Hurry the peace pact
Commentary By MENARDO WENCESLAO Updated October 26, 2009 12:00 AM
THE braggart in the ex-convict and ousted president Joseph Estrada boasted of eradicating the MILF and communist insurgency in a manner they routed the Moro secessionist forces in Camp Abubakar. In short, an all-out-war.
Indeed, Estrada must have won that pocket war but whether he won the hearts of millions of Filipino Muslims is not clear to him. Which is not a surprise given his myopic appreciation of the struggles of the Bangsa Moro people. If at all he achieved something in the devastation of Camp Abubakar, it was to further incense the climate of insurgency which we now have to bear. If Estrada had his way, it was not farfetched that he will employ genocide to quell the problem of rebellion. Peace talks are not part of his options in dealing with the conflict in Mindanao. His solution is simplistic and he takes pride of it as if it is the panacea for Mindanao problems that he even bought spreads of advertising space in the major national dailies to bare that it was to be the centerpiece of his governance if by the grace of the devil he wins the presidency.
The truce that the Ramos government and the Moro National Liberation Front may have some loopholes but it contained the bloody rebellion and allowed the rehabilitation of war ravaged communities of Christians, Lumads and Muslims. Foreign aid augmented scarce government resources and opened windows of opportunities for small and medium scale entrepreneurs among the
MNLF combatants and their families.
We are citing the in-sanity of Estrada’s plot and the gains of peace pact to underscore the supremacy of peace over war in our search and endeavor to forge a lasting peace accord with the MILF. We believe that winning war by arms confrontation is transitory and palliative. The MILF and the government have spent time and had deliberated many content-ious issues. Both have seen which of the issues are untenable and which are doable. So many lives had been lost and so many opportunities have been wasted. Thousands of families had been displaced unable to resume normal activities.
MILF Chairman Al Hadj Murad Ibrahim says he now wants to end the cycle of violence before it affects the younger generation of Muslims. The same can be said of the next generation of Lumads and Christians. Murad has assured the world community that they are not building their military strength now, because they have come to realize and believe that the problem cannot be solved by military means – “it will always boil down to peaceful solutions.”
The MILF has likewise agreed to widen the role of America in hammering a peace deal that will bring a stable and lasting peace in Mindanao. We have to do this quick before Estrada makes a come back by a diabolic quirk of political lunacy.
Commentary By MENARDO WENCESLAO Updated October 26, 2009 12:00 AM
THE braggart in the ex-convict and ousted president Joseph Estrada boasted of eradicating the MILF and communist insurgency in a manner they routed the Moro secessionist forces in Camp Abubakar. In short, an all-out-war.
Indeed, Estrada must have won that pocket war but whether he won the hearts of millions of Filipino Muslims is not clear to him. Which is not a surprise given his myopic appreciation of the struggles of the Bangsa Moro people. If at all he achieved something in the devastation of Camp Abubakar, it was to further incense the climate of insurgency which we now have to bear. If Estrada had his way, it was not farfetched that he will employ genocide to quell the problem of rebellion. Peace talks are not part of his options in dealing with the conflict in Mindanao. His solution is simplistic and he takes pride of it as if it is the panacea for Mindanao problems that he even bought spreads of advertising space in the major national dailies to bare that it was to be the centerpiece of his governance if by the grace of the devil he wins the presidency.
The truce that the Ramos government and the Moro National Liberation Front may have some loopholes but it contained the bloody rebellion and allowed the rehabilitation of war ravaged communities of Christians, Lumads and Muslims. Foreign aid augmented scarce government resources and opened windows of opportunities for small and medium scale entrepreneurs among the
MNLF combatants and their families.
We are citing the in-sanity of Estrada’s plot and the gains of peace pact to underscore the supremacy of peace over war in our search and endeavor to forge a lasting peace accord with the MILF. We believe that winning war by arms confrontation is transitory and palliative. The MILF and the government have spent time and had deliberated many content-ious issues. Both have seen which of the issues are untenable and which are doable. So many lives had been lost and so many opportunities have been wasted. Thousands of families had been displaced unable to resume normal activities.
MILF Chairman Al Hadj Murad Ibrahim says he now wants to end the cycle of violence before it affects the younger generation of Muslims. The same can be said of the next generation of Lumads and Christians. Murad has assured the world community that they are not building their military strength now, because they have come to realize and believe that the problem cannot be solved by military means – “it will always boil down to peaceful solutions.”
The MILF has likewise agreed to widen the role of America in hammering a peace deal that will bring a stable and lasting peace in Mindanao. We have to do this quick before Estrada makes a come back by a diabolic quirk of political lunacy.
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