palawan.
Upon the mediation of the OIC, the Philippine government and the MNLF signed the Tripoli Agreement in December 1976, in which the two sides agreed to end their armed conflict and to establish autonomy for Muslims in Southern Philippines comprising thirteen provinces (including all cities therein). Not long after, unable to see eye to eye with the Marcos government on how to interpret and implement the agreement, the MNLF reverted to a secessionist stance. Misuari signed another peace agreement with Marcos' successor, Corazon Aquino – the Jeddah Accord of 1987 – but talks to work out the details floundered once again. The 1996 agreement forged by Misuari with the Ramos government was the third GRP-MNLF peace agreement. All three peace pacts promised genuine regional autonomy for the Muslims in Mindanao, but few Muslims appear to be satisfied with the actual results on the ground.
Other Moro rebel groups have carried on the fight for secession, but with a difference – they want to set up an independent Islamic state, not a secular one, which is what they claim the MNLF originally envisaged. The MILF, which developed from a group that broke away from the MNLF in 1977, waged armed struggle initially for the implementation of the Tripoli Agreement (i.e., regional autonomy). About six years ago, however, the MILF shifted to a secessionist stance, calling for a separate Islamic state for predominantly Muslim areas in Mindanao. Ever since its inception in 1991, the Abu Sayyaf, has advocated for the establishment of an independent Islamic state encompassing the original area of secession declared by the MNLF.
The historical as well as contemporary grievances of the Muslims in Mindanao (or Moros) have led them to raise many and various demands. These include:
Of all these demands, that of self-governance – secession, regional autonomy or federalism – has proven to be the most contentious. In relation to the other demands, it is also the most crucial. If the secession of the Muslims or Moros becomes a reality, the issues of greater political access, greater economic rights, and social and cultural rights would become moot and academic.
In addressing the demand for self-governance of the Muslims in Mindanao, which territorial method offers the best prospects for attaining a just, comprehensive and stable peace in Mindanao - secession, regional autonomy or federalism?
The principle of national self-determination is a principle recognized in international law, a principle enshrined in the United Nations Charter no less. All over the world, ethnic communities that have been victims of internal oppression and have a highly developed sense of their own distinctiveness have claimed for themselves the right of self-determination. In the name of the oppressed "Bangsamoro people", the Moro rebel groups – MNLF, MILF and the Abu Sayyaf – have invoked such a right and, at one time or another, called for secession.
The problem with secession, however, is that neither international law nor international practice allows for an unqualified right for any ethnic or national group to secede from an existing state. As a matter of fact, the principle of territorial sovereignty and the principle of self-determination are contradictory principles in international law. Furthermore, the demand for secession has often been highly threatening to the dominant group because it challenges the majority's own nationalist ideology. Thus, moves toward secession have led to many grinding and devastating wars, including some of the most deadly wars of the past century. A major study of ethnonationalist movements which fought wars of secession in the post-World War II period up to 1990 has shown how protracted and costly such wars can be, some of them lasting for over twenty years. Of the 30 movements studied, not a single one achieved independence; 14 attained some form of regional autonomy, but only after incurring substantial losses.
The toll in human suffering in the protracted, 30-year armed conflict in Mindanao has been tremendous. Around 120,000 people have thus far been killed, more than one million have been rendered homeless and over 200,000 Muslim refugees have fled to Sabah. It has also led to enormous destruction of property and infrastructural damage as well as immeasurable lost opportunities for trade, investment and economic development in general.
Still another problem with secession is that ethnic communities are often so geographically mixed that it is impossible to demarcate clean boundary lines, and pockets of each ethnic community are left on the wrong side of the border. Those living in such pockets often face serious risks, especially in the aftermath of particularly bloody and bitter conflicts. In large-scale exchanges of populations, those on the move are highly vulnerable to massacre. If predominantly Muslim areas in Mindanao were to secede, what would happen to Muslims in predominantly Christian South Cotabato and to Christians in predominantly Muslim Cotabato City?
