Wenceslao: Another year of waiting for a peace agreement to be signed

Thursday, February 9, 2012

SO NEAR and yet so far…

The peace accord between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the government is within grasp and yet it is so fraught with great as the possibility the negotiation winding up to square one.

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Truce will be a new beginning of sustainable development of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and the start of interfaith dialogue and cooperation.

In tandem, the multi-nation aid for various rehabilitation and development program will no longer come in trickles for the donor countries will see a more definitive program that can be supervised to fruition. The absence of conflict or threats that will disturb peace is a condition that will ensure the progress of Mindanao.

On the other hand, if by quirk of fate negotiation will again retreat to the conflict mode, we do not think that the chances for conciliation of issues will go through an easy path that when it started.

We hate to speculate on the consequence. But surely, this will usher in a specter of doom in the conflict areas and uncertainty in most parts of Mindanao.

What remains to be certain is that donor countries, which had been giving rehabilitation aid, will ultimately abandon a region that simply refuses the prospects of peace. Unfortunately, the losers and the victims will be the overwhelming majority who has gotten tired of wars and meaningless opportunity for wider autonomous territories and other demands.

Now they have set a new deadline for the final peace agreement to be signed. Another year of waiting.

After all the talks and suspension of talks, we cannot find any more rational reasons to put on hold the signing of an enduring peace accord.

Peace is what everybody yearns for and that should reign supreme in the minds of the MILF and the government peace negotiators.