WE PRAY together with all Filipinos of good will that the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro leads to the completion of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement that is accepted by all.

This will only happen, of course, if it is God’s will.

Insha’Allah, too, the agreement will work.

The Framework Agreement is not yet the Final and Comprehensive Peace Agreement. But Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Secretary Teresita Quintos Deles is optimistic that “the level of trust between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is strong enough to withstand trials in the implementation of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro.”

She spoke with emotion yesterday at the formal signing of the Framework Agreement, saying: “Today, a child will grow up in our generation embracing the identity of the Bangsamoro and grow up with pride in a political, cultural and geographic identity respected in the four corners of the world.” Many in the audience—composed of foreign dignitaries, Christians, Lumads, and representatives of both the MNLF and the MILF, people who have been involved for decades now in the work of achieving peace in Mindanao—were also being moved to tears.

There is broad support for the Framework Agreement.

Secretary Deles—in a gesture that can come only from someone who believes that life is not only temporal and material but also spiritual, “offered” the historic signing of the framework to those who have died as victims by the wars of rebellion in Mindanao. “And to those who have died without seeing the sunlight of peace—those felled by bullets, and those cut down by hunger because of the ravages of war—we bow our heads in offering you this day.”

Warnings about the threats and trials ahead
MILF Chairman Murad Ibrahim in a statement on Sunday described this event a “milestone victory over of peace and justice over war and continuous conflict.” But his statement also warned that this agreement does not end the armed conflict in Mindanao. He said it just ushers in a new stage in the Moro people’s struggle.

“The MILF Central Committee nonetheless shares this fruit of the struggle with the Bangsamoro people and the indigenous communities of Mindanao and joins them in celebrating this milestone victory of peace and justice over war and continuous conflict,” Murad said.

The trials and challenges that both the government and the MILF will be facing in the months ahead include:

• Warlike moves by the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters army of former MILF commander Umbra Kato. It was he who attacked Christian towns and caused a crisis after the Supreme Court ruled that the GRP-MILF Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain was unconstitutional.

• The growth of suspicions, therefore undermining Secretary Deles’ faith in the MILF’s trustworthiness, that the BIFF and Umbra Kato are not really “rogue” MILF members but are moving according to an MILF plan to keep the Philippine government under siege.

• The eruption of an armed uprising by MNLF commanders and members. Chairman Emeritus Nur Misuari and his MNLF faction have voiced criticisms of the GPH-MILF deal but has declared their lack of intention “to go to war.” They only want the government to completely abide by the terms of the 1996 GRP-MNLF Final Peace Agreement and its antecedent, the Tripoli Agreement of 1976. But there are other MNLF factions. As our banner yesterday said the new MNLF Chairman, Muslimin Sema, warned that his group may be forced to take up arms again.

• The sudden resurgence of the militancy of Christian political leaders, with followers who can be formed into an army (like the Ilaga warriors who matched the ferocity of Islamic militants), if they feel their territories being oppressed.

• Many possible turns of events could drive certain states ruled by Islamist governments to persuade the MILF leaders to demand more than they are getting under the framework. As a result the MILF could become militant Islamists ready to wage war against the Philippine government and pursue total “Bangsamoro self-determination.”

May God will these dire things not to happen.