Whenever a capable government official is suddenly removed from his or her post by whatever reason, the question that immediately rises is, who will take his or her place?

Thus it was with Jesse Robredo, who left the Department of Interior and Local Government under the most tragic of circumstances.

So it was too with Renato Corona, who was removed as chief justice of the Supreme Court via impeachment, leaving a vacancy that was recently filled by Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Because Sereno was promoted from within the high tribunal, a vacancy for associate justice resulted. Last week, Marvic Leonen filled that void.

Leonen’s appointment to the SC, however, left an opening in the government’s peace panel that recently hammered out a framework agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Leonen was no ordinary member of the government peace panel. By all accounts, not only was he the lead negotiator, but he played a most important role in convincing the MILF to lay down their arms after four decades of strife, and agree to work on a just and lasting peace.

On more than one occasion, the Front has praised the work that Leonen did. The MILF was even among the first to congratulate the 49-year-old lawyer’s appointment to the SC.

And herein lies the rub.

The framework agreement is just that. It’s only a framework, and the details of the final agreement have not yet been agreed upon. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details, and the MILF and the Philippine government can expect some differences—perhaps a lot of differences—to crop up as the two sides work on the small print of what will be a binding contract.

There is too much at stake for the peace talks to falter after an initial agreement had been worked out, and expectations raised for all sides. A peaceful Mindanao can work wonders for the Philippine economy, and result in greater stability to the country’s political system.

It is no exaggeration to say that if a lasting peace is achieved in Mindanao, the Philippines can move even faster out of Third World status, into full blown developed economy.

More importantly, the tens of thousands of lives lost in the protracted war between the government and the MILF would not have been in vain.

President Benigno Aquino 3rd should heed the advice of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who said that a person who is an equal of Leonen must be designated as his replacement. And soon. This is to insure that the peace talks do not get delayed or bogged down at what is now a crucial juncture.

After the celebration that followed the signing of the framework agreement, and after the congratulatory messages from various world leaders, it must have dawned on both sides that the real work is just about to begin. It is one thing to agree to permanently end hostilities—who in his right mind would reject this?—but it is quite another to agree on how peace can be achieved that is not only fair and just to both sides, but which will be permanent?

Enrile said that the peace process is a work in progress, and “losing” Leonen to the SC could have a negative effect if no competent replacement is appointed soonest.

As leader of the government peace panel, Enrile rightly said that he will be a tough act to follow. In the senior lawmakers words, Leonen “made us all proud.”

No one is irreplaceable
There is a time-honored management principle that says no one person is ever so important to a company as to be deemed irreplaceable.

This is why companies such as Ford, Disney and Apple have not only outlived their founders, but thrived. In fact, the biggest and the best companies require that there always be capable executives waiting in the wings, ready to take over at a moment’s notice.

Continuity is important, not just in the private sector, but in the government.

Certainly Marvic Leonen did not exist in a vacuum. He can be considered a Filipino patriot who did everything possible to see to it that a solution to the so-called Mindanao problem could be found. But it is hard to believe that there are no other Filipinos who are willing to work as hard and as smart as Leonen did to achieve a worthy goal.

It may not be easy, but surely the Aquino administration can find someone of Leonen’s caliber to fill his shoes in the peace panel. He or she may or may not be a lawyer like the former dean of the UP College of Law who last week became an associate justice of the SC.

The important thing is to find a negotiator who believes that a just and lasting peace can be achieved in Mindanao, and will do whatever is necessary to achieve that peace.