Cotabato groups call for peaceful resolution of Mamasapano clash

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Traders, members of the academe and Muslim and Christian religious leaders have joined ranks to amplify calls for a peaceful resolution of the deadly January 25 encounter between policemen and Moro rebels in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

Reverend Troy Cordero, leader of a big Christian sect in Cotabato City, said they are against any escalation of the tension in Maguindanao as a consequence of the incident.

“We support the Mindanao peace process and the efforts of the government and Moro groups in the area to build solidarity among Muslims, Christians and Lumad groups for development in our communities to gain momentum and benefit us all. Conflicts are 'antidotes' to peace and development. Conflicts are bad for us all,” Cordero said.

The 27,000 public school teachers in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on Wednesday unanimously urged hostile sectors calling for an all out war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to shut up and ponder on how armed conflicts can worsen the ARMM’s illiteracy problems.

“War is absolutely 'satanic' because it builds hatred, destroys communities and builds barriers among people of different sectarian identities. The education department of ARMM abhors armed conflicts,” said industrial psychologist John Magno, assistant secretary for operations of the Department of Education in the autonomous region.

Magno, speaking on behalf of teachers in ARMM's Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces, said any outbreak of hostilities in the region will affect the schooling of more than a million elementary pupils and high school students.

“And more than 80 percent of them are children whose parents are marginalized peasants, small entrepreneurs, laborers, fishermen and some are even surviving on a daily `hand-to-mouth basis,' or those whose parents can’t afford to send them to schools in peaceful areas," Magno said.

Magno said among the usual casualties in conflicts is the educational development of children in the countryside.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza on Tuesday appealed to her Moro constituents not to interpret the temporary suspension of congressional deliberations on the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law as government's absolute turnaround from the Mindanao peace process.

“The suspension of the deliberations on the draft BBL is not a termination of the peace process,” said Mendoza, who chairs the inter-agency North Cotabato provincial peace and order council.

Mendoza said the suspension of all meetings and hearings related to the enactment of the draft BBL was apparently only to give way to inquiries on the January 25 deadly encounter between policemen and Moro rebels in the adjoining Barangays Tukanalipao, Inog-og and Pidsandawan in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

“All Filipinos in these trying times only want to know the truth about the `Mamasapano incident’ especially on the fate of the 44 members of the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police and all other fatalities in that incident,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza said the incident was an offshoot of the SAF men’s raid in Mamasapano that led to the death of Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, who, along with ethnic Maguindanao accomplice Abdul Basit Usman, was implicated in recent deadly bombings in different towns in North Cotabato.

“We deserve peace with justice. We must not forget that the operation was a 'mission accomplished.' We are still struggling to win justice for the victims of bombings in the province and we want to know the truth about the encounter in Mamasapano,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza urged her constituents to refrain from entertaining rumors that the 75-member House committee handling the draft BBL has terminated its deliberation on the legislative measure for the establishment of a Bangsamoro entity that would replaced the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The creation of the Bangsamoro self-governing entity via the draft BBL is based on the government’s peace deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, which both sides crafted in Malacañang on March 27, 2014.   

Bai Sandra Siang, president of an influential bloc of local Muslim traders, said conflicts can affect the employment of thousands of people working in business establishments in Central Mindanao and other areas in the autonomous region.

“It can also displace those who belong to the labor sector, or the 'breadwinners' of Muslim, Christian and lumad families to be exact. War will, thus, cause dislocation and hunger," Siang said.