PEACETALK | The Unfinished Work of Peace: Democratic Leadership, Governance, and the Pursuit of Inclusive Peace of the Aquino Administration
(Presented at the 2nd President Benigno Simeon Aquino III Memorial Lecture on Leadership and Democratic Governance on 18 June 2026 at the Ateneo de Manila University. The work for peace continues with the resumption of meetings of the Peace Implementing Panels following the July 15 appointment of Presidential Peace Adviser Mel Senen Sarmiento as concurrent chair of the government panel, an appointment welcomed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.)
We find ourselves today under very dark clouds, difficult and anguished – in the world, in the country, in many communities, in this campus, in many families. It is, thus, a special blessing to be able to gather this afternoon to speak about an issue – a topic – that has sought to bring hope and light to communities caught in the middle of violent divisions and social turbulence.
It is against this backdrop that I stand before you now with gratitude and a deep sense of immense responsibility. Thank-you to the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, the Ateneo School of Government, the Ateneo School of Humanities, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung for this distinct honor and opportunity.
Magandang hapon po. As-salamu Alaykum.
Today, when people speak about President Aquino’s legacy, more often than not, it is with reference to the achievements of his administration in the fields of economic growth, institutional reform, the defense of the West Philippine Sea, and the fight against corruption – issues which have grown even more urgent and crucial in the face of the contrary, regressive directions which have been pursued by government under the Duterte and the current administrations.
On the other hand, peace, the theme that we tackle today, has not been much in the news in recent times. While violence has not been eradicated, there has been no devastating outbreak of armed violence in over a decade, since even before the end of Aquino presidency in 2016. In fact, we are told that today’s media outfits no longer maintain a distinct peace beat and that the current generation of media practitioners are no longer versed on the why and how of Bangsamoro autonomy in Southern Philippines. Even among those who closely follow contemporary news, many think that the Bangsamoro peace process, which once claimed headlines, is already history.
The truth, however, is that the Bangsamoro peace process is not finished. Twelve years after the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, or the CAB, between the Philippine Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF, in 2014, its implementation is in a state of disarray. Let me just mention a few highlights of the present situation:
Under the Normalization track, decommissioning has been suspended since August of last year, with hardly anything else moving under its other components. The government implementation panel has been headless since February, despite the appointment of a new Presidential Adviser in late April. The annual budget of OPAPRU[1] prioritizes PAMANA projects all over the country over the dedicated pursuit of Normalization commitments in the Bangsamoro. And, yet, hundreds of millions of unspent Normalization and peacebuilding funds for the Bangsamoro peace process have been annually returned to the National Treasury.
Moving to the political track, the commitment to an MILF-led political transition, as embodied in both the CAB and the Bangsamoro Organic Law, has been seriously breached, most markedly, with the removal of MILF Chair Al Haj Murad as Interim Chief Minister in March last year, just seven months before the rescheduled elections in October, which was once again reset to September this year. And, in the run-up to the thrice-postponed, first parliamentary elections now – hopefully, finally – scheduled to be held on September 14, the MILF has split into two, competing political parties – making the MILF’s post-elections role even more tenuous. While some may prefer to regard this serious organizational break-up – the first under the leadership of Murad – as an internal problem of the MILF, on the ground, it is popularly perceived as having been orchestrated by the national government. Massive rallies have been held both in Cotabato and in Manila in this regard, with effigies of government peace officials having been publicly mocked, for the first time ever.
With the division between the competing MILF forces widening and hardening by the day – with both sides still holding considerable combat capacities and weapons – amidst private armies that have also not been disbanded as mandated by the CAB – the question arises: can violent conflict be far behind? And, this time, some fear, the violence will arise not from renewed, organized, revolutionary commands that may, in time, once again be subjected and compelled back to the peace table. This time, what we may see is the outbreak of unrestrained, lawless violence – with no clear commands, subject to the highest bidder, and, possibly joined by a new generation of youthful fighters who may be harking to a revived call to extremism fed by the reignited wars in the Middle East.
