President Ferdinand Marcos Jr inherited the task of completing the peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) including the appointment of 80 new members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA).
The BTA will complete the codes of the now three-years old Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
During his inaugural speech on June 30, Marcos spoke of wanting “peace in our land” but he was mum about the specifics of his peace agenda.
“We all want peace in our land. You and your children want a good chance of a better life, in a safer, more prosperous country. All that is within reach of a hard working, warm and giving race. Your dreams are mine. Your hopes are my hopes,” he said.
“How can we make them come true? How can we do it together? But I will take it as far as anyone with the same faith and commitment can as if it depended entirely on himself. In our hope to make our country peaceful, your hope is my hope,” he added.
Mindanao observers are keen to see if Marcos will give the process the same commitment that President Rodrigo Duterte showed during his term, ushering in a period of relative peace in the region. Continued delays, it is feared, would push combatants to join other armed groups, which is plenty in the region.
“The single most important thing we can do, if we are trying to end terrorism in Southern Philippines, is to give all the support we can to make the BARMM successful,” Zachary Abuza, Southeast Asia expert at the U.S. National War College, told PCIJ in an earlier interview.
“Nothing will take the wind out of the sails of the BIFF (Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters) and the Mautes… than a successful peace process.”
The decommissioning of 40,000 MILF combatants has yet to be completed, too. As of May 2022, the government said less than 20,000 had been decommissioned.
The process continued to face delays due to various issues such as funding gaps to fulfill development commitments to MILF communities, confusion over the coverage of benefits to be received by the combatants, and disagreements over the number of firearms the MILF is expected to decommission.
Duterte, the country’s first president from Mindanao, spent a lot of his political will on the peace process. His support was instrumental in the success of the January 2019 plebiscite vote, which led to the creation of the now three-year old BARMM. Last year, he also succeeded in persuading Congress to postpone BARMM’s first regular elections, effectively extending the MILF-led transition period for another three years. (TRACKER: Duterte signs law postponing BARMM polls to 2025)
In the May 2022 elections, the MILF endorsed his closest rival, former Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo. END