A brother for peace

Two months into office, President Ferdinand “Bongbong’” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) picked a very good neighbor Indonesia for his first ever state visit. In his brief pre-departure remarks last Sunday, President Marcos aptly described in Tagalog his trip to Jakarta as “mangangapit-bahay,” roughly translated: visiting the neighbor’s house.

A fellow member of the ten-member states Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia is our backdoor neighbor in the Southern Philippines. Like the Philippines, Indonesia is archipelagic and is considered as the world’s biggest archipelago. Literally linked by the seas, PBBM took the opportunity in the one-on-one meeting with his counterpart President Joko Widodo at the Bogor Presidential Palace to pitch the historical brotherhood between the Philippines and Indonesia in peacefully resolving and to mutual satisfaction the overlapping claims in Mindanao Sea and the Celebes Sea.

As both signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, PBBM recalled the delimitation of the continental shelf between Indonesia and the Philippines. While it took almost two decades of negotiations, the Philippines and Indonesia eventually signed a maritime border agreement in 2014. It was a landmark deal hailed by the international community as a model for peaceful settling of international disputes.

Before he left yesterday the City of Bogor for Singapore as the next stop of his state visit to another fellow ASEAN member-state, PBBM told the Filipino media entourage he plans to use the same strategy in his own attempt to settle our country’s overlapping maritime territorial with China and other country claimants in the South China Sea.

Indonesia was certainly significant for PBBM as his maiden state visit. It was the good offices of Indonesia that carried on with the Philippine government’s peace negotiations with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) to its final conclusion in Manila. Started in 1976 by his namesake late father, former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the Tripoli Agreement was signed by Libya with MNLF chairman Nur Misuari who led the Muslim secessionists rebellion in Mindanao. The Tripoli Agreement was forged after the widowed mother of PBBM, former First Lady Mrs. Imelda Marcos met with the late Libyan strongman Moamar Gaddafy who was then financially supporting the MNLF and gave safe haven to Misuari.

Based on the Tripoli Agreement, subsequent administrations pursued the peace negotiations with the MNLF. Among other things, Misuari-led MNLF sought to place 13 provinces under the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) that became the sticky point of the peace negotiations that dragged on for years. The influence of the Misuari-led MNLF suffered a leadership challenge that resulted in the breakaway group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chaired by the late rebel leader Hashim Salamat in 1978. The MILF itself got fractured into another breakaway faction in 2008 forming the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) headed by Commander Kato.

When the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) took cognizance of the Moro issue in the early 1970s, it was first handled by a Committee of Four -- later expanded to six then headed by Indonesia. After all, Indonesia also has the largest Islamic population in the world. The OIC expanded this to become the Committee of the Eight with the inclusion of Malaysia and Brunei in 2000.

Thankfully, Indonesia did not waiver in its active involvement in facilitating the peace process in the beleaguered Muslim-dominated Mindanao. Operating under the OIC peace framework, Indonesia hosted peace talks between the Philippine government, the MNLF, and OIC representatives. Finally, a peace agreement, also called the Jakarta Accord, was signed on September 2, 1996 in Manila. Indonesia also subsequently deployed military observers between 1994 and 2002 as part of the International Monitoring Team (IMT) tasked to oversee the cessation of hostilities in the Mindanao region under an interim ceasefire agreement.

Although the autonomous regions were officially created under the Philippine Constitution, the peace accords still failed to quell instability in Mindanao for various reasons. The 1996 peace agreement with the MNLF, for example, frayed due to the growing dissatisfaction over Misuari’s poor administration of the ARMM as its appointed Governor, and a lack of a sense of ownership by tribal communities and non-Muslims who had been largely left out of the negotiation process.

Through Indonesia-led Committee prodding, the MNLF and MILF were urged to “unite their efforts for the peace and development of the Bangsamoro people.”

The peace negotiations that stretched to six succeeding administrations will come to full circle with the election of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Parliament.

This last piece of the government’s Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro will culminate in the BARMM Parliamentary elections taking place in May, 2025. To ensure this full completion, PBBM has entrusted this task to Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. as the head Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) whom he retained on holdover capacity until the end of this year.

Now at the last stages of the peace process in Mindanao under the present administration, Sec.Galvez announced in our Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum last week that PBBM has impressed upon to the 80 members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) to perform well in their present posts if they wish to be voted into office in the 2025 BARMM elections. According to Galvez, the President gave this pep talk in the oath-taking rites of the BTA members headed by MILF chieftain Ahod Ebrahim as Chief Minister held at Malacanang last month.

Thus, the state visit to Indonesia could not come at any better time as our country observes September as the National Peace Consciousness Month. With a brother for peace like Indonesia, the cherished prosperity in Mindanao beckons in the horizons.