MARGINALIA: Justice for a Stray Bullet

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 12 February) – We were in Day Two.

Around a hundred representatives from selected LGUs in Maguindanao del Sur and the Special Geographic Area (SGA) such as provincial board members, mayors, barangay officials, planners, and Municipal Local Government Operations Officers (MLGOOs) and I, perhaps the lone voice from the academe in that particular session, were immersed in Module 3: Translating Peace Goals into LGU Policies and Programs.

The title alone carried promise. Executive Course on Leadership and Governance for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding for BARMM LGUs. The words were heavy with hope. We were matching peace challenges with instruments such as ordinances, resolutions, executive orders. We were discussing peace-security-human rights values as if they were pieces of a puzzle waiting to be arranged properly.

Then the news arrived.

A stray bullet.

A kindergarten pupil of Damabalas Elementary School, Datu Piang, Maguindanao del Sur.

Gone.

Culprit? Two warring groups engaged in a firefight since the previous night in neighboring Barangay Kudarangan of the newly created Nabalawag Municipality in the SGA.

While one group was presenting about “conflict mapping,” another child was already part of the map.

There are moments when theory collapses into tragedy. As I listened to the six group presentations, carefully crafted matrices of peace challenges and governance responses, my mind drifted to Article X of the Bangsamoro Organic Law: the Bangsamoro Justice System.

Legal pluralism.

A tri-justice system, i.e., national law, Shari‘ah, and customary or traditional law, coexisting, interacting, correcting one another.

We speak proudly of this architecture. And rightly so.

But what happens when those allegedly involved in the armed confrontation are themselves barangay officials? Custodians of peace. Signatories of resolutions. First responders of conflict. What does tri-justice demand then?

And beyond courtroom doctrines and barangay conciliation tables, what does this tragedy say about the urgency of the Normalization Track of the peace process, the painstaking, often quiet work of decommissioning combatants, regulating and reducing loose firearms, dismantling private armed groups, and transforming armed influence into civic authority? How many “stray bullets” are really symptoms of unfinished normalization?

I found myself reopening Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt (49:9–10): “And if two groups of believers fight each other, then make peace between them. But if one of them transgresses against the other, then fight against the transgressing group until they submit to the rule of Allah. If they do so, then make peace between both groups in all fairness and act justly. Surely Allah loves those who uphold justice.”

The verse does not romanticize conflict. It does not normalize neutrality either. It outlines a sequence.

First: mediate. Others must intervene. Silence is not an option. Even refusing to speak to a fellow believer for more than three days is discouraged in the hadith corpus. How much more when bullets are exchanged?

Second: identify the aggressor. Not all conflicts are morally symmetrical. The Qur’an acknowledges transgression. It demands collective action against the violator; it means not vengeance, but principled resistance to injustice.

Third: reconcile justly. The goal is not humiliation. The goal is restoration. Reconciliation does not come before justice; it is not the offering that appears in place of justice.

Other Qur’anic texts reflect that same discipline of restraint and justice; see e.g., 2:190–193 (fighting in defense but not transgression); 5:8 (“And let not the hatred of others make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice”); and 9:5 (punishment for breach of covenant).

These are not verses of wrath. They are verses of governance.

Which brings me back to that child.

Ceasefire is often presented as the highest good. But Surat al-Ḥujurāt suggests otherwise. A mere cessation of gunfire without accountability leaves the roots intact. It pauses violence; it does not cure it.

The Qur’anic model is sharper: Not just ceasefire. Not just “let’s calm down.” But mediate. Identify the aggressor. Act collectively. Then reconcile justly.

Justice is not optional in peacebuilding. It is structural.

And normalization is not a bureaucratic checklist. It is a moral imperative. Every loose firearm that remains unregulated is a future headline waiting to be written. Every delay in dismantling private arsenals is a postponement of justice.

In Maguindanaon vernacular, we have a concept embedded in the provisions of the Luwaran, the legal code followed in Magindanaw centuries before the birth of the Philippine Republic: D’NDA (deterrence).

The old code understood something modern governance sometimes forgets: peace is not maintained by goodwill alone. It is preserved by moral authority backed by enforceable norms.

Deterrence is not brutality. It is the assurance that transgression has consequences.

As we sat there drafting ordinances and executive orders, I wondered: are we building deterrence into our policies? Or are we simply drafting statements of aspiration?

A kindergarten pupil will never sit in another classroom.

We can debate jurisdiction, whether national law, Shari‘ah, or customary mechanisms, should take primary lead. We can convene peace panels. We can pass resolutions condemning violence.

But unless we operationalize what the Qur’an already laid down, which are principled mediation, collective identification of the aggressor, just reconciliation, and the urgent completion of normalization, we will keep drafting policies while stray bullets draft obituaries.

Let’s not forget that peace is not the absence of gunfire. Peace is justice made visible.

And justice, as Surat al-Ḥujurāt reminds us, requires courage, not only from warring groups, but from leaders entrusted to stop them.

#Bangsamoro #Normalization #PeaceProcess #Justice #StopGunViolence #BARMM

#ConflictPrevention #ProtectOurChildren

[MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Mansoor L. Limba, PhD in International Relations and Shari‘ah Counselor-at-Law (SCL), is a publisher-writer, university professor, vlogger, chess trainer, and translator (from Persian into English and Filipino) with tens of written and translation works to his credit on such subjects as international politics, history, political philosophy, intra-faith and interfaith relations, cultural heritage, Islamic finance, jurisprudence (fiqh), theology (‘ilm al-kalam), Qur’anic sciences and exegesis (tafsir), hadith, ethics, and mysticism. He can be reached at mlimba@diplomats.com and http://www.youtube.com/@WayfaringWithMansoor, and his books can be purchased at www.elzistyle.com and https://ift.tt/Y4oyZ1l.]