Opening Remarks of the Chair of the GPH Panel
February 9, 2011
Esteemed colleagues from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front led by the Chair of its Peace Panel the Honorable Mohagher Iqbal, Honorable Datuk Othman bin Abdul Razak, members of the International Contact Group, fellow colleagues committed to a just and lasting peace.
I bring warm greetings of peace from His Excellency Benigno Simeon Aquino III and his entire cabinet.
It is indeed an honor to be where we are right now: at a conjuncture where together we can define how social and historical injustice can be addressed and definitively bring comprehensive and lasting peace in our lands. Any other alternative is less acceptable. All of us present today know that we do not want to waste our collective efforts and bury them in the banality of yet another set of talks that only aspire for peace and nothing else. We come to work with you to bring just peace, not simply aspire for it.
We negotiate for just peace because we know that it is possible from where we stand. We negotiate for peace because we know that we mutually have more serious enemies to face: poverty in an era of potential prosperity, powerlessness in an age where only mutual cooperation can help us hurdle ecological challenges of potentially catastrophic proportions, ignorance in the midst of tremendous intellectual and technological possibilities.
For these reasons, and on behalf of our principals we are resuming talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. To us, this is the twentieth formal exploratory meeting of the parties. We stand by the state of the current agreements with the text qualified by the interpretations made in formal remarks made by chairs of the various government panels. We also state for the record that the GPH panel is just a change of nomenclature. GRP and GPH are one and the same. But this GPH is now under a new administration better enlightened by our evaluation of the past. How this new administration deals with the peace process will be evident as we proceed. But just so it is clear, we have no intention to derogate past signed agreements.
I am honored to be in the company of very competent panel of negotiators. Professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, a colleague at the University of the Philippines, is known to you not only through her writings but also in her commitment on issues relevant to our mission. Former Secretary Senen Bacani has served honorably as part of the cabinet and has also proven himself as both organizer and entrepreneur working with various peoples in Mindanao. Vice Mayor Ramon Piang is not only Teduray, he is a leader among local government officials in Mindanao.
None of us have any national political ambitions. None of us want to prolong our duties. All of us want to do simply what is right. We believe we were chosen by President Aquino precisely because of these and much more.
Our panel benefits from advice of an esteemed consultant to our panel, Dr Hamid Barra. Dr Barra has served with the ARMM, became intimately engaged in its problems. He is Maranao and a well respected scholar in Islamic Law and Jurisprudence.
Johaira Wahab leads our standing legal team. She is Maguindanao, lived her youth in Cotabato City, and finished her law degree at the University of the Philippines. She remains involved in many Muslim Women's issues. This legal team includes two lawyers from the Solicitor General's office, Ms Armi Bayot and Mr. Omar Romero apart from their experience at their office. Both share in the distinction of also being graduates of the UP College of Law. Abdel Disangcopan, also from the UP Law is Maranao and from Iligan. Needless to say, because of my academic position, we have access to the best legal minds that our country can offer.
The head of our secretariat is Director Iona Jalijali. She has worked in the legislature, participated in many public interest campaigns, worked with various formations of civil society while discharging her abilities as an organizer and as a manager. The secretariat of the GPH panel for this round of talks includes Mr. Wendell Orbeso, Ms Bianca Bacani, Ms Sabrina Poon, Mr. Lloyd Yales and our media consultant, Director Polly Cunanan.
We have restructured our staff to also include a senior military adviser who is in active service. Today this is General Aguilar. We have also brought with us for this round of talks, a critical military officer who heads the secretariat of our CCCH. His contribution to maintaining the ceasefire need not be emphasized. He knows your ground commanders. He is also known to them.
In this round of talks we have on stand by, a representative from the highest echelon of the armed forces as well as one of our most responsible officers on the ground. Both answer to our panel. I report to you that the various officers assigned to the various components of our ceasefire mechanisms and the AHJAG are among the best in their fields. All are respected soldiers. In this administration and at this time, we speak with one voice with the primacy of the peace process being dominant.