It is also possible, of course, that there will be no serious outbreak of violence. It is possible for the process to just hobble along – maybe even for an exit agreement to be signed with a compliant wing of the MILF – but with a core of grievance remaining embedded even more firmly in a section of the Bangsamoro that, once again, the Philippine government did not deliver on its commitments. Will MILF be marginalized as a political actor after the elections, together with other new party-lists which sought to bring in new blood to Bangsamoro politics, thus, leaving the Bangsamoro once again in the stranglehold of traditional politicians and their respective dynasties? Will the Bangsamoro again be led by leaders chosen by Malacanang, in exchange for captive votes that will swing the outcome of national elections?
What happens to autonomy then? What happens to this bold, national endeavor to bring to life a radical provision of the1987 Constitution to make inclusion real and potent for all Filipinos? I will not forget the plea of a young MILF partisan to me: “Madame Secretary, if ARMM was a failed experiment, please let us make sure that the BARMM does not end up as a lost opportunity.”
These dire scenarios that I have drawn before you are not inevitable. There is still time, though dwindling. There is still opportunity. Thus, this afternoon, it is my hope – it is our fervent hope – that focusing on this particular legacy of President Aquino will help to galvanize renewed attention to the unfinished work of peace – to a peace process that is, today, in fact, in crisis and needs immediate, decisive, coherent, and relentless action from the present national leadership.
This afternoon, we will go back and recall some moments in the Bangsamoro peace process, in an effort to deepen our shared understanding of what this legacy is about and how it was achieved. Particularly, we will try to retrace glimpses of the engagement and leadership that President Benigno S. Aquino III, or PNoy, invested in the search and pursuit of an inclusive and enduring peace. It is our hope that, with this deepened understanding of what our country has achieved under his leadership, we may again embrace it and refresh our shared commitment to ensure that the effort does not go to waste – that the implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro is substantially completed, bearing robust fruits not just for the region but for the entire country – no one left behind!
While we will focus on the peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF, the reality is that we had five peace tables. Aside from the MILF, there was another negotiating table – this one directed towards achieving a political settlement with the armed communist forces, or the CPP/NPA/NDF.[2] That makes two tables dedicated to peace talks.
The other three tables did not involve negotiating peace agreements. Rather, these sought to substantially address – to the mutual satisfaction of the concerned Parties – critical aspects of peace agreements that had been signed earlier under different presidencies, the implementation of which, however, remained unsettled: namely, the Mt. Data Sipat with the CBA/CPLA,[3] covering the Cordilleras, signed under President Cory in 1986; the peace agreement with the RPM-P/RPA/ABB,[4]based in Western Visayas, concluded under Estrada in 2000; and the 1996 Final Peace Agreement with the MNLF,[5] signed under Ramos, with the original Tripoli Agreement signed under Marcos Sr. in 1976. Three peace accords signed by the Philippine government but not substantially implemented – which meant that, decades later, the groups remained armed. They continued to frame their existence and the structure and operations of their organizations as military: still maintaining camps, base commands, uniforms with matching military ranks.
Suffice it now to say that, by the end of the PNoy administration, only one peace table remained in serious contention: the one with the communist insurgents. The remaining three tables, which were focused on the implementation of earlier signed peace agreements, had been substantially completed.
Building largely on PAMANA infrastructure and livelihood projects for conflict-affected areas and AFP’s integration program for the former rebels or their kin, the closure processes with the CBA/CPLA and with the RPM-P/RPA/ABB, respectively, were peacefully concluded. In June, 2015, the Cordillera Regional Law Enforcement Coordinating Council, which is under the Regional Peace and Order Council, or RPOC, declared that the CPLA no longer exists. In its place, the Cordillera People’s Development Forum, or CPDF, composed of people’s organizations and cooperatives, had been registered with the Security and Exchange Commission. As part of the closure process, CPLA weapons had been collected, with some weapons structured into a monument, and the CPLA story was written by its elders, as a way of remembering and honoring the place of their struggle in Cordillera history.
