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Bishops and ulema launch “historic project” for peace in Mindanao

by Santosh Digal
More than 300 focus groups will meet in April and May to find a solution to the island’s conflicts. Some 6,000 people will take part in the meetings, which are also set to take place in Cebu and Manila. Monsignor Capalla calls the event an “historic project” that will benefit the “whole country.”
Davao City (AsiaNews) – The Bishops-Ulema Conference (BUC) is spearheading a broad initiative to solve the decades-old conflict in Mindanao, southern Philippines. About 300 focus groups will be organised in Mindanao and southern Palawan to re-launch the “peace process” on the island and jumpstart talks between “the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).” Negotiations between Manila and the rebels have been stalled by the aborted Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain which was supposed to delineate the territory of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

“More than 6,000 people are expected to participate in the focus groups,” said Fr Alberto Alejo, SJ, Konsult Mindanaw project team director.

Such meetings are supposed to address four questions: “What is your vision of peace? What are your recommendations on the peace talks between the government and the MILF? What can you recommend on the broader peace process? What can you personally contribute—or even sacrifice—for peace in Mindanao?”

Mgr Fernando Capalla, archbishop of Davao and BUC co-chairman, said that Mindanao-wide community consultations are an “unprecedented” event and an “historic project” in which the “whole country will benefit.”

MIFL officials have also expressed their support for the initiative so long as the government does not take any active role in it.

“If the groups undertaking consultation are getting direct or indirect aid from the government, then both process and result are suspect,” the MILF said.