Recent developments have struck the people of Southern Philippines on what appears to be parallel and confusing tracks in the pursuit of peace and development in Southern Mindanao.

The first is the peace track. It began in full earnest during the first year of the PNoy administration with all the on going three negotiations: the GPH-MILF Peace talks, the GPH-NDF talks and the GH-MNLF talks.

In a much earlier time, the peace track seemed rosy and promising especially with the seeming progress on both the MILF and the NDF fronts. The two GPH Peace Panel Chairs were not only very knowledgeable about the issues involved but the parties on the other side of the negotiating table also held them in high esteem.

Things become awry about three months ago when ‘delivery’ capacity of the negotiating table was put in serious doubt. On the NDF Front, the doubt began when the release of prisoners allegedly covered by the joint agreement on safety and immunity guaranty was found wanting. On the MILF Front, the much awaited GPH Peace proposal turned out to be a ‘dud’ vis-à-vis the ‘sub state’ MILF Proposal.

In short, there was nothing really new appearing on the peace track horizon and the high hopes that greeted the opening of the three peace tables had gone pffft! There is NO new wind blowing the peace track and definitely NO BOLD proposal or BOLD actions. As many observers have opined, the B in the word bold has earlier collapsed and what remains is an OLD proposal and the usual old catch up program that has become the ‘default’ mode since the 1996 Final Peace Accord between the GPH and the MNLF.

The parallel track is the ‘Reform’ ARMM ‘fever’ following the passage of the RA 10153, synchronizing the ARMM elections with the national midterm election in May 2013. PNoy has taken the cudgel to spearhead this reform fever. During the signing of the law in Malacañang, he articulated his desired reforms. PNoy’s wish list contains a wide range of ambitious goals that would take more than a lifetime to achieve.

Number one in the list is putting an end to the rule of political families that have fostered a culture of electoral frauds. Whew! This would be tough for the OICs since the political families and clans are deeply entrenched. The political families are NOT the monopoly of the ARMM. In other regions they are called political dynasties. The ARMM political families are distant cousins of the dynastic rule in other regions and they differ only in degrees of when it comes to political frauds.

The other ambitious goal for the next twenty-two months is the abolition of private armies that are actually closely tied to political families. The call for the abolition of private armies has always been an articulated goal of government since the time of people liberation in EDSA in 1986. The call was acutely felt following the Maguindanao Massacre in November 2009. Many thought that the abolition of these private armies would finally come true during the declaration of Martial Law in Maguindanao and the continuing State of Emergency in the Provinces of Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and Cotabato City. Well, the abolition of private armies has turned out to be wishful thinking on the part of the citizens and a big joke!

In a month’s time, PNoy will appoint the new OICs who would steer the development and the reform track in the ARMM. These OICs are given the ‘road map’ to achieve during their 22 months stint as the leaders of the new ARMM.

As the selection process of the OICs has begun, we can only wish the national government ‘good luck’ in the choice of their ‘anointed’ to do the ‘job’. The job is daunting. In fact, it would be close to a miracle! After all, the OICs are not gods and the time frame is so short.

The real task is to make sure that these two tracks would NOT remain parallel and confusing. They ought to converge sometime and somewhere else they become the proverbial ‘pie in the sky’.

The crucial question is who are we as a people? From my personal experiences I note three prominent characteristics that are typically Pinoy.

The first one is the strong family and clan “connectedness”. Pinoys may find themselves in the remotest part of any continent or in the middle of the ocean; they may live in foreign lands for years and even centuries; yet they always find their way home, the Philippines.

But the Philippines, for most Pinoys, is not the group of islands now called the Republic of the Philippines. It is first and foremost the kin and kith – the ancestors, the clan and the family. Home is in their hearts and blood.

The powerful symbol of this ‘connectedness’ is the world famous “balikbayan boxes for ‘pasalubong’. At airports everywhere, balikbayan boxes are marks of Pinoys ‘coming home’. But these boxes also traveled by all kinds of couriers – accompanied or not - they all go to the Philippines as if the whole world is being “delivered” to the motherland box by box.

