OBSTACLES TO PEACE PACT BETWEEN PHILIPPINE STATE AND MUSLIM REBELS

Erle Frayne Argonza

Allahu Akbar!

Here is a news report about the obstacles to peace pact’s signing between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The analysis came from a US-based group called the US Institute of Peace.

The involvement of US-based groups in GRP talks with insurgents does attract curiosity of sorts. While I have nothing against internationalizing Philippine insurgencies so as to involve 3^rd parties in the talks, involving US-based groups is another thing altogether as it fuels our thesis of Americans’ involvement in the launching of rebel groups here at the behest of the Anglo-American oligarchy.

At any rate, do read for yourself the news below. The same group wasn’t actually allowed to co-facilitate the signing of the peace pact in Malaysia.

Peace be with you!

[05 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to yahoo.com database news.]

US Institute of Peace says it had warned government about obstacles to peace pact

 

A group calling itself the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) had been tasked by the US State Department to undertake a project to help expedite a peace agreement between the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) from 2003 to 2007 and which supports the establishment of an ancestral domain for the Bangsamoro people.

However, after undertaking its Philippine Facilitation Project (PFP), the USIP has warned of the obstacles to the inking of a peace agreement between the two parties – the need for constitutional amendments, a case at the Supreme Court, Congress’ disapproval of the agreement and the political weakness and unpopularity of President Arroyo.

USIP is an independent, nonpartisan institution established and funded by the US Congress.

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent international conflicts, promote post-conflict stability and development, and increase conflict management capacity, tools, and intellectual capital worldwide.

The US’s special interest in the GRP-MILF peace agreement is meant to prevent international terrorist groups from exploiting the conflict in the Philippines after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the US.

The late MILF chairman Salamat Hashim also personally wrote US President George Bush in 2003 to help resolve the conflict between the government and the Moro people.

The US support for the peace talks with the MILF came during the same period that the MILF, through Salamat, declared that they had renounced terrorism to attain its political ends.

At that time, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said that while the “United States absolutely supports the territorial integrity of the Philippines,…we also recognize that the people of Mindanao have legitimate aspirations and some grievances.”

The US government was unwilling to commit financial and economic assistance to MILF areas until an agreement had been signed. The State Department asked USIP to inform it of significant developments, advise on appropriate government responses and if negotiations were not leading to a satisfactory settlement, recommend an end to US engagement.

In a special report published in February of this year and written by G. Eugene Martin and Astrid Tuminez, a copy of which was obtained by The STAR, USIP said Mrs. Arroyo expended only minimal political capital to move the peace process forward and that the three branches of government “also lack consensus on the outlines of a deal that may be offered to the Moros.”

Martin was the executive director of the PFP while Ramirez served as the project’s senior research associate. Their special report highlighted the USIP activities in the Philippines from 2003 to 2007. The USIP clarified, however, that the views expressed in the report “do not necessarily reflect the views of USIP, which does not advocate specific policy positions.”

USIP tried but failed to be part of the peace negotiations between GRP and MILF as Malaysia, the host of the talks, had not agreed, but the group had produced and disseminated to educators, journalists and politicians a short video on ancestral domain, tracing the history of Moro grievances and articulating how and why an agreement on ancestral domain could effectively address the roots of conflict.

The video was shown during discussions of Moro ancestral domain in Manila universities, at forums in Mindanao and in a briefing with three Philippine senators.

“Efforts to help the parties think creatively of ways to overcome long-standing obstacles on ancestral domain and to initiate dialogue among disparate Moro ethnic groups made USIP a valuable contributor to the peace talks,” the report said.

There are many hindrances, however, and the USIP said resolving conflict in Mindanao is likely to be an extended undertaking even with the best of intentions from all parties.

“As with past agreements, a serious risk exists that the national legislature could scuttle any agreement signed by the government in the implementation phase. The Supreme Court might also declare unconstitutional any deal on ancestral domain that grants Moro significant political authority and control over natural resources,” the report said.

The report also noted that the ability and intent of Mrs. Arroyo, whose term would expire in 2010, to press the peace process to settlement were also uncertain.

If Mrs. Arroyo makes serious compromises with the MILF or forces significant change in the political and economic dominance of Christian migrants over land, resources and political power in Mindanao, the USIP report said “she could rouse a wave of opposition that might endanger her presidency.”

“Nonetheless, if such an agreement were signed and fully implemented, it would unequivocally augment the president’s historical legacy after nearly 10 years at the helm of Philippine politics,” it said.

The USIP report also said the multiple changes in the composition of the GRP negotiating panel had been a challenge and although GRP negotiators were “well-informed, creative and well-intentioned, they are in many ways unable to influence those at the center of political power and public opinion.”

USIP’s PFP ceased in June of 2007 but the group said the peace process in Mindanao was far from concluded.

