The issue of Peace and Security in Mindanao is a formidable challenge that the new P-Noy Presidency will face in the coming months and years.

To begin with, there are the two peace platforms vis-a-vis the Bangsamoro fronts – one for the MNLF and the other for the MILF. The two platforms are hard to reconcile given the competing leadership and ‘claims’ over the same peoples, same territories and transitional mechanism for governance.

The present geography of the Bangsamoro peoples is the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) consisting of five provinces (Basilan, Lanao Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi Tawi) and two cities (Marawi City and Isabela).

The other complication that the new government needs to face is the fact that the ARMM and the LGUs therein are presently the domain of the traditional leaders. They have legitimate claims over the leadership issue on the basis of elections.

Then, there is the issue of geography that draws lines between what is inside and outside the ARMM. As in any conflict involving ‘territory’, the issue of geography is a very contentious one.

In fact, boundaries and territories are at the heart of the conflict in Southern Mindanao. The hottest issue in the peace talk is precisely the proposed expansion of the said geography that includes portions of Lanao Norte, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and the three cities of Cotabato, Iligan and Zamboanga.

A key factor in the botched 2008 Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain is precisely the vehement objection of the above territories to their inclusion to the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.

While there is progress in the peace talks between the GRP and the two Moro Liberation Fronts, the two issues of territories and governance remain the major challenges for the new administration.

Then, there is another important peace talk that affects the peoples of Mindanao outside the ARMM. This is the GRP-NDF Peace Talks. For the most part of the Arroyo administration this ‘table’ is ‘suspended’. The talk is national in scope, yet the impact on security is felt locally, particularly in many rural areas of Eastern and Northern Mindanao.

The GRP and the NDF has inked the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights Law and the International Humanitarian Law or CAHRIHL. However, the implementation of the said agreement has remained contested. Except for establishing joint and respective secretariats, the agreement is largely in paper only.

The Visiting Forces Agreement and the inclusion of Jose Ma. Sison and the CPP-NPA in the US list of foreign terrorist groups froze the discussion on the economic, social and political reforms that would be the main agenda for the comprehensive peace agreement between the GRP and the NDF.

No doubt, the implementation of CAHRIHL remains a formidable challenge for the new government. But the clear imperative is for the peace talks to move forward.

The real formidable challenge for the new P-Noy Presidency is to shape its own understanding of SECURITY.

In not a distant past, the security sectors (the AFP and the PNP) largely defined what security is. In a police and military view security referred to the security of the state and government.

Today, most states are beginning to abandon the more restrictive and narrow understanding of security. The United Nations Commission on Human Security has taken the lead to expand the concept of security that is more inclusive of other basic issues that make the community or nation secure.

The UN Commission on Human Security (CHS) prefers to use human security. Human security means protecting fundamental freedoms. It means protecting people from critical and pervasive threats and situations. It means using processes that build on people's strengths and aspirations. It means creating political, social, environmental, economic, military and cultural systems that, when combined, give people the building blocks for survival, livelihood and dignity.

The UNDP's 1994 Human Development Report's definition of human security argues that the scope of global security should be expanded to include threats in seven areas:

Economic security requires an assured basic income for individuals, usually from productive and remunerative work or, as a last resort, from a publicly financed safety net. Unemployment problems constitute an important factor underlying political tensions and ethnic violence.

Food security requires that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to basic food.
Health security aims to guarantee a minimum protection from diseases and unhealthy lifestyles.
Environmental security aims to protect people from the short- and long-term ravages of nature, man-made threats in nature, and deterioration of the natural environment.

Personal security aims to protect people from physical violence, whether from the state or external states, from violent individuals and sub-state actors, from domestic abuse, or from predatory adults. For many people, the greatest source of anxiety is crime, particularly violent crime.

Community security aims to protect people from the loss of traditional relationships and values and from sectarian and ethnic violence.

Political security is concerned with whether people live in a society that honors their basic human rights.

The changing of the guards gives a privileged opportunity to both the Government and the various liberation fronts (MNLF, MILF and NDF) to revisit not only the process itself but also the direction of the peace negotiations.

The unfinished agenda in the GRP and the MNLF 1996 Final Peace Agreement is the contested implementation of said agreement.

The GRP claims substantial compliance to the obligations imposed by the agreement. The MNLF claims non-GRP compliance.

The OIC-sponsored Tripartite (OIC-GRP-MNLF) Review of the implementation of the said agreement has been going on for the last three years but with no end in view.

On the GRP and the MILF peace talks, the two peace panels cite the following feats notwithstanding the difficulties and the odds brought about by the August 2008 botched MOA-AD.

The new significant additions to discourse are the agreement on civilian protection and the entry of the so-called ‘international contact group’ or ICG in the peace talks.

The civilian population are, often, the unfortunate victims of armed conflict. The new agreement, in concrete terms, has obtained the commitment of both Parties to respect the universally-accepted human rights of the civilians notwithstanding the conflict.

Outside of the ARMM, the more important peace talk is the GRP and the NDF peace process. However, this talk is, for the most part, an ‘on and off’ negotiation. In fact, it is more an ‘off’ peace process than ‘on’.

Mindanao, though not played prominently, is a major locus of the conflict between the GRP and the NDF. At one time, the NDF had nine liberation fronts and it had strong presence practically in all cities of Mindanao including Davao City.

Their present true strength is contested claim and counter claim between the GRP and the NDF. What is clear is the importance of this peace talk regardless of what we believe.

The present global consensus is that Conflict or political difference is no longer settled in battlefield but in the negotiating table.

The most important document that has emerged from the GRP-NDF table is the comprehensive agreement on human rights and international humanitarian law.

The tragic comedy about this important agreement is the non-implementation of the same due to the disagreement on the mechanisms that would implement it. With no mechanism and implementing guidelines, the agreement remains in paper.
The more ticklish agenda in the GRP and the NDF talks are the political, social and economic issues that would ultimately shape the peace agreement.

The first agenda in revisiting the three peace fronts is a simple inventory of all the contested issues and make matrices of the differing positions not only of the parties in conflict but also the major stakeholders.

Second is to ‘build’ several platforms to openly hear and discuss these differing positions from the ‘lenses’ of the constituents that the parties boldly represent.

Third is honestly assess the so-called relief, rehabilitation or even the claimed re-construction done in the conflict areas by both government, multi-donors and NGO’s.

The multi-donors and international financial institutions like World Bank and the ADB believe that they are doing great yet the impact of their millions of dollars is hardly felt by the people on the ground, especially in conflict areas where they claim successful operations.

Their reports are well done in glossy papers and with photos that parallel the story of Alice in Wonderland. Based from all indicators currently used from mortality rate to literacy rate and access to health services, the conflict areas remain the poorest in the country and in Mindanao.

The major difficulty to hurdle is the belief that political settlement must come first before development. There are strong positions on this issue and these must be put on the table.

Then there is the issue of multi donors and international aid agencies. No doubt, the multi-donors and international aid agencies are concerned with the peace process. But goodwill and ‘assistance’ can, at times, be misplaced.

There are simply too many foreign players on the ground. For one there is the UN system; then the various international aid agencies that have their own interventions in Mindanao; then you have also the Visiting Forces (US) whose presence have become ubiquitous in Mindanao with their special planes, helicopters, drones, naval boats that shame our decrepit AFP.

The new President and his team need to honestly assess what are the real score on the ground. What really work and do not work. But above all, the new administration should see whether we are using the same compass in our peace process and the said compass is pointed to a ‘north star’.