The movement is also two-way. Pinoys also “import” their closest kin and kith the very moment they get their legal papers. They begin petitioning them one at a time and soon they build a small barangay or network of kinfolks in their adopted land.

Second to family and clan is, believe it or not, patient work and discipline. You find Pinoys doing all kinds of jobs and odd jobs. They work and they are NOT beggars and they pay their taxes. In many instances, Pinoys have dual jobs and they still work on weekends! They obey rules and they are good citizens notwithstanding the Philippines’ notoriety for “palusot” and "connection".

But the real miracle is the fact that notwithstanding difficulty and hard work, they are happy. There is always a smile on their faces and there is laughter in their lives that they can even make jokes out of their tragedies! Pinoys are a happy people and a happy nation even in moments of passing insanity.

The third is faith and tradition. Pinoys are known for their belief and traditions. The Visayans bring their Santo Niño; the Tagalogs their Nazareno; Bicolanos their Peñafrancia; the Ilocanos their Santa Lucia; the Pampangos their Pedro and Santiago, and Zamboangeños their Nuestra Señora del Pilar, etc. They, too, have their Pasyon, Visita Iglesia and Misa de Gallo. These faith and tradition are uniquely Pinoys and they have become not only the soul but also the bulwark of strength against adversities and challenges, in foreign lands.

Today people admire Mother Theresa or Oscar Romero or Martin Luther King Jr. or Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela, or our very own Cory Aquino not because of their achievements but for the values and beliefs they stood for. They believed and lived with integrity and no embarrassment.

In similar vein, Pinoys will endure. And they are recognized by their fidelity to the values and traditions they stand for. These three values are family, joyful hard work and their faith & traditions.

Pinoys, notwithstanding the difficulties they've face, have found a way to successfully write their story line. It is the story of their family, tribe and clan. It is a “kindredness” shaped not only by blood, but also by the “ili” – the community and eco-system. And Pinoys are darn proud of their story and they share it with the world with a smile on their faces and joy in their hearts.

For the past days, the lines are abuzz and speculations are high on the agreement or non-agreement between PNoy and MILF Supremo, Murad Ibrahim, al hajj.

No doubt, the tête-à-tête meeting between the two is a major and daring feat in building peace in Southern Philippines. Post SONA, many people that follow the peace process have been disheartened by the silence of the President about it.

Suddenly, the peace process is back again in the President’s radar screen. This time around, the faces of the peace process are no longer the faces of the two peace panel chairs but of the PRINCIPALS themselves.

The event is mind-boggling, something akin to the historic meeting of President Cory Aquino and MNLF Chair Nur Misuari in 1987. That historic meeting was much objected by diplomats, the military establishment and legal ‘experts’ for the simple reason that it defied protocol and convention.

The issue is the fact that peace making does NOT follow any protocol and convention. There is no protocol or convention in peace making. What is important is the courage to break new ground for peace.

The president’s meeting with MILF Chair Murad Ibrahim is, no doubt, a very brave move to break new ground for peace. That it has taken place at a time when people’s trust in the peace process is diminishing is in itself incredible.

Peace making is not simply about politics and economics. In fact, it is first and foremost about TRUST. And when we speak of trust it refers to actual relationships of people behind government, fronts and institutions. While governments and fronts play very important roles, there is NO substitute to human factors that are crucial in building confidence between and among peoples involved in the peace process.

President Noynoy is the human face of the Philippine government as Chairman Murad is the face of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The face-to-face meeting between the two leaders sends a different vibration and special aura that are NOT measurable in terms of legalese of ‘diplomatese’ nor in terms of weight and numbers. It is the question of feeling and sympathy… a sort of disclosure where the protagonists, through that tête-à-tête meeting, feel and know that ‘they can trust each other’.

The move reminds me (perhaps NOT in equal measure) of the unilateral decision of the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to visit Jerusalem in 1977. President Sadat defied all protocol and convention including the popular sentiment in the whole Islamic and Arabic world to make peace with Israel. It was a visit that paved the way for the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Accord.

In similar vein, the historic meeting between PNoy and Chairman Murad is, indeed, a bold action. This reminds us, time and again, that peace making requires bold actions and for this reason peace making is never the vocation of diplomats and legal ‘experts’. The former thinks about protocol and convention and the latter believes in the letter of the law.