With the RPM-P/RPA/ABB, one commitment remained unfinished: a housing project which had been stalled because of a land tenure issue which the then-incoming OPAPP[6] leadership promised they would continue to pursue and complete. Nevertheless, the organization had proceeded with its transformation plan to become an unarmed socio-economic organization that continues to promote the welfare of its members and host communities. As we ended our term in 2016, its party-list, Abang Lingkod, was preparing to serve its second term in the 17th Congress.
As for the MNLF, under the facilitation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, or OIC, we completed and closed the Tri-Partite Implementation Review of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement, or FPA, in a meeting held in Jeddah in January, 2016. The implementation review had been initiated in 2009 under the Arroyo presidency. We were determined that this would not be an unfinished business we would pass on to the next administration. The Joint Communique which concluded that meeting contained the signatures of the authorized representatives of the two wings of the MNLF, respectively: the Misuari wing and the Sema wing, thus, binding all factions of the MNLF to the agreement, together with government. The Communique explicitly recognized that the implementation of the GPH-MNLF FPA would be tied to the full implementation of the GPH-MILF CAB – thus, aligning the direction of the two major peace agreements and laying the ground for the entry of the MNLF into the transitional roadmap to the Bangsamoro as laid out in the CAB and the Bangsamoro Organic Law, or BOL.
There were many lessons learned from these closure processes, but we don’t have time to discuss these now. But it would be good, indeed, if, at some future time, someone could do the math and assess what it has meant to the nation: the lives saved and transformed, livelihoods created, fields planted and harvested, the children finally at play and in school, as a collective result of the efforts on these different peace tracks. But, for now, we return our focus to the peace process between the government, or GPH, and the MILF – incorporating all the related tracks into the Bangsamoro peace process.
The successful conclusion of the peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF, marking the end of four decades of vicious armed conflict and 17 years of protracted peace talks captured the attention and imagination not only of the Filipino nation but of the whole world. Historic images of the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, or CAB, against a backdrop of widening circles of white doves against a blue background, were splashed on newspaper front pages and carried on news broadcasts not just in the Philippines but in other parts of the globe. Using an economic lens, international credit rating agencies considered the progress of talks between the government and the MILF as crucial context of the successive credit upgrades they conferred on the country. And, today, twelve years after the fact, the Bangsamoro negotiated political settlement continues to be studied by the international peace community.
What people may not realize is how large and deep PNoy’s personal involvement in the Bangsamoro peace process was.
He didn’t just wait for documents to be brought to his desk for his signature. He was fully on board with the concerned Cabinet members in deciding contentious issues. Not once did he allow politicians, whether in Congress or from local governments, to dictate the outcome either on the peace table or in the battlefield, even during the most political of seasons. Between the peace milestones which made it to the front page were many steps taken behind the scene in which PNoy led or supported the way. These included time-consuming discussions and debates behind each provision that made it to the CAB; multiple constituencies formed across the country and internationally to uphold the paths to peace in the face of threats and challenges; unprecedented risks taken to build trust and confidence between and across the parties; dreams nurtured and, in turn, fueled by new visions of what the Bangsamoro could be.
For now, let me just share three stories that illustrate some of the roles he played behind the scene to ensure, first, that there was a peace process, that the process didn’t stall, and that agreements would hold.
First story: The Bangsamoro peace agenda was not an afterthought for PNoy. It didn’t happen by accident or by luck. It was deliberate and planned even before he was elected President.
When PNoy decided to run for the presidency in 2010, I received a call from the policy group of his campaign team. They asked me to prepare two briefers – the first on the peace process and the second on the security sector reform agenda – as input to the presidential slate’s proposed program of government. Happily, the briefers I submitted didn’t end up in someone’s filing cabinet. PNoy called a meeting with me and his policy team at his Times St. residence to go over the recommendations I had proposed. The meeting took most of the afternoon – thankfully, not quite the thesis defense we learned to expect and prepare for once we were in Cabinet.
