PEACETALK: The Zamboanga Siege of 2013, Ten Years Hence: Continuing Questions of Justice and Peace (4)

4th of 5 parts

NAGA CITY (MindaNews / 14 September) – Fast forward to 2022, whatever Zamboanga Siege-causing grievances of Misuari and the MNLF appear to have also been overtaken, addressed and resolved with the negotiated composition of the second or extended Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) of the BARMM based in its Regional Government Complex in Cotabato City.  Although the MILF is still at the mandated majority helm of the BTA, there is now a significant MNLF presence highlighted by no less than two children of Misuari and also his long-time MNLF legal counsel from Davao City.  The inclusion of the MNLF in the MILF-led BTA has become the current expression of MNLF-MILF unity, considered crucial for the whole Bangsamoro cause and the Mindanao peace process.  As they say, “unity is better seen in actions.”  At the same time, there is also the action of the MILF and MNLF forming separate political parties in preparation for the 2025 first regular elections of the BARMM.  So, will their current unity hold? And will the shift from armed struggle to parliamentary struggle hold?  Is it really a strategic shift or just a tactical shift?    

What is somewhat ironic though about the unity of the two Moro liberation fronts in the BTA is that it has had to take the new Philippine head of state President Marcos Jr. to achieve that unity. It is the Office of the Presidential Adviser on  Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) that is the one managing the balancing act between the MILF and the MNLF, and even between two factions of the MNLF.  As if left to themselves, they would not be able to get their Moro liberation act together. If ever, getting their act together should not just be a matter of power-sharing in whatever transitional or regular authority but something more substantive in terms of the Bangsamoro agenda.  They would do better to reconcile and harmonize the 1996 FPA and the 2014 CAB for peace and unity rather than go separately about their respective peace agreements with the government. The jury is still out, as they say, on this current implementation stage of the Mindanao peace process.   

Is Chairman Misuari himself still indispensable at this stage of the peace process such that the suspension of proceedings against him in the three Misuari Cases would continue to keep being extended?  After a suspension of about seven years already, is it not about time that this be lifted so that the trial against the principal accused Chairman Misuari can proceed in the normal course of justice while he might be out on bail to attend to whatever need for him in the peace process?  Would this not be more in line with the afore-quoted view adopted by Judge San Pedro that “It is no longer a question of whether to pursue justice or peace, but instead a challenge of when and how to pursue both”?    

If we do not want a recurrence of the Zamboanga Siege of 2013, we must also go back to the question of whether the high human, social and development costs entailed by the finally chosen military option to end it could have been avoided by the negotiation option.  In his published detailed and engaging Personal Notes on the Siege, Fr. Albert E. Alejo, SJ then of Ateneo de Zamboanga University (ADZU), wrote “And the final question for me was – How much of this pain and this damage could have been avoided if we had seriously considered opting for negotiation?”  Peace Advocates of Zamboanga (PAZ) such as Prof. Rebollos and NGO worker Jules Benitez believed that diplomacy could have averted those high costs. PAZ, led by Fr. Angel C. Calvo, CMF of the Claret School of Zamboanga City, then issued a call “Silence the Guns and Save Lives!!!” appealing to the Philippine government and the MNLF to immediately effect a humanitarian ceasefire to allow the release of civilian hostages and the hurrying of the dead, for the MNLF to leave all the hostages in one safe place for them to be immediately fetched and their needs attended to, and for the MNLF to be allowed safe conduct pass and for such pass to be guaranteed by President Aquino and witnessed by Indonesia. 

Unfortunately, this call, especially for the MNLF to be allowed safe conduct in exchange for their release of civilian hostages whose lives were at stake, was defeated by a prevailing understandable sentiment against a reprise of the MNLF safe conduct pass scenario in the 2001 Cabatangan hostage-taking as human shields.  The buck stopped with President Aquino who himself came to Zamboanga City on Day 5 (September 13) of the Siege and who, after to his credit hearing from most concerned sectors, eventually made his judgment call in favor of a “calibrated military action” which was of course what prevailed.  But it is also clear that the negotiation option, despite certain gains in this direction, was not exhausted. 

There was no lack of local mediators between the key actors of government and the MNLF during the Siege.  On Day 3 (September 11), cell phone talks were arranged by local mediators for Zamboanga City Mayor Isabel “Beng” Climaco with Ustadz Malik and then with Chairman Misuari. Among others, the release of Fr. Michael Ufana and several women and children who were MNLF hostages and the delivery of food packs to the MNLF for their remaining hostages (and for the MNLF themselves) was successfully negotiated with Ustadz Malik. At first dawn on Day 5, it was mission  accomplished inside MNLF lines of their Sta. Barbara stronghold.  “No gunshots!  We were still alive!  A full cycle of negotiation proved to be possible!,” wrote Fr. Alejo, “Unfortunately, we failed to maximize the line of communication opened up by that modest effort at negotiation.”  Later that same Day 5, a cell phone talk was arranged by local mediators between Interior and Local Government Secretary Manual “Mar” Roxas and Ustadz Malik. A two-hour “confidence-building ceasefire” was agreed between them but this soon enough collapsed due to some ground troop movement, both sides then blamed each other, as is usual enough. From thereon, things went downhill the military option road.  And this would take at least 15 more days to the Day 20 (September 28) official end of the Siege.                   

From the perspective of the Zamboanga civil society peace advocates, there was insufficient national and local government political will for the negotiation option, no clear commitment to engage in negotiation at all, as if there was no place for peace.  These advocates, who had much to offer in terms of proposals and of mediators and intermediaries, aside from their being non-aligned with both the government and the MNLF, were however crucially sidelined by the government officials managing the crisis. Because there was no will, there was no real negotiation strategy at all, no official designated negotiator and no duly constituted negotiation team.  In a 2014 Senate hearing months after the Zamboanga Siege that he chaired, then Senator Antonio Trillanes spoke these words of wisdom:  “So that is what we are trying to establish here to make sure that should this thing happen, next week in another city, after the security forces have done their job of containing the situation, there should be a series of activities first before resorting to the final military option which, while effective, would be costly socially and economically.”     

We end for now this long yet admittedly incomplete revisitation of the Zamboanga Siege of 2013 with the hope and best thoughts that the beautiful City of Zamboanga (and more recently Marawi), and other cities or towns for that matter, not suffer from another siege (never again, nunca mas), where the worst consequences might be avoided by exhausting the ways of peace.  May the force of peace be with you/ Assalamu aleikum/  La paz sea contigo, Zamboanga and Marawi, even as you continue to attend to rehabilitation, healing, recovery, reconciliation and social cohesion.

(SOLIMAN M. SANTOS JR. is a retired RTC Judge of Naga City, Camarines Sur, serving in the judiciary there from 2010 to 2022. He has an A.B. in History cum laude from U.P. in 1975, a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Nueva Caceres (UNC) in Naga City in 1982, and a Master of Laws from the University of Melbourne in 2000. He is a long-time human rights and international humanitarian lawyer; legislative consultant and legal scholar; peace advocate, researcher and writer; and author of a number of books, including on the Moro and Communist fronts of war and peace. Among his authored books are The Moro Islamic Challenge: Constitutional Rethinking for the Mindanao Peace Process published by UP Press in 2001; Judicial Activist: The Work of a Judge in the RTC of Naga City published by Central Books in 2023; and his latest, Tigaon 1969: Untold Stories of the CPP-NPA, KM and SDK published by Ateneo Press in 2023.)