Cardinal Quevedo convenes forum to sustain peace in the Bangsamoro
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 18 August) — Mindanao’s lone Cardinal, Orlando B. Quevedo, OMI, will convene a gathering of representatives of the government and MILF peace implementing panels and civil society organizations on August 19 and 20 in Davao City to provide a venue for dialogue on sustaining peace in the six-year old Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The gathering comes a week before August 28, the start of the campaign period for the 1st Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections on October 13, and amid major challenges in the implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), the peace agreement signed in March 2014, including the decommissioning of MILF combatants and weapons that the MILF Central Committee wants suspended.
Established in 2019, the BARMM is on an extended transition period that will end on October 30, when the first elected Members of Parliament (MPs) take over. The BARMM is currently run by the 80-member MILF-led Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) composed of MPs appointed by the President of the Philippines.
Quevedo, lead convenor of the Friends of Peace, convened a similar forum in April 2016, titled “TITAYAN: Bridging for Peace” with the theme, “Inclusive Political Transitions in the Bangsamoro.”
Titayan means bridge in Maguindanao and is close to the Cebuano term taytayan, which also means bridge. It encapsulates civil society’s conviction that the challenges to the Bangsamoro peace process need to be addressed through dialogue.
In the 2016 Titayan, the CAB was a year old but Congress under the Aquino administration was unable to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), the peace agreement’s enabling law.
The CAB was signed in March 2014 but the Mamasapano Tragedy in January 2015 where 66 persons were killed (44 from the Special Action Forces of the Philippine National Police, 17 from the MILF and five from the civilians) was a game changer in the Bangsamoro peace process. No basic law was passed.
The Organic Law for the BARMM, or RA 11054, was passed in July 2018 under the Duterte administration. The law was ratified in a plebiscite in January 2015, members of the BTA were appointed in February and the inaugural session was held on March 29 that year. Duterte named MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim as interim Chief Minister, a post he held until early March this year. Murad was replaced by Abdulraof Macacua, concurrent Chief of Staff of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces.
“Titayan 2: Bridging to Sustain Peace in the Bangsamoro,” aims to take stock of the Bangsamoro peace process status and scenarios, including its current and emerging complexities; dialogue on issues and concerns that are impacting on trust and solidarity among the parties and critical stakeholders; and revisit and enhance existing multi-level processes and platforms for wider and more sustained civil society participation in the peace process.
On Tuesday, August 19, Quevedo will welcome the participants while Prof. Rufa Guiam, a peace and development consultant who delivered the closing remarks in Titayan 1, will give an inspirational message.
The first session will have the chairs of the government and MILF peace implementing panels speak on the status of the CAB implementation. Government peace implementing panel chair Cesar Yano and his co-chair Mohagher Iqbal of the MILF, concurrent Minister for Basic, Higher and Technical Education in the BARMM, have confirmed their attendance.
Session 2 will have civil society representatives Guiamel Alim, Yasmin Busran Lao, Myla Leguro and Farjana Almar discussing their perspectives on the progress and challenges in the Bangsamoro.
The third session will have interim Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua talking about the accomplishments and challenges in the transition period and priorities of the new leadership.
The fourth session will be a panel discussion on the October 13 elections. Atty. Ray Sumalipao, head of the Bangsamoro Election Office, will be represented at the forum by Atty. Joyce Moran. Alexa Yadao of the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE), will discuss the results of the May 2025 elections in the BARMM.
The fifth session, which will be held on August 20, is “Civil Society Conversations on Difficult Topics in the Bangsamoro Peace Process and Bridging to Sustain Peace in the Bangsamoro.”
Titayan 2 is convened by the Friends of Peace in partnership with the Consortium for Bangsamoro Civil Society, Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Foundation, Initiatives for International Dialogue, Konsyensya Dabaw, MindaNews and Mindanao Peoples’ Caucus.
The forum is supported by the Australian Embassy in the Philippines, KAICIID -The International Dialogue Center), United Nations Development Programme and The Asia Foundation. (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)
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