On the day PNoy and Mar Roxas filed their certificates of candidacy for the 2010 elections, they came out with a full-page newspaper ad, publicly disclosing A Social Contract with the Filipino People, constituting their pledge of good governance and transformational leadership if elected into office. Listed as item no. 14 was the agenda of peace in Mindanao, the only item under Peace and Order, with the commitment to “seek a broadly supported peace that will redress decades of neglect of the Moro and other peoples of Mindanao.”
When he won the presidency, PNoy asked me to join his Cabinet, returning to the office I had previously held as Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process. I immediately accepted the post – no second thoughts, no further questions asked (although I had by then already crossed into my senior years). That was the easy part. Making the agenda happen – transforming it from pledge to reality, navigating between the thresholds of dreams and the brass tacks of governance – that would be the difficult part that I would only come to understand fully, working with a President who held his word sacred, who abided no false promises, and who always considered the welfare of the people first and foremost.
Second story: Many will remember PNoy’s meeting with MILF Chair Murad in Narita, Japan, on August 4, 2011 – the meeting which caught the whole country by surprise. For once, nothing leaked about the plan. Media would hear about it only when the meeting was done and the principals were aboard their flights back to Manila. Friendly media would persist in asking us afterwards: How did you get the President to agree to the meeting? For the skeptics, the question was: Why did you bring the President to Narita? Didn’t we realize what a risk that was, including possibly demeaning the office of the President? PNoy’s response when I related the questions to him: “Tell them you didn’t bring me to Narita. I brought you there.” And, surely, that was the whole truth.
Some background: Formal “exploratory” meetings between the government and the MILF had restarted in Kuala Lumpur in February, 2011. The peace table had reopened under a cloud of doubt and skepticism between the two parties, their constituencies, and among the general public, with the outbreak of violence in the wake of the failed Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain, or MOA-AD, in 2008 still fresh in people’s minds, preceded by the attack on Buliok, also under Arroyo in 2003, and by Estrada’s all-out war targeting Camp Abubakar in 2000.
Six months would pass with little progress. After initial exchanges of courtesies and expectations between the Parties, positions were again beginning to harden. Then-GPH chief negotiator, now Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, and I met the President several times, hoping to find a way to avoid an impasse but each time getting nowhere.
In a one-on-one meeting with the President, I tried to convince him to agree to a contentious demand from the MILF because, anyway, I said, “they will come to realize that what they are asking for is not doable.” The President’s reply to me was immediate. He asked me point blank: “Ging, is that honest?” And I knew, instantly, that I had nowhere to go but to step back.
I still remember very well the meeting that finally broke the ground. We were in the conference room in the Presidential Guest House which then housed the President’s office. It was just a few of us around the table with the President. We had gone over the controversial issues several times. After around three hours, I could feel my shoulders beginning to droop and was just so grateful that Marvic was still managing to keep up with PNoy’s questions and comments. Suddenly, when it seemed that no one had anything more to say, the President, out of the blue, asked: “Why don’t I meet with Murad? Maybe, if we met face-to-face, if we could look each other in the eye, maybe we can understand where each one is coming from, maybe we can find a way.”
Preparations were completed in about a week: the where, the when, the how, the who. The President flew to Narita with his core delegation on two borrowed private planes, arriving there in the late afternoon, with the MILF delegation arriving several hours later. The Malaysian facilitator also arrived at the venue. I went down to meet him at the hotel lobby but didn’t invite him up to the second floor, because this was a meeting of the President with one of his citizens. It didn’t need to be facilitated by a third-party.
The meeting between the two leaders took place late in the evening, close to midnight – after a short meet-and-greet between the two delegations. There were just the two of them in the room, with one note-taker each. (Marvic served as note-taker for PNoy.[7]) We spent just one night at the airport hotel, flying out after breakfast the next morning.