If there is something that the meeting has engendered, it is the trust between the two principals. And with the two talking as friends and lovers of peace, we can dream again of possibility for peace.

With a tête-à-tête meeting the two protagonists get to know the real person on the other side of the table (often demonized in many and varied ways). Neither President Noynoy nor Chairman Murad is the devil incarnate. What you have are two persons in search for the elusive peace in Southern Philippines.

The goodwill engendered by the historic meeting is the much-needed element, at the moment, in the peace process. While the President is dead serious in reforming the ARMM, the gesture is, at times, read as undermining the peace process.

With that meeting, the President gets to know the real face behind the label MILF. Chairman Murad is NO fanatic and definitely he is NO terrorist.

The task ahead is to seize the moment and continue to build trust and confidence among the stakeholders both in Mindanao and in the central government. In the final analysis, we need to constantly remind ourselves that the peace that we seek is not peace of one party at the expense of anyone but lasting peace for all!

In the coming weeks, the President would be selecting the OICs in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. What registers NOW in PNoy’s radar screen is ‘reform the ARMM’. In fact, the ARMM has taken a center stage, albeit negatively, in his ‘State of the Nation Address’.

Taking a cue from the now famous SONA, what the President wants is a ‘GHOSTBUSTER’ to exorcise all the ghosts in the ARMM.

The OIC Governor has to be a “ghostbuster” who will take the lead to bust ghost teachers/employees, ghost schools, ghost towns, ghost bridges, ghost electorates, etc. No if’s and but’s, the new OIC’s litmus test is the courage and the political will to put an end to all that are ghosts and mirages that have made the ARMM notorious for graft and electoral fraud.

The roadmap for reforms in the ARMM need not be convoluted in high polluting economic and development plans that would take a generation to achieve. What is needed in the 22-month stint of the OICs is a daring policy that articulates that it will no longer be “business as usual” in the ARMM. If it would be business as usual and with the same faces or re-cycled ones, you are sending the wrong message. You may as well kiss your reforms good bye!

Borrowing from President Aquino’s use of “wangwang” to describe abuse of power, the OICs should ensure there will be more “no wangwang in governance.” Concretely, it would mean that the OICs must adopt a new work ethic. Leadership must be by stewardship and not by entitlement; that perks of public offices and public representation be done away with; and that the caretakers must focus on improving the human development indicators in the ARMM.

The real challenge for the next 22 months is to improve human development indicators specifically on educational survival cohorts; infant and mortality rates; poverty reduction and access to basis services, particularly education and health.

There are things happening in the ARMM since November 2008. Among the incumbent ARMM officials, I would like to recognize the reforms introduced by Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo who reports to his office by 8:30 or 9 o clock everyday. He does his work and visits projects. ES Naguib Sinarimbo is, presently, the ‘no nonsense’ face of the ARMM.

Simple projects would carry weights and bring new image of local governance. Project like ensuring that farm to market roads are, indeed, farm to market roads and “NOT roads to my farms”.

The OICs must also tend to the peace and security of the citizens, not (just) their security and their peace, referring to the use of policemen as escorts of public officials when they should be doing police work in their communities.

A number of similar things can be done in the first 100 days and they can go very far to change the image of the ARMM, something similar to ‘no more wangwang, no more counterflow.’ This time, there should be “no wangwang in governance” - meaning the end of entitlements in public offices.

But in real terms, when we speak of ARMM, we should refer to the five provinces and one city and NOT simply to the regional set up in the ARMM. It is false and misleading to simply point to the ARMM regional government bureaucracy. After all the real constituents of the ARMM are the people of the five provinces and one city.

In short, the five Governors and one city mayor as well as ALL LGUs in the ARMM must be on board. Good governance, in fact, begin with LGU in the municipality and province levels. The governors and mayors must be held accountable for their stewardships. No doubt, it would be refreshing and mind boggling if financial transactions involving public funds suddenly become above board and transparent. This would be close to a MIRACLE!

I believe in the God of many miracles!