The other side of peace
By Noralyn Mustafa
Inquirer

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FOR THE PAST SEVERAL NIGHTS, SINCE THE outbreak of a new round of skirmishes between elements of the Misuari MNLF faction and the Abu Sayyaf on one hand, and government forces on the other, we in Jolo have been kept awake by spy planes cruising above us. In the daytime, helicopters bomb and strafe specified targets, and howitzers fire and shake the ground.

Hundreds of residents in the affected areas are now in evacuation centers, schools have been deserted, crops destroyed, and lives traumatized.

As it has been since the 1970s and, probably, as ever shall be.

If there is anything that this latest round of hostilities tells us, it is that peace-making is much, much more than negotiation tables in five-star hotels here and abroad, or free tickets to the Southeast Asian Games.

As many observers have been saying from the time the followers of former ARMM Gov. Nur Misuari attacked military and police installations in 2001 (resulting in over 100 people dead), the 1996 GRP-MNLF Peace Agreement is a failure.

The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) itself, the realization of the intent of the peace accord, has since its creation been said to be a failure.

The MNLF and its sympathizers have repeatedly blamed the government for its failure (or refusal) to "fully implement" the peace accord. The government, on the other hand, has been hard put trying to make the various sets of ARMM officials explain where their allocations went.

The peace agreement was supposed to bring, finally, a just and lasting peace to the region, to realize the yearnings of the Muslim populace for some degree of self-determination and for better lives.

But what the people have seen instead is a heartbreaking and hopeless tale of corruption, nepotism and incompetence that has made their lives more miserable.

Only yesterday, a group of government employees was having their Cola (cost-of-living-allowance) claim forms notarized, desperately hoping that they would finally receive their Colas, which have been denied them since 1989. But at the same time, they were wondering -- considering their experiences with the bureaucratic "complexities" in the ARMM -- whether these would get to them at all.

Teachers have received their October salary, but the September pay is nowhere to be found. Before that, salaries, already meager, would be delayed by as long as three months, forcing them to "sell" their expected checks to loan sharks. What happened to their GSIS premium payments is a story almost too incredible to believe.

The sorry scheme of things, the periodic disruption of classes, the trauma from the bombings, mortar shellings and resultant dislocations have taken their toll on the quality of education in Sulu and other parts of the autonomous region.
Morale in the bureaucracy is at an all-time low. Office premises are in poor condition; equipment, if there are any, are in a state of disrepair; supplies are scant; communication facilities are often non-existent.

In many places in the countryside, the so-called integrees, the beneficiaries of a program intended to integrate former MNLF combatants into the Armed Forces of the Philippines, are the new elite. Authorized to bear arms issued by the government, they are the figures of authority and power in their own communities, able to create another level of oppression and disenfranchisement of the powerless.
The ARMM, for many, is but an unnecessary and expensive layer of bureaucracy that has done almost nothing to alleviate the social and economic conditions of the Bangsamoro.

What went wrong?

Much of the blame has been placed on former President Corazon Aquino, for having "resurrected" Nur Misuari; and on former President Fidel Ramos, who forged the peace agreement with the MNLF.

Although both past presidents share some responsibility for the present state of affairs in the autonomous region in Mindanao, it would be unfair to put the blame on them entirely. Even before Misuari set foot again in the country, even before the peace agreement was signed, the regional autonomous government was already corrupt.

Could it be some tragic cultural flaw in the Bangsamoro? Why is it that leadership is still set in the mold of the warlord and the politically powerful? Why do the Moro people's leaders, without any sense of accountability, consider government positions a sinecure to be taken advantage of to the utmost?

The implications of these questions are much more complicated than they seem.

Still, running like a common thread through all the effort to "pacify" the Moro (from the Marcos regime to the present administration) is the eagerness of the government to obtain peace at all costs -- at the expense of the common people, that is.

It is the kind of peace settlement that is intended to buy time and a semblance of peace for whatever administration is involved in the peace negotiations. As it has always been, the government considers the Bangsamoro a pesky and bothersome reality that it has to deal with, the earlier and easier, the better.

The tragic result is an almost total absence of long-term, sustainable programs for development; and the emergence of policies that change from administration to administration, containing nothing that lifts up or empowers the marginalized.

It is, in short, and -- as we have stated many times before -- just a policy of appeasement founded on the insincerity and hypocrisy of both sides.

It is a policy as pretentious and as ridiculous as an all-expenses-paid trip and free tickets to the SEA Games.

Sadly for the Moro people, in an administration that is too eager to show its total devotion to the Bush-led war on terror and to arrest and jail anybody with a Moro-sounding name, it is definitely not showtime.

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