PNoy would tell us afterwards that the meeting had a rocky start and it took a while for them to begin talking openly about how they looked at the negotiations, about their hopes and wishes for peace. Indeed, no negotiations happened in the hotel room in Narita. No secret offers or promises were made. But the MILF leadership would later declare that that meeting with PNoy turned the tide for them. They saw a President that would take a risk for the peace process, one they could trust would implement whatever government committed on the peace table.
Still, the talks did not go easily after that. It would take another six months before the Panels concluded the Ten Points of Decision and another eight months before the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, or FAB, was signed. More than two years would pass after Narita before the CAB was completed. But the temper had changed on the table. As MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal put it: “We were no longer adversaries on the table. We had become problem-solvers, jointly looking for solutions to overcome our differences.” The issues were not instantly resolved but there was now trust on the table and, at no point afterwards, did any side threaten to leave the table, even when the problems seemed insurmountable.
Third story: The Parties signed the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, or FAB, in October, 2012. As indicated by the title, the FAB laid out the basic frame or outline of the comprehensive political settlement being negotiated by the Parties. The details would still need to be worked out through future Annexes which, upon completion, would comprise the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, or the CAB.
The Panels were holding their 13th Formal Meeting in Kuala Lumpur on October 2-7, 2012, when I received a call from Marvic, relaying the good news that the FAB was almost complete and that it would be possible for the document to be signed within the following week. The President, of course, needed to see and clear the final document before the GPH Panel could sign off on it. Negotiating the final points of the agreement would still take up to the late evening of October 6, a Saturday.
I met with the President at his Bahay Pangarap residence, starting at11:00 PM. We were joined by the communications team, led by Secs Edwin[8] and Ricky,[9] together with DILG Sec Mar.[10] The President scrutinized the print-out of the latest draft and needed to clarify some last questions with Marvic in Kuala Lumpur. We got Marvic on the phone – no Zoom technology yet then. It turned out that there was still a remaining question about the right preposition to use in one of the provisions: should it be “in” or “of” the Bangsamoro? PNoy proposed: why not “for” the Bangsamoro? And so it was that the last word that went into the FAB came from PNoy.
It was already Sunday when we left Bahay Pangarap at around 2:30 AM, after settling the plans for the public announcement of the FAB. Determined not to have a repeat of the uproar caused by the MOA-AD, the President decided that he would make the announcement himself, even before the panels returned to Manila and before any untoward speculations about the agreement could arise. The panels were scheduled to hold their closing session that Sunday, returning home that same evening. This meant that the President would have to make the announcement on Sunday afternoon, with the panels watching the event on television from Kuala Lumpur.
We were back in Malacanang less than seven hours later at 9:00 AM on a Sunday. The President wanted to make sure that no one in the Cabinet would be caught by surprise by the announcement. He particularly wanted Secretaries Volts[11] and Leila[12] of National Defense and Justice, respectively, to get a full briefing on the final provisions of the FAB before it was announced. At 11:00 o’ clock, the rest of the Cabinet arrived, together with the Senate President and the Speaker of the House. After PNoy gave them a detailed background on the FAB, he told the group: “If anyone has any remaining question or concern, you should raise it now. Because once I make the announcement, that is it.”
At 1:00 PM, the President went on national television, with the two panels with the Malaysian facilitator watching from Kuala Lumpur. Our GPH panel would later recount how a number of their MILF counterparts – tried, tested, and battle-scarred mujahideen – openly wept when they heard the President of the Philippines tell the whole nation that the region and its people would be called by the name they had chosen: Bangsamoro, indelibly recalling and honoring the history and struggle of their people.
One week later, on October 14, the FAB was signed by the Parties in Malacanang, after the agreement has been published in full in the major dailies and the panels held a joint press conference for the first time. Both sides made the rounds of newspaper offices and broadcast stations to explain the FAB and what it meant and what the next steps would be. No one would be able to say that the government kept it a secret.
