Lauding the GRP Peace Panel

By Soliman M. Santos, Jr.
Contributor

THE government has not only set aside the initialed but unsigned final draft of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP)-Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD); it has also dissolved the GRP Peace Panel which negotiated the MOA. With the way things are working in this country, this can only mean that they (the panel) must have done something good. I therefore wish to give them some tribute.

In the Harvard Negotiation Project’s now classic book “Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving In” by Roger Fisher and William Ury, the first of four main points of method here is to “Separate the People from the Problem.” One of the notes under this is that “Negotiators are people first.” In negotiations, one is dealing not with abstract representatives of the “other side” but with human beings. They have emotions, deeply held values, and different backgrounds and viewpoints. That’s why one basic rule in negotiations is “Be hard on issues but be soft with people.” And who are these people whom many in the Filipino Christian mainstream are being so hard with now?

The GRP Peace Panel Chairman was retired Gen. Rodolfo Garcia from San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan. When he retired from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in 2004, he was Vice Chief of Staff. His military service in Mindanao dates back to 1970, after graduating from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA). He was a platoon leader and later Executive Officer in the 26th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army (PA), covering Lanao del Norte, North Cotabato and Zamboanga del Sur. He rose to become the Commander of the 6th Infantry Division, PA in Central Mindanao in 1999. His transition from man of war to man of peace was made in 2003 when, while still AFP Vice Chief of Staff, he concurrently becomes Chairman of the GRP ceasefire committee for the peace process with the MILF. After the military retirement, he joined the Office of the Presidential Adviser of the Peace Process (OPAPP) as an Undersecretary, was appointed a member of the GRP Peace Panel and later became its Vice-Chairman. He took over as Chairman only in July 2007 after the stint of Secretary Silvestre C. Afable, Jr. who oversaw most of the ancestral domain negotiations up to June 2007.
The GRP Peace Panel Vice-Chairman was Prof. Rudy Rodil from Upi, Maguindanao and long-time resident of Iligan City. He is a Mindanao historian, author of several books on Mindanao, and a long-time now retired history professor at the Mindanao State University (MSU)-Iligan Institute of Technology (IIT). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Philippine Studies at the University of the Philippines (UP) with a dissertation on ancestral domain, one of his lifelong fields of expertise. His active involvement in the government’s peace efforts started in 1988 as a Commissioner in the Regional Consultative Commission for drafting an Organic Act for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). He then became a member of the GRP Peace Panel for the third and final round of negotiations with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) from 1992 to 1996. He was a special consultant to the GRP Peace Panel for talks with the MILF from 2001, becoming a panel member in 2004.

A third member of the GRP Peace Panel was Secretary Nasser Pangandaman, a Maranao from Marawi City. He is the incumbent Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) since 2005. His stint in public service started in 1993 as Chairman of the ARMM 2000 Technical Committee. His involvement with the GRP-MILF peace talks started in 2004 when he was designated to the GRP Technical Working Group (TWG) on Ancestral Domain in his capacity as DAR Undersecretary for Mindanao Affairs and Indigenous Peoples. He later headed the TWG team dealing with the Territory Strand of Ancestral Domain. He became a panel member only in September 2007. He has a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Colegio de San Jose Recoletos (CSJR) in Cebu City.

A fourth member of the GRP Peace Panel was Ms. Sylvia Okinlay-Paraguya, a Higaonon from Impasugong, Bukidnon. She is the Executive Director of the Mindanao Alliance of Self-Help Societies-Southern Philippines Educational Cooperative Center (MASS-SPEC) based in Cagayan de Oro City since 2000. She is also Chairperson of the Mindanao Coalition of Development NGO Networks (MINCODE), Commissioner-at-Large and Vice-Chair for Peace and Multi-Culturalism of the Mindanao Commission on Women, and Co-Chair of the Economic Development Committee of the Regional Development Council (RDC) of Region X. She is a Chemical Engineer by profession, graduating as National State Scholar and College Valedictorian at the Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City in 1984. She also has a Master of Business Management degree from the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) as an AIM Scholar in 1990.

A fifth and alternate member of the GRP Peace Panel was lawyer. Leah Tanodra-Armamento from Sibalum, Antique. She is presently the Assistant Chief State Prosecutor at the Department of Justice (DOJ) since 2003. Her legal career started with the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) as a Trial Attorney in 1986. She then moved to the DOJ as a State Prosecutor in 1991. She was designated head of the GRP TWG on Ancestral Domain and, in such capacity, was appointed as an alternate member of the panel only in July 2007. She graduated Bachelor of Laws Second Honors at the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) in 1985. She is connected by affinity to Mindanao through her husband and in-laws from Cotabato City.

The first thing that has to be said about these people in the recently dissolved GRP Peace Panel is that it would have been completely out of character for them to commit any “grave abuse of discretion” in their negotiations with the MILF. They just are not the type. Thus Cotabato Archbishop Orlando B. Quevedo, OMI, had been able to say: “At present, I give the MOA-AD and the two peace panels the benefit of the doubt. They have worked at the agreement for years, painstakingly hammering out every word and every phrase, every concept and its implications. I know that they have the interests of their respective constituencies always in mind.”

