COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/22 April) — The Mindanao Peoples Caucus, a broad tri-people network of organizations and individuals advocating peace and dialogue among peoples of Mindanao, is convening its 2nd General Assembly amid expectations from the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that the group can contribute much to the peace process.

COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/22 April) — The Mindanao Peoples Caucus, a broad tri-people network of organizations and individuals advocating peace and dialogue among peoples of Mindanao, is convening its 2nd General Assembly amid expectations from the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that the group can contribute much to the peace process.

The MPC, organized three years ago to encourage and popularize people’s participation in the ongoing peace process in Mindanao, and to champion the people’s agenda with the hope of incorporating them into the talking points of government and MILF negotiators, is expecting around 250 representatives from some 50 organizations to attend the assembly to be held in
Sungco, Lantapan, Bukidnon on May 1 to 5.

Lawyer Mary Ann Arnado, MPC secretary-general, said in an interview that aside from electing a new set of officers, the assembly will sum up lessons in the past three years that would help them define their role in the next three years.

Aside from Arnado, The MPC is presently led by its chair Roberto Layson, an Oblate priest, co-chairs Jose Akmad and Magdalina Suhat representing the Muslims and the lumads, respectively.

Arnado believed that the niche for the MPC in the past three years was on developing people’s participation in ensuring the success of the truce between the government and the MILF through the MPC-organized Bantay Ceasefire

The ceasefire monitor has helped avert a number of encounters between government forces and the MILF and brought to the fore of the peace negotiations the traditional agreements on ancestral domain among Muslims and lumads.

Retired Army Gen. Ramon Santos, the government chief negotiator, corroborated Arnado’s claim, saying: “Everyone knows the positive gains of our partnership with MPC. “

Santos said that without the Bantay Ceasefire, a community-based organization, the government negotiators might not have been well accepted by people on the ground.

He, however, cautioned the MPC against being perceived as a partisan group advocating certain issues.

He suggested that the Caucus define clearly if it will take on the role of an advocacy network or simply a channel of information that would help disseminate the pros and cons of the matters being tackled by the peace negotiators.

Santos explained that he is encouraging advocacy groups to take clear positions on some issues being discussed at the negotiating table “so they can generate debates on these matters.”

But he stressed that they would also need a group who could objectively present to the people all sides of an issue “for our constituents to be able to come up with a well-informed decision.’

“What kind of role will the MPC take in the next three years? Will it be explaining issues on both sides or one particular side of the issue?” he asked.

Santos was grateful, however, for the “immeasurable contribution of the MPC” to the peace process in the past years.

“We are very much open to them and I know that those whom I have worked with on the ground are very sincere and courageous people who are not partisans,” he said.

MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, on the other hand, said that the MPC has “already done a lot in monitoring the ceasefire,” adding that the Caucus could still help more by joining and supporting the “joint advocacy” plan of the government and the Front.

Iqbal said that they (government and MILF) have already organized an advocacy team headed by government representative Sylvia Paraguya with Bobby Alonto and lawyer Michael Mastura as members representing the MILF.

The team will plan and implement a massive education campaign on the matters discussed and agreed upon by the negotiators.

He said they would be glad if the MPC volunteers its services to help the advocacy team as he also recognized the Caucus’ “efficiency in the field of advocacy.”