The political resurrection of Nur Misuari came as no surprise. It was only a matter of time when “Ma-as” (the “old man,” an almost reverential description by many of the man who led his fellow Moros as a young UP professor to fight for secession from the Republic, and is now wearied by age), would join his “brother” Rodrigo Duterte in the latter’s ardent search for peace.
The President treated the fugitive from the law with utmost respect, befitting a combatant fighting for a cause.
True, the siege of Zamboanga City by Misuari’s Moro National Liberation Front has created deep scars among the residents of “la ciudad hermosa” that will take time to forget or forgive. Even as this is written, many are still homeless and displaced, the result of that attack which took many weeks to resolve, and with the former president, Noynoy Aquino himself taking charge on the field.
But this is precisely why President Duterte is suing for peace, because war has left the country unable to get out of the boom-and-bust cycle that has characterized our Sisyphean climb to progress.
Misuari started organizing his brother Moros after the Jabidah massacre, where then-President Ferdinand Marcos operatives executed Muslim youth fighters being trained in Corregidor for an attempt to wrest Sabah away from the Malaysians. To be fair to the late dictator, Sabah rightfully is part of Philippine territory, which the then Sultan of Sulu “leased” to a trading and commercial company owned by Malaya’s former colonizers. When the United Kingdom recognized an independent Malaya, a federation was born which illegally included Sabah or North Borneo, effectively gaining de facto control of and usurpation of territory belonging to a Filipino clan, the Sultanate of Sulu.
It was a long and fierce war where thousands of Filipinos died during the seventies. Temporarily stilled by the fall of Marcos, and President Cory Aquino’s pursuit of peace with Misuari, it seemed like her successor, President Fidel V. Ramos had bought peace in his time with the establishment of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. But that was not to be.
In Central Mindanao, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front under the late Hashim Salamat gained currency, controlling large parts of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and North Cotabato.
President Joseph Estrada came in and waged a short but highly decisive win over the MILF after the fall of Camp Abu-Bakr. The decision to wage war came in the aftermath of a video-taped execution of soldiers of the Republic, which enraged Erap, who then believed that defeating the secessionists would bring about a lasting peace, for he was to follow this up with billions of development funds for Muslim Mindanao.
Again, it was not to be. Erap fell from power in the aftermath of the jueteng scandal brought about by the confessions of his friend Chavit Singson. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, his vice-president, succeeded him after Edsa Dos, and ruled for nine years. Again, she pursued peace talks with the MILF, leading to a US-Japan-Malaysia brokered agreement that was scuttled. Pocket hostilities resumed, and Mindanao has not seen peace since, with new groups such as the BIFF creating trouble in the Mindanao mainland, and the Abu Sayyaf remaining a predatory terrorist-cum-kidnap organization preying upon the islands of Region 9.
President Benigno S. Aquino III pursued the same tack, finally hammering out a Bangsamoro homeland agreement with Salamat’s heirs led by Ghadzali Jaafar. But Congress failed to ratify the agreement, and the same was caught by election fever, punctuated only by the tragedy at Mamasapano, which further doomed the agreement.
Duterte the Mindanaoan ran for president with several out-of-the-box promises. Foremost among these was the pledge to seek a lasting peace in Mindanao through federalism.
Duterte understood that history and the injustices of the colonial powers, first Spain and then America, followed later by a central government in Luzon whose power was concentric, had to give way to a better system where these historic injustices would be redressed. Otherwise, the movements to secede would just simmer, reaching boiling point as time would dictate.
How many times did well-meaning friends and political advisers tell then-candidate Duterte to stop mentioning the name of Misuari in his speeches, as this would be a “sure-fire” recipe for losing the votes of the Zamboanga peninsula? But Duterte the candidate would not listen, because he knew more than anybody else that his main objective, which was to foster a lasting peace in his country, required that he treat the Republic’s “adversaries” as brothers who one day will return to the folds of the law and national unity.
In the first 130 days of his administration, Duterte has succeeded in opening doors to the MILF, the CPP-NPA-NDF, and now Misuari’s MNLF. The sincerity is well-received by those who have been disenchanted with previous leaders’ attempts.
Sure there are the usual jeremiads of doom, those who still think that all “Commies” and “leftists” are evil personified, that the “only good Moros are those who are dead”. Such ante-deluvian thinking, such bigotry has to stop.
Who does not want peace? Duterte, who has waged an unrelenting war against drug lords and drug pushers, contrarily would pursue peace with those who fight for a cause. Almost six decades of internecine fighting, where Filipinos end up killing Filipinos, is more than enough.
Hopefully, we see the beginnings of peace in our time.