Secondly, their credentials speak for themselves in terms of competence and loyalty. How can anyone doubt the loyalty of Gen. Garcia who did his part in “defending every inch of Philippine territory,” particularly from Moro rebels in Mindanao? How can anyone doubt the competence of Prof. Rodil when it comes to Mindanao history, the Moro Problem, the peace processes with the MNLF and MILF, ancestral domain, and the Lumads? He was practically the institutional memory between the successive peace negotiations with the MNLF and then with the MILF.

Lawyer Armamento is actually only one of several good Ateneo lawyers, all students of their constitutionalist guru Fr. Joaquin G. Bernas, S.J., who grappled with the legalities and constitutionality of the ancestral domain negotiations. And Bernas himself has lent his constitutional expertise to this peace effort. An interesting sidelight to all these are some prominent UP lawyers tending to be on the other side of the MOA debate. (But let’s not forget the provincial lawyers on both sides.)

Third, all — yes, all of the panel members have a connection to Mindanao, even Bulaqueño Gen. Garcia who had a long military stint in Mindanao, and Antiqueña lawyer. Armamento who still visits her in-laws in Cotabato City. As for those Mindanao natives in the panel, there was a nice tri-people mix: Prof. Rodil who is of Christian settler family background, Secretary Pangandaman who is a Moro, and Ms. Paraguya who is a Lumad. She also represents NGOs and women. And still on the matter of mix or balance, there was good enough gender balance of three men and two women (at least better than the MILF’s all-men panel).

I think it will be hard to find another good panel like this. We said earlier that negotiators are people first, human beings with families too. In the end, for them, as for any of us, I suppose, the most important appraisal is that which comes from one’s loved ones, like one’s own children who will ask you in the future what you did for their peace when you had the historical chance to do something. Take Prof. Rodil. He has been declared persona non grata by the City Council of Iligan where he lives. But his grown-up daughter Amillah writes, with much maturity:

“As of yesterday [Sept. 3], GMA has officially dissolved the government panel for peace talks with the MILF. (Disclosure to those who don’t know: my dad was part of the panel). I feel sad because I know how the panel has been working hard to achieve a deal. They were aiming to sign a final peace agreement by 2010. The controversial (and I think, misunderstood) Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain was part of the deal, and now it has also been scrapped along with the panel.”

“Attributing the breakdown of the talks to the Memorandum of Agreement itself is not fair. It was an attempt at a solution, and not (as some people think) something that GMA just thought of to extend her term. It was the result of years of negotiation. I believe what contributed to the breakdown of the talks was the series of knee-jerk chain reactions of the people involved.”

“For the good of all involved, I hope the ceasefire holds, and negotiations resume at some point. But the work to be done is not just with the negotiators. We should all be involved in creating a culture of peace, and it can be as simple as breathing deeply and thinking things through before opening your mouth, marching in the streets, attacking people, or ditching years of work down the drain.”

One big group of Mindanao civil society peace advocates, the Mindanao Peoples Caucus (MPC), through its Chair Professor Octavio A. Dinampo (remember him who was kidnapped with Ces Oreña-Drilon), for their part, sent out this text message: “All said and done, we still salute the courage and sincerity of Sec. Garcia and Sec. Esperon in pushing hard not only peace but the very Moro right to self-determination…we’ll remember that.” And then to Sec. Garcia: “We protest vehemently the insinuation of your mishandling the peace process. Forgive them for they know not what they are doing. And be assured of our solidarity with you and Sec. Esperon.”

Finally, what about the “adversary,” the MILF Peace Panel, what does it have to say about its dissolved GRP counterpart? Sometimes, the ultimate compliment comes from the adversary. MILF Peace Panel Chairman Mohagher Iqbal formally wrote Sec. Garcia: “We were saddened by the news that the GRP Peace Panel has been dissolved effective September 3, 2008. We felt that, indeed, the peace process has lost people whom we personally know are competent, trustworthy and sincere in addressing the long struggle of the Bangsamoro people.”

Iqbal went on to say: “We will always treasure the fruits of our hard work, sleepless nights and sometimes our constructive disagreements to thread together the two very far ends (very far when we started) of issues, particularly ancestral domain…This was not the end of the long journey to peace in Mindanao, but it initially showcased how far sovereignty and right to self-determination can harmonize and accommodate each other…”

“On behalf of the MILF Peace Negotiating Panel, we bid farewell to our worthy partners in peace, as my honorable counterpart puts it. Let me thank the good Secretary Rodolfo Garcia, Prof. Rudy Rodil, Atty. Leah Armamento, Atty. Sedfrey Candelaria, Sec. Nasser Pangandaman, and the energetic head of your secretariat, Director Ryan Mark Sullivan. We will never forget you and your wonderful team and we hope that in some future time and occasion we meet and cross paths for the sake of peace and humanity.”

Right now, it is the GRP and MILF themselves which should meet and cross paths for the sake of peace and humanity.

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