I TOOK WOUNDS FOR PEACE

I TOOK WOUNDS FOR PEACE A privilege speech, February 10, 2