BANGSAMORO SPEAKS | Why we ignored a warning that matters — and why the youth cannot afford our silence

BAOSHAN, Shanghai (MindaNews /10 April) — I have worked for the Bangsamoro peace process since 1998. I have sat with Moro rebel commanders in hidden camps, walked through evacuation centers after military operations, and listened to young soldiers confess that they do not fully understand why they are fighting. So when Vice President Sara Duterte stood before Davao City on Araw ng Kagitingan and delivered a speech that named the three deepest wounds of our nation — a hollow foreign policy, a resurgent insurgency fed by injustice, and a faltering Bangsamoro peace process — I expected it to shake the country.

It did not.

I opened major news websites the next morning. I scanned television news summaries. I checked the mainstream media in Manila what they had run. The answer was the same almost everywhere: nothing. A few outlets buried the speech in local news sections. Most did not touch it at all.

As someone from Bangsamoro and from Mindanao, I have learned to recognize when the national media is making a mistake. This was not a small mistake. This was a strategic failure that the Filipino youth will pay for with their future.

Let me explain why, and why we must learn to work together across our toxic political divides — not because we like each other, but because the alternative is unthinkable.

Let me quote what Vice President Sara actually said, because most Filipinos never got to read it: “The Constitution envisions a nation that is independent, self-reliant, and guided by a clear and principled foreign policy. Yet, in the absence of a coherent and truly independent foreign policy framework, our soldiers are often left navigating conflicts shaped by external pressures rather than national interest.”

She continued: “We are witnessing the creeping return of insurgency in various parts of the country. This resurgence reflects deeper systemic failures — poverty, injustice, and unfulfilled promises.”

And on the Bangsamoro peace process: “When agreements are not fully implemented, when communities feel abandoned, the fragile foundations of peace break apart. It shall be our soldiers and the Moro youth who will pay the price.”

These are not political talking points. This is a military and peace-building assessment from the second-highest elected official in the land. She was not attacking President Marcos. She was attacking a system that sends young Filipinos to die for unclear reasons.

So why no headlines?

I have watched Philippine journalism degrade into a machine that rewards conflict and punishes nuance. Here is the uncomfortable truth: We have trained ourselves to see only what divides us.

If Vice President Sara had attacked the administration directly, every outlet would have led with it. If she had praised her father’s legacy, that would have trended. But she did something far more dangerous to the media’s business model: she offered a diagnosis that requires collective action.

A headline like “Sara: Gov’t Failed Soldiers Due to Weak Foreign Policy” does not generate outrage clicks. It generates questions: What does she mean? What should we do? And our current media ecosystem has little patience for questions without immediate partisan angles.

But here is what the national editors missed — and I say this as someone from academia, not a critic: By ignoring this speech, they reinforced the very polarization they claim to report on. They signaled that only confrontational statements matter, not substantive ones. They told the public that a Vice President warning about insurgency and peace process collapse is not news unless she names a political enemy.

That is not journalism. That is gatekeeping dressed as objectivity.

I spend much of my time speaking with young people in Cotabato, Marawi, and the hinterlands of Lanao del Sur. They are not stupid. They know when adults are performing politics while their futures burn.

Consider three groups of Filipino youth today:

The young soldier. He is 22 years old. He enlisted because his family had no money for college. He is now deployed in a conflict zone where insurgents recruit from the same poverty he escaped. He does not understand why the government cannot build a road or a school in the village he is supposed to “clear.” He will either be killed, wounded, or traumatized — and then forgotten.

The Moro youth. She grew up after the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro. She believed peace was possible. Now she watches as decommissioning stalls, as transitional justice is delayed, as political promises expire. She is learning that agreements are not worth the paper they are printed on. And extremist recruiters are learning the same lesson.

The urban student. He sees headlines about political dynasties fighting in Manila. He assumes all politicians are the same. He disengages. He does not vote. He does not realize that his disengagement is exactly what allows the system to continue failing.

These three young Filipinos do not need us to agree on everything. They need us to agree on something.

I am not naive. I know that Vice President Sara and her critics are not going to become friends. But we do not need friendship. We need issue-based cooperation — the kind that happens in every other mature democracy.

First, separate diagnosis from allegiance. When the Vice President says the Bangsamoro peace process is faltering, I do not ask whether she is pro- or anti-administration. I ask: Is she right? The answer is yes. The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity has itself admitted delays in the normalization track. So let us treat her words as data, not as a political football.

Second, name the real enemy. The enemy is not Marcos or Duterte. The enemy is a foreign policy that serves other nations’ interests. The enemy is poverty that insurgents weaponize. The enemy is a peace process implemented in bad faith. If we can agree on what the problems are, we can fight them together even if we disagree on everything else.

Third, demand media accountability. I am speaking to my friends and colleagues in the profession now: We must stop rewarding performative outrage and start rewarding substantive critique. If a leader — any leader — offers a serious analysis of a national security issue, that is a front-page story. Not because of who said it, but because of what it reveals.

Fourth, and most importantly: Give the youth a different model. Young people are watching how we handle this speech. If we ignore it because of political tribalism, they learn that tribalism is the only game in town. If we engage it seriously, they learn that policy matters more than personality. That lesson will outlast any election cycle.

The Vice President was not asking for loyalty. She was asking for competence. So let me translate her speech into concrete demands: 1. Codify an independent foreign policy framework — not anti-West, not anti-China, but pro-Filipino. Our soldiers should never again be sent into conflicts shaped by the rivalries of distant capitals. 2. Address insurgency’s root causes — land reform, rural employment, and justice for human rights violations on all sides. Military operations alone have not worked for fifty years. They will not work now. 3. Fully implement the Bangsamoro peace agreement — including the decommissioning of combatants, the establishment of the transitional justice mechanism, and genuine political representation for Moro communities. The alternative is a return to all-out war. I have covered that war. No one wants it back.

These are not left or right solutions. These are Filipino solutions. And they require the national government to listen — even when the speaker is from a political faction they may not fully trust.

I learned and met soldiers who died in places their families could not find on a map. I have interviewed mothers in evacuation centers who have lost everything — not to insurgent bullets, but to government neglect that made insurgency possible. I have watched young Moro leaders cry when yet another peace promise is broken.

So when I read Vice President Sara’s speech — a speech that the national media barely covered — I did not see a political rival speaking. I saw someone who understands what I have been documenting for twenty years.

She ended her speech with a call to honor fallen soldiers “not only with words, but with the courage to correct what is wrong, to speak the painful truth, and to rebuild a nation worthy of their sacrifice.”

That is not a political statement. That is a moral one.

And whether you agree with her on other issues or not, you owe it to the Filipino youth — to the soldier, the Moro girl, the disengaged student — to listen.

Because if we cannot listen to a warning when it is given, we will have no right to complain when the disaster arrives.

Mahalin natin ang Pilipinas — not as a slogan, but as a discipline. Even when it hurts. Even when it requires crossing political lines.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Mussolini Lidasan is the Executive Director of Al-Qalam Institute for Islamic Identities and Dialogue in Southeast Asia at Ateneo de Davao University. Lidasan is presently based in Baoshan, Shanghai, on a study leave until July.)