We agree with the Honorable Mohagher Iqbal, writing under his other pseudonym Salah Jubair, that at this table the principal question is: "how do we solve the Bangsamoro problem?" We may represent principals with other fundamental and principled differences, but we see our role in this table as finding our common ground in practical details inspired by principles. We propose that we be haunted by whether the options we debate here can truly make a present difference for our peoples and provide them with the best opportunities to shape their own future. We do not propose that we do not mention the abstract contextualizations of our proposals, just that we retain a healthy impatience for too much of it. This healthy impatience should be driven by the urgency of our desire to bring prosperity, justice and ecological sustainability.
We know many members of your panel. We have met on different occasions. We are indeed privileged to be working with you. We are also especially pleased because we know that while you will be as resolutely principled as we will be, you will also be open to understand our interpretations and meanings. We are certain that while you will be as candid as we will be, you will also remain cordial and professional in your dealings. It is for these reasons that even before our formal resumption of talks we have held all of you in high esteem.
Our instructions include that we learn from our history, general history as well as the history of our negotiations. Hence, we have been instructed to be inclusive, participative and as far as the ethics of these negotiations will allow, be transparent. We are to commit that which can be politically deliverable. We will discharge these responsibilities diligently.
As a step towards transparency for our constituents, we submit to you for your consideration and as a proposed agenda for the next formal meeting our draft to articulate the current modalities of our negotiations. We have worked on the 1999 Agreement on the Rules for the Conduct of Formal Peace Talks to reflect current practices including all its flexibilities. For next meeting we propose that we consider the creation of a technical working group from our panels so that work on this important procedural agenda item does not detract us from the process leading to substantive agreements.
Contrary to some statements, it has never been our intention to use this need to articulate in writing the process of our negotiation as a delaying tactic. We felt that those statements were unfair and taken out of context. Rather, to us it is an important component of regaining the trust of a significant segment of our constituency in these processes. Again, I reiterate, we propose a technical working group to work on this and report to the panel so that there will be no delays in our coming to a negotiated settlement at the soonest possible time. The technical working group may consider this draft or perhaps even work on other formulations for so long as they ably reflect mutually agreed upon procedures enlightened by experience.
At this meeting, we will move for the extension of the mandates of the International Monitoring Team and the AHJAG for another year. One year to us is a reasonable time period within which we may be able to expect to shape fundamental agreements inspired by our past experiences, driven by contemporary needs and hopeful of our future.
At this meeting, we will work with you to clarify the situation of the Bangsamoro Leadership and Management Institute and define a way jump start it so that it can become a reality. We will clarify our position on the list of 25 detainees that you submitted to us for our review during the last informal meeting.
Most importantly, we will be very open to receive the revised draft of your comprehensive compact as a document that can help us clarify your positions so that we can evaluate our own. We know that by doing so, we are skipping the last few documents deliberated on the table by the past administration in their effort to find an interim agreement. We are inspired by the common statement in the Declaration of Continuity referring to openness in exploring new modalities to reach substantive agreements.
We accept your proposal that we move the period for clarification to the next meeting. We however intend to offer for discussion our explanation of the parameters of that period for clarification or what is termed as “questions and answers” in the current agenda. Needless to say, the form and substance of the proposals submitted at this table by the past administration is seriously being reconsidered.
In this meeting, we hope to be able to get a clearer understanding of the situation of Commander Ustadz Ameril Umbra Kato and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF). We bring with us questions from our principals. We are concerned that this development may endanger our ceasefire mechanisms. We hope that the clarifications we receive in this formal meeting can help us allay the serious and legitimate fears of many of those who we now represent.
I close these first remarks by saying that meaningful freedoms can only be won with courage. For this forum courage entails that we can keep our minds and hearts open so that we can shape practical, viable and sustainable options that our principals and constituents can consider that will truly honor the many sufferings that our historical conflict has caused. I hope that all of us share in this ideal.
Thank you and good morning.
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