LAST Monday, the Mindanao Women's Peace Table was launched in a bid to popularize the concept of peace that is being pushed by the government by sitting down with dissident forces to negotiate for peace.
Nida Duns from the Mother’s of Peace Isabela City in her welcome address urged the partcipants to push on and talk of peace.
“We are positive that after this afternoon and tomorrow’s training and workshop our skills will be enhanced through values-based dialogue and public conversations, these cannot be done by force but can only be achieved by understanding,” Duns said.
There is much said there, especially about values-based dialogue and public conversations. Especially today when people are just shouting for blood, even the blood from the long-dead, we need to sit down and discuss how real and lasting and not peace that is based on the premise that one must agree with ideologies you espouse, never mind if the other person across the table doesn't believe in yours.
“Let us all keep this table up, no matter how hard it would be for us sometimes because the more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war,” Duns said, for indeed, while we may all claim we are for peace, selfish interests and different perceptions, sometimes even unfamiliarity with norms and practices, sometimes get in the way.
It is heartening to know that the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process (OPPAP) is conducting dialogues and setting up peace discussions outside of just negotiating for peace, unlike before when all we know that is officially going on are peace talks and nothing else.
This is a valuable lesson learned from the long decades of peace negotiations where the only ones officially talking about peace are those who are facing each other in the negotiating table. Nothing has ever come out of it and the agreements that emanate from such environment are regarded with suspicion by the common tao.
For why indeed would they trust something that rebels and government officials hatched in the privacy of some conference room overseas.
“We want to make sure that people will understand each other, that is also why in the women’s peace panel we have a two day training on how to conduct public consultation for people to understand," said Irene Santiago, chair of the Implementing Panel of the Bangsamoro Peace Accords.
Indeed, peace that is understood by most if not all is one that promises to be more resilient to instigations of violence, that is the type of peace we all must strive for.