Cesar Montano, Giselle Sanchez urge support for peace process

MAMASAPANO, Maguindanao - Actor Cesar Montano and television host Giselle Sanchez on Saturday appealed to local residents to continue supporting the Mindanao peace process, meant to put closure to the decades-old Moro uprising.

Montano and Sanchez, accompanied by Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, toured Saturday morning Barangay Tukanalipao here, one of three scenes of the deadly January 25 encounter between policemen and members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, to call for a peaceful resolution of the incident.

Montano and Sanchez arrived on Friday in Cotabato City, about 50 kilometers northeast of the municipal center, to perform in a musical "Muslim-Christian-lumad solidarity concert" organized by Hataman’s office to highlight the ARMM government’s bid for the continuation of the now 18-year peace overture between the government and the MILF despite the recent police-MILF hostilities here that dislocated some 2,000 peasant families.

At least 44 members of the police’s elite Special Action Force, 18 MILF guerillas and four innocent civilians were killed in the firefights, which lasted for 10 hours and waned only when members of a Malaysian-led multinational peacekeeping contingent intervened.  

“A hostile approach to solve any conflict can never solve a conflict at all,” Montano told local folks while in a corn field in Barangay Tukanalipao, where 36 of the 44 SAF members died as they fought MILF guerillas they encountered after raiding the hideout in nearby Barangay Pidsandawan here of Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan.

Marwan was killed in the raid, but the policemen encountered MILF rebels and a third group, the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, while maneuvering their way out from Barangay Pidsandawan.

Sanchez said she is not bothered by the possibility of being lambasted by some friends and fans outside of Maguindanao, who are pushing for an all out war against the MILF, for simply expressing support to peaceful means of resolving the January 25 incident that shook the nation to its core.

“There is no better solution to the security problems here than initiating peaceful and diplomatic approaches to solve them all, by introducing socio-economic and political interventions to foster peace and development in the Bangsamoro communities,” Sanchez said.

Hataman, presiding chair of the ARMM's inter-agency regional peace and order council, immediately designated Montano as ARMM’s “ambassador for peace” after their half-day peace sortie at Barangay Tukanalipao here.

Senior officials of the ARMM government also joined in what was for them “peace engagement” of Montano and Sanchez with the local communities, still reeling off from the vestiges of the January 25 SAF-MILF gunfight.

Montano and Sanchez also both expressed sympathy with the families of the four innocent civilians that perished in the SAF-MILF encounter and to the thousands of villagers displaced by the incident.

“It’s the civilians, the children that suffer most in conflict situations,” Montano said.