Lidasan: Peace is not just about physical violence

FOR generations, people in Mindanao and the Bangsamoro have worked hard to attain peace. The Bangsamoro peace process is more than four decades of negotiations between the government and Moro Fronts. Some people would say that in every administration of our government, efforts ended mostly in heart-breaking futility leading to pessimism. At the grassroots level, there is a wide-spread belief that peace is unattainable. Unfortunately, even young and old Bangsamoro professionals are thinking along the same lines. The only way forward for them is through armed struggle.

As a peace advocate, we know that when peace is won through violence, it can only be temporary. Achieving peace through violence means we subjugate our opponent through fear of punishment, or violence, or superior force. This cannot last long. And, the damage it will cause will be unbearable.

In our communities, the problem about rido or family feud is also one reason why the idea of peace is hard to attain. There are families and clans that believe they live in a jungle where “might is right”. Thus, they developed the idea of the whole “culture of violence” that dominates every aspect of their everyday life. As a result, their language, their behavior, their relationships and their attitudes, are all defined by this “culture of violence.” Generations of Bangsamoro have now come to believe that violence is the norm and one just has to live with it.

Now, the question that most of our people ask is “Why then is peace so elusive?” Are we incapable of living in peace? Or, maybe, the right question is this; how do we define peace? Is it the absence of war? Is it the amount of taxes that the Bangsamoro government will get from the National Government? Or is it the political and fiscal autonomy that are enshrined in the Comprehensive Agreement of the Bangsamoro (CAB)? Hence, does peace in our homeland mean that we have a way to achieve autonomy through the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL)?

These are the questions that I raised in my mind after both Houses (Senate and Congress) approved the BBL from the 3rd and Final reading last week. I cannot seem to find the answer as of now.

What do we mean by peace? Can we say that our nation lives in peace because the Armed Forces of Philippines and the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces are not fighting in the field?

Maybe we are asking the wrong questions. Maybe we have focused all our attention on “Physical Violence” and not enough on “Passive Violence”, which we need to address either consciously or unconsciously. By definition, physical violence means fighting or all the other acts of violence where physical force is used, while “passive” is the kind of violence where no force is used and yet our inaction causes people to be hurt, directly or indirectly.

These could be classified as discrimination, oppression, greed, wasting resources, poverty, insensitivity, spreading fake news, among others. It was Mahatma Gandhi that said “passive violence fuels the fire of physical violence”. This was my immediate reaction when I read and saw a lot of comments on social media about the development of the BBL in Senate and Congress. A lot of young Bangsamoro professionals claimed that the BBL “diluted”. Thus, it resulted to putting in the minds and hearts of our youth that our government cannot be trusted.

We must understand that the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) will not accept a diluted version of the Bangsamoro Basic Law. Hence, I ask the public to refrain from issuing statements, “legal analysis”, and misinformation that may cause confusion, fear, and doubt to our lawmakers and our general public. The BBL is not an ordinary piece of legislation. It aims to address historical injustices and bring lasting peace in Mindanao.

The enhancement of the BBL is not to water down the spirit of the law. Majority of those in the Congress and Senate agree with the objective of the BBL. They also want to ensure that the BBL will have fiscal discipline and can address the different problems within the Bangsamoro.

The road to lasting peace requires sacrifices, open mind and dialogue. It also require for us to address not only physical violence, but also passive violence.