The USIP implemented its role as facilitator of the peace process through USIP president Richard Solomon, a former ambassador to the Philippines, who assembled a group of other former ambassadors to the Philippines, the chairman of the USIP Board and a retired general.

The term facilitation signified that the US was not assuming a direct, hands-on mediating role in the negotiations. – Aurea Calica/Philstar

UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES: HAPPY CENTENNIAL!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Happy Centennial Anniversary to my Beloved Alma Mater, the University of the Philippines!

Being a development expert, I wish to highlight in this briefer the developmental side to the premier university of my beloved country. The University or the Philippines or U.P. is foremost of all an indication of the maturity of Filipino education and educators, in that after 100 years of existence, we as a people were able to show to the world the viability of a grand university run by ourselves (Filipinos).

Tertiary education was imported directly from the West, being transplanted here from Europe during the Spanish colonial era (1500s-1800s). Albeit the idea of tertiary institutes run by Filipinos themselves is a fairly recent development. To be exact, it was only after World War II, coherent with our own independence from the USA, that the striving for Filipino-run tertiary educational institutions became one of the greatest challenges in Philippine education.

The University of the Philippines was constituted by the Americans after the conclusion of the Philippine-American War.  When that war ended in 1900, there was a period of intense reorganization of the entire society and state, as well as the reconstruction of the economy that was damaged by two (2) consecutive wars (the Philippine revolution against Spain was the first). In 1908 the University of the Philippines was born.

The idea of a premier state university was not, however, an imposition by the USA on the Philippines. During the brief period of Aguinaldo government (1898-2000), the new Philippine state already prioritized the constitution of such a university in consonance with its desire to establish a modern educational program. The pedagogy of that university, had it succeeded, could have been close to those of Spain’s tops, notably the University of Barcelona and University of Madrid.   

But the grand vision of the new republic wasn’t fulfilled as the Americans grabbed that opportunity for self-governance by the new state. However, the Americans themselves realized the soundness of the concept, and so they took on the cudgels for constituting a premier state university. The flagship campus was then the Padre Faura campus in Manila, while the branch outside Manila was the UP College Los Banos. The Philippine General Hospital served as the service arm of the new university. Anglo-Saxon pedagogy and philosophy served as the core foundation, following those of the Ivy League universities.

Americans served as the first professors and administrators of the noble institution. Then, gradually their Filipino apprentices joined the faculty, until the time was ripe for Filipinos to serve as top management officials. Note that it took two (2) decades for such a process to take. When the grand statesman Manuel Luis Quezon became President of the commonwealth, Filipinos were already showing their prowess in administering the university, designing and managing academic programs, launching pioneering research programs, and running classrooms as professors.

The commonwealth government was a testing period for self-governance which incidentally found solid support inside the United States congress and executive. By the early 19040s the self-governance prowess of Filipinos in the state university was already established. So when the USA departed from the Philippines in 1946, Filipinos already had the upper hand in running this institution and there was no great need to import experts (professors and consultants) to run the university.

It was a rough ride all along for the state university. No matter how rough it may have seem, when asked for an opinion, I would prefer to stress the victory of Filipinos first of all in showing the capability to run the university ourselves.

Since that time on, the state university had become the bastion of nationalism and critical thinking in the country. During the dark years of Martial Law, the U.P. became the most powerful lamp that lighted the surrounds for the whole nation, and people outside were dying to read the Philippine Collegian and dying to hear U.P. professors and youth leaders speak about the true state of the nation. This libertarian and Enlightenment facets of the U.P. are very much intact till these days.

Furthermore, the Filipinos were already able to veer away from their Anglo-Saxon heritage in U.P. Gradual Filipinization across the decades led to a rediscovery of the Pacific and Asian roots of Philippine culture, and the result was a blending of Western (Anglo-Saxon, Continental) and Eastern (Malayan, Asiatic) philosophy cum pedagogy. The U.P has led efforts at re-engineering the Filipino language from a conversational to an intellectualizing language sufficient for articulating higher level concepts, a re-engineering that continues till these days.  

Finally, the U.P. also evolved into the top producer of knowledge and art works for the archipelago. It is the nation’s top think-tank, the bastion of national collective reflection, where we can find the highest concentration of brilliant minds among professors, research scientists, artists and students. All other institutions in the country seek counsel from the U.P. about their core state of affairs, a proof of the maturity and esteem that the U.P had gained across the decades.

Long and arduous will be the route that the state university will traverse yet, but having proved its resiliency and capacity across one century, I am confident that this University will grow and prosper over the next one hundred (100) years of its sojourn. Let us all wish the best of luck for this very noble institution, which may turn out to be the last bastion of freedom for Asia at a time of growing global fascism.

Glory, genius, grandeur!

[20 June 2008, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, MetroManila]