These stories provide a glimpse of how deeply involved PNoy was in the crafting of the negotiated settlement. It was not the only time that the Preside held a late-night meeting to review peace documents. Just to mention another historic night when he called Congress leaders to a meeting in Malacanang to hammer out some contentious details in the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law, or BBL. That meeting also went up to 2:00 AM, and a small group – the lawyers – had to stay behind to finalize the language of the consensus reached at the meeting.
PNoy was meticulous in the way he handled peace agreements because, for him, they were meant not just to be signed; they had to be implemented – with no shortcuts, no false promises, no one left out or left behind, no one disadvantaged.
Before anything was signed, the concerned agencies had to be brought on board. Proposed provisions had to be meticulously studied, Congress leaders and legal luminaries consulted. Conflicts between agencies had to be resolved. Resources had to be assured. Neighboring LGUs[13] were consulted. AFP[14] ground divisions, for the very first time, were briefed.
While the agreements were signed by the government peace panel, in truth, the whole government, led by the President, also held the pen.
The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, or CAB, was signed in Malacanang on March 27, 2014, witnessed by two Presidents (Aquino and Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Sir Mohd Najib Bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak), representatives of the international community, political and sectoral leaders, and, most important, by members of the Bangsamoro community, including the MILF Central Committee and commanders of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces. It embodies a comprehensive political settlement designed to end an internal armed conflict that had endured for more than four decades, with roots that preceded the arrival of the colonizers.
At its heart was the creation of a new political relationship between the Bangsamoro and the Philippine state – one that recognized the Bangsamoro’s distinct identity, history, and aspirations through meaningful self-governance; granting the highest level of autonomy, as mandated by the Philippine Constitution; firmly affirming the rightful place of the Bangsamoro within one Philippine nation. It embodied commitments, painstakingly negotiated between the Philippine government and the MILF, defining not only the destination of peace but also the pathway towards it. Through arrangements on power-sharing and wealth-sharing, the agreement sought to provide the Bangsamoro with the authority, resources, and institutions necessary for genuine self-governance. Equally important, it established a transition process that both parties committed themselves to uphold as they worked towards the day when the peoples of the Bangsamoro themselves would choose their leaders through democratic elections. The parties agreed that the political transition would be MILF-led.
At the same time, the agreement included a Normalization track, providing for the decommissioning – not surrender – of MILF combatants and weapons; the establishment of joint transitional security arrangements; the transformation of camps and communities, socio-economic development, and transitional justice and reconciliation. With the decommissioning of MILF combatants, the government, likewise, committed to disband private armies and redeploy the Philippine armed forces from inside to outside the region, such as to guard the West Philippine Sea.
To ensure that these commitments would move beyond paper, the parties built an extensive architecture for implementation. New institutions and mechanisms were established to oversee the ceasefire, support decommissioning, monitor compliance, facilitate development interventions, pursue transitional justice, and guide the political transition to the new Bangsamoro parliamentary government. The Parties agreed that the Third-Party Facilitator would continue to accompany the process until the Parties signed an Exit Agreement when all the provisions were mutually deemed to have been sufficiently implemented.
This was what made the CAB distinctive. It was not simply about ending a war. It was also about building institutions capable of sustaining peace and honoring commitments made in good faith by both Parties.
And this was why PNoy devoted so much of his time and attention to it. He understood that peace agreements were not meant merely to be signed. They were meant to be implemented. They were meant to work.
In the remaining time, let me quickly speak about another set of milestones established by the Bangsamoro peace process which have been well recognized by the international community. I will focus on three:
First, in terms of security, the robust ceasefire mechanisms, built over many years – shaped, disrupted, rebuilt, and strengthened under different presidencies, successfully prevented a repeat of the widespread outbreak of violence that had characterized earlier periods – this even in the face of the Al Barka and Mamasapano tragedies. Robust ceasefire mechanisms ensured that the children’s schooling was not disrupted and that graduation ceremonies within the Mamasapano area were held, two months later in March, as scheduled – the same as schools all over the country. As for the post-conflict normalization plan outlined in the CAB Annex, officials of the United Nations political department would observe that it was the most comprehensive they had seen in peace agreements worldwide.