Both parties in the Mindanao conflict have to carefully weigh the pros and cons of continuing the war. The Philippine government has to consider whether allowing the discontented Muslims in Mindanao to secede is preferable to a seemingly endless and costly war. On the other hand, the Moro rebel groups have to weigh the uncertain prospects of victory against the terrible toll on their own people, if not on the Christians and lumad (non-Muslim indigenous people) as well.
Billed as the "final agreement on the implementation of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement", the GRP-MNLF agreement of 1996 provided for the establishment of a regional autonomous government. Before the new autonomous region would be set up, there would be a transitional period of a few years and then a plebiscite in which the people in the provinces and cities supposed to be covered by autonomy under the Tripoli Agreement would vote whether they would want to be part of the new region. During the transitional phase, the MNLF would be given the chance to run transitional as well as regular structures of autonomy, prove itself in governance and thus improve the chances of convincing the people in most if not all of the provinces and cities concerned to vote in favor of autonomy.
Early this year, even before the escalation of the war between the government and the Moro rebels, Canadian scholar Jacques Bertrand already described the 1996 peace agreement as "fragile". He cited several reasons why it might be failing:
"First, the transitional structures of autonomy have failed to provide a good test for future autonomous institutions because of mismanagement and corruption. Nur Misuari and the MNLF leadership failed to show that their control of autonomous institutions could benefit all Muslims and non-Muslims in a new autonomous region. Second, and partly as a result of the first reason, these structures received little support from groups other than the MNLF because of the mainly Tausug base of the MNLF and the failure to involve non-Muslims of Mindanao in the peace negotiations. As a result, the current autonomy proposal is not perceived to be an adequate solution for all groups, including non-Tausug Muslims supporting the rival Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Third, the agreement did not address the issue of land rights, which is crucial to any long-term peace in Mindanao. Fourth, the peace accord has not produced many of its expected benefits. Most significantly, it has not yet led to an improvement in the living standards of Muslims. While MNLF leaders can be blamed in part, a lack of strong commitment and resources from the Philippine government is also responsible."
It cannot be denied that the 1996 agreement has succeeded in putting an end to the armed hostilities between the government and the MNLF. In its greater objectives, however, the accord is not merely "failing". It is already a failure. The accord was supposed to attract and win over the Moro rebels still fighting for secession and their supporters, to politically isolate the "extremist" elements and lead the way to a comprehensive and stable peace. Now the rebels are back in the battlefield and the "extremists" are having a field day kidnapping as well as recruiting. President Estrada, Congress and Misuari may still go through the motions of establishing the new Muslim Autonomous Region in Mindanao (MARM) to replace the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), but for most Muslims this no longer has any charm. It may still be possible to work out a viable regional autonomy for the Muslims or Moros in Mindanao, but this probably can no longer be simply within the framework of the 1996 agreement, which, among other flaws, excluded or lacked the substantial participation and involvement of other Moro rebel groups and other Muslim ethnic groups, as well as of non-Muslims (Christians and lumad).
In the last few years, federalism as a territorial method of addressing, among other things, the Muslims' demand for self-governance has gained increasing support. Among those advocating for a federal system for the Philippines are some multisectoral coalitions like Kusog Mindanaw and Lihuk Pederal-Mindanaw, a number of senators and congressmen, and some scholars, both Christian and Muslim. The push for federalism initially came about not really as a response to the Mindanao conflict but as a reaction to the overly Manila-centered workings of government in general. Many of federalism's early advocates were those coming from the provinces who felt that their efforts to bring about development in their respective areas were being impeded by Manila-based bureaucrats who were biased in favor of "imperial Manila". With the worsening of the armed conflict in Mindanao, Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr., has argued that "the adoption of the federal form of government would enable the Bangsamoro [people] a fuller opportunity to promote their own identity and culture and their own economic development at their own pace without the need of seceding or declaring their independence from the republic."
The idea of a federal system for the Philippines is not something new. It dates back to 1899 when Apolinario Mabini and Emilio Aguinaldo proposed a federal state composed of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, the three stars in the present-day Philippine flag. The contemporary version that appears to have gained the most credence envisages the re-constitution of the Philippines not just into three states, but into as many as ten – four in Luzon, three in the Visayas and three in Mindanao, one of which would be a Bangsamoro state. Nine of the ten states would be predominantly Catholic and one, predominantly Muslim. Such a division would be similar in a sense to the Canadian federal model, except that what primarily distinguishes the two main ethnic communities in Canada is language and not religion. Canada has twelve relatively equal-sized provinces and territories, eleven of which are predominantly English-speaking, and one, predominantly French-speaking (Quebec).