Second, in terms of development, there was the Sajahatra Bangsamoro after the signing of the FAB and the Bangsamoro Development Plan after the signing of the CAB – both jointly implemented by government and MILF, both designed to ensure that peace delivered concrete benefits on the ground. Our Malaysian third-party facilitator would observe that nowhere else has a former rebel party participated in the crafting of an official development plan even while awaiting the completion of the political settlement.
Third and last, women’s leadership and participation in the peace process – specifically, in Track 1 of peace negotiations – has come to constitute the gold standard for state compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. This remains unmatched in the world, although, sadly, women’s leadership has since disappeared in the government’s peace office. The MILF was, in fact, doing better until government upended the composition of the Bangsamoro interim parliament.
Taken together, these milestones demonstrated something important, peace is not only negotiated. Peace must be institutionalized.
The Bangsamoro peace process was not just PNoy’s political legacy. It was deeply personal: a product of his time, attention, his integrity and insight, even his dream, and always – always – his remarkable leadership.
He gave it time and dedicated attention. He interrogated. He inspired. He challenged and, yes, he stressed about it.
I know I gave him stress.
And I am forever grateful that he never gave up on the peace – nor on me.
Today, the Bangsamoro peace process again stands at a crossroads. Sturdy enough to have survived presidential inattention, occasional confusion, possible deception and manipulation in the last ten years up to the present day, the Bangsamoro peace process now needs urgent tending that it may truly endure and bear the fruits of our people’s dreams.
I believe PNoy was so untiring and unsurrendering in his pursuit of peace because he saw and imagined so clearly what peace would mean for the people most affected by conflict, especially the children.
In his speech on the signing of the FAB, he said:
I ask the entire world to join me in imagining a Mindanao finally free from strife, where people achieve their fullest potential. A child in Lamitan will be offered the same education as a child in Quezon City; the sick of Patikul will gain access to the same healthcare as those in Pasig; tourists visiting Boracay will also have Sulu in their itineraries; a businessman will earn a profit whether he sets up shop in Marikina or Marawi…. Children who have had to witness immeasurable suffering will now get to witness a harvest; sons and daughters who had to sweep bullet casings from their yards will now get to pick fruit; families who once cowered in fear of gunshots will now emerge from their homes to a bright new dawn of equity, justice, and peace.
Today, perhaps, the challenge before us is not merely to remember that dream.
It is to finish the work.
For peace remains unfinished work.
It must continually be defended.
Continuously nurtured.
Relentlessly renewed.
And, perhaps, that is the most enduring lesson of PNoy’s legacy: that democratic leadership is not measured by the agreements one signs, but by the integrity, courage, and perseverance required to bring those agreements to life.
Maraming salamat po.
(Teresita Quintos-Deles served as Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process under two administrations: 2003 to 2005 under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and 2010 to 2016 under President Benigno Simeon Aquino III)
[1] Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity
[2][2] Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army/National Democratic Front
[3] Cordillera Bodong Administration/Cordillera People’s Liberation Army
[4] Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa ng Pilipinas/Revolutionary Proletarian Army/Alex Boncayao Brigade
[5] Moro National Liberation Front
[6] Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, predecessor-office of the current Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity (OPAPRU)
[7] Mohagher Iqbal, chair of the MILF negotiating panel, served as note-taker for MILF Chair Murad.
[8] Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda
[9] Secretary of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office (PCDSPO) Ricky Carandang
[10] Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Mar Roxas
[11] Secretary of National Defense Voltaire Garmin
[12] Secretary of Justice Leila de Lima
[13] Local Government Units
[14] Armed Forces of the Philippines
No comments:
Post a Comment