Samuel K. Tan, a professor of history at UP, who is a Tausug, believes that for the Muslim community to achieve genuine self-rule still within Philippine sovereignty, "[i]t must be something where the Christian majority has no more say or influence in Muslim affairs except ceremonial and nominal requirements of symbolic sovereignty." The federal system should be seriously considered, he says, as this "liberates the Philippine government and the Christian majority from the psychological and real burden of a people who no longer want to be called Filipinos but Bangsamoro with a government, territory and Islamic institutions of their own."
The advocates of federalism have been campaigning very hard lately, but it appears that they will have to drum up much more support in Luzon and Visayas, and also to get the Moro rebel forces to consider federalism more seriously. Since Marcos' time, so much has been talked and written about regional autonomy, various models and schemes, none of which have worked, that many Muslims are getting tired of hearing about it. Perhaps, they may be somewhat more open to federalism. A major obstacle to the adoption of federalism, however, is that it would require the revision of the Philippine constitution. In the past five years, both Presidents Ramos and Estrada tried to have the constitution amended purportedly for political and economic reforms, but after encountering stiff opposition, they were forced to abandon their attempts. Many Filipinos are too wary of vested interests using or manipulating charter change to perpetuate themselves in power.
Some advocates of regional autonomy and federalism believe it may be possible to convince a movement like the MILF, which is more Islamic than nationalist, to drop its demand for an independent state if it can be assured that a truly Islamic system can be established in the areas where Moros predominate. At the start of GRP-MILF negotiations, the MILF had expressed the hope that the negotiations would find a solution to the "Bangsamoro problem" with the end in view of "establishing a system of life and governance suitable and acceptable to the Bangsamoro people."
According to lawyer-scholar Soliman Santos, an Islamic system can be worked out in a Moro autonomous region or in a Moro state within a bigger federal Philippine state. Santos has put forward the concept of "one country, two systems", with the secular system and the Islamic system peacefully coexisting in one country. The concept is patterned the China-Hongkong model, except that the latter consists of a coexistence of a socialist system and a capitalist system. One drawback of introducing the concept of an Islamic system is that, like federalism, it will have to overcome the hurdle of constitutional revision. The Philippine constitution expressly provides for the separation of church (or religion) and state.
The Philippine government, asserting national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the Moro separatist rebels, invoking self-determination, are back to war. To be sure, there has never really been any let-up in armed hostilities between government troops and the Abu Sayyaf since the surfacing of the rebel group, which the government has branded as "criminals" and "bandits" and treated as a "police matter". What many Filipinos – Christian, Muslim and indigenous people – find most regrettable and most alarming is the resumption of the armed conflict with the much bigger rebel force, the MILF, which had been negotiating with the government and had agreed to a ceasefire for some time already.
For the contending parties in the Mindanao conflict, is war indeed the only viable recourse left for resolving their conflict?
Contrary to the government's rosy projections, the armed conflict in Mindanao is not going to be "a war of rapid conclusion". Far from getting any nearer to conflict resolution, what in fact is happening now is that the government, the Moro rebel forces and the Christian and Muslim communities in Mindanao are being sucked once again into what social scientists engaged in conflict and peace studies refer to as "the entrapping process of conflict escalation". Not so long ago – in the 1970s – Mindanao already experienced the trauma of this entrapping process. By the 1990s, it seemed to have gotten out of the trap. Unfortunately, the lessons appear not to have been fully learned.
Dr. Connie Peck, a United Nations expert on preventive diplomacy and peace making, explained this entrapping process:
Peck adds: "Perhaps even more frequently than inter-state conflicts, intra-state ethnic conflicts result in an outcome where there are no winners. Due to their proximity, all sides become victimized. Such conflicts may not have a clear termination, and since there is no resolution to satisfy basic needs, they contain the seeds of future conflict. The perpetuation of these kinds of conflicts in the developing world has taken a devastating toll physically, psychologically, politically and economically."
For those who still doubt that Mindanao is falling into the trap of conflict escalation, here is Archbishop Quevedo's assessment of the situation:
"[The reports that come out in the media], usually based on military reports, speak of wounded and killed MILF units, of MILF 'stragglers' and 'surrenderees,' of MILF attackers being driven off, of bombs allegedly set off by the MILF, etc. [These reports] do not tell the whole story of Mindanao. They do not tell of a cycle of action-retaliation by both groups, of civilian combatants on both sides getting involved in the war, of third parties possibly taking advantage of the situation, of the economic greed of some Christian groups as a fuel for violence against the lumad, of the fear and suspicions among many Moros that the war is being waged so that the land abandoned by evacuees could be used for plantation development, of the psychological warfare being waged by military spokespersons, of the fear and anxieties of Christian communities with [militiamen] and/or military detachments harassed almost every day by MILF fighters. There are so many other things that do not appear in the news."
The capacity of the Moro rebels to carry on indefinitely with the struggle for secession should not be underestimated. For one thing, the aspiration for political independence remains very much alive, notwithstanding the MNLF's acceptance of regional autonomy. In fact, according to Professor Tan, the desire for independence of the Muslim community in Mindanao has been growing more and more. He cites the following factors for the hardening of the independence imperative of the Muslim struggle: the inability of the state to adequately or substantially meet the basic and ideal needs of the Muslim community; the trend on the part of the Muslim community to seek ultimate satisfaction of their aspirations from within their own societies and the Muslim world; the exploitation of the Mindanao conflict by external vested interests; and the failure of civil society, particularly the dominant Christian sector, to remove the lingering anti-Muslim bias in historical consciousness. Professor Tan believes that in the ongoing military campaigns, the government may be able to defeat the Moro rebels out of sheer military superiority in land, air and sea, but it will not be able to destroy their will to resist, a will clearly manifested in the struggles against Spanish and American colonial rule. The government, adds Tan, may win the war but lose permanently the enduring peace it seeks.
Developments in ethnic conflicts in other parts of the globe may also encourage the Moro separatists to fight on. It is true that for over 40 years after World War II, few new states were created through ethnic secession. In fact, out of the many protracted wars for secession fought by various ethnic communities between 1948 and 1991, only one new ethnic state, Bangladesh, emerged. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Ethiopia, however, "secession has become a growth-industry, the in-vogue method of ethnic conflict resolution." In the light of the recent rash of new ethnic states, Moro rebels may come to believe that history is on their side. The MILF, in fact, has been particularly inspired by the struggle for independence of East Timor and has been calling for the holding of UN-sponsored plebiscite similar to the one held in that soon-to-be-proclaimed state.
With all the violent actions and retaliations now going on in at least two regions of Mindanao, the government, the Moro rebel forces and the Christian and Muslim communities are inexorably being brought to higher and higher levels of hostility in the upward dynamic of conflict escalation. Neither the government nor the Moro rebels are giving in, each side convinced that it is going to win, oblivious of the prospect of both sides winning (win-win) and of the even greater prospect of both sides losing (lose-lose). "All-out war" versus jihad – this war is going to lead to conflict escalation, not conflict resolution.
To prevent conflict escalation and to really resolve the conflict, there is no alternative but to go back to the negotiating table. The conflict can only be truly resolved if the contending parties discuss the issues and roots of their conflict, find out each other's deepmost interests, explore the various options and come up with a mutually beneficial solution.
Peace talks again? Skeptics would point out, of course, that the government has conducted negotiations for political settlement with the MNLF and the MILF over the past twenty-five years, yet peace remains elusive.
For new negotiations to have better chances of success, the conduct of past negotiations as well as the content and actual implementation of past agreements will have to be examined. The flaws and weaknesses of past negotiations and agreements will have to be seriously addressed.
Too often in the past, the government and the Moro rebel forces have treated peace negotiations as but a continuation of the power struggle by other means, in which each side engaged in tactics and ploys, maneuvers and countermaneuvers, as in a chess game, to compel the other side to give in to the other's demands or make concessions. The Tripoli Agreement collapsed after Marcos maneuvered to have a plebiscite held in the already-agreed-upon areas of autonomy. The GRP-MILF power play on the thorny issue of the "acknowledgement" of the "MILF camps" appears to have been the precipitating factor in the resumption of armed hostilities between the two sides.
In future talks, it might prove helpful for the protagonists in the Mindanao conflict to shift from a power-based method of conflict resolution to an interest-based approach, an alternative conflict resolution approach that has only risen to prominence in recent years. In an interest-based approach, the contending parties try to explore each other's interests – their needs, wants, fears and concerns -- and to develop a more accurate understanding of each other's motivations. They then devise solutions which could meet each other's interests. Solutions resulting from this process are said to be "integrative" as they integrate or bridge the contending parties' interests. (See Figure B.)
In Bertrand's view, as mentioned earlier, one of the flaws in the negotiation process leading up to the 1996 GRP-MNLF peace agreement was the failure to involve non-Muslims in the peace talks. Before the signing of the accord, observed Bertrand, Christians and lumad voiced strong opposition as they feared inclusion in a region ruled by Muslims. Direct participation of non-Muslim groups in the actual talks would perhaps not have been wise, as this would have made the talks more complicated and unwieldy. Nonetheless, to ensure greater participation and support from Christians and lumad in the peace process in the years ahead, the so-called "tri-people approach" being advocated by a broad range of Mindanao non-governmental organizations and popular organizations should be seriously considered. The tri-people approach, which seeks to promote among the three peoples of Mindanao (Christians, Muslims and lumad) greater awareness of each other and deeper unity in diversity, would be effective in peacebuilding outside the framework of formal negotiations.
Perhaps a more real flaw in the negotiation process leading to the 1996 agreement was the exclusion of the MILF. Instead of holding talks with a joint MNLF-MILF side or negotiating with the MNLF and the MILF separately but simultaneously, the Ramos administration had chosen to negotiate and forge an agreement with the MNLF first and with the MILF later. After the 1996 accord was signed, the government hoped to entice the MILF with reforms and incentives "added on" to the agreement. But the agreement was purely between the government and the MNLF; there was no place in it for the MILF and for its largely non-Tausug base. Had the government and the MILF panels gone deeper into the substantive issues of the "Moro problem", they would have run into a brick wall: the 1996 agreement. It would have been futile to talk about a separate Moro state, a Moro state within a bigger federal state or an autonomous Moro region in which the MILF would play a role since the territory to be covered would have largely overlapped with or would have practically been the same as that covered by the 1996 agreement. Even if the MILF had opened up to the idea of regional autonomy, it would have rejected the "add-on" formula as something tantamount to being offered crumbs.
By persisting in committing abominable acts contrary to the principles of the international humanitarian law of armed conflict, the Abu Sayyaf has excluded itself from the peace process. It will be politically isolated and marginalized in the event of a comprehensive political settlement resulting from serious peace negotiations.
The participation of the OIC in future peace negotiations of the government with the MNLF, MILF and any other Moro rebel group is unavoidable. Having brokered the 1976 and 1996 GRP-MNLF peace agreements, the OIC is legally and morally bound to uphold them and any change would require its acquiescence. If the government and the MILF were to forge an agreement (e.g., self-rule in Moro areas) without MNLF and OIC participation, the government would be violating these two internationally-recognized agreements. Despite the apparent failures of the two agreements, the OIC can still play a positive third-party role in the peaceful resolution of the long-standing "Moro problem". For one, it remains highly respected by all the contending parties. But it would have some untangling to do. It would have to deal with the different Moro rebel groups more evenhandedly and stop holding on to the myth of the MNLF being "the sole legitimate representative of the Bangsamoro people".
All-out war and jihad will not lead to peace, but only to more war. The attainment of a just, comprehensive and stable peace in Mindanao does not lie in the continuation of the present war but in a more integrative and participative negotiation process, one that employs an interest-based approach rather than the usual power play and one that involves not just the government and one rebel group, but also the other rebel groups and all ethnic communities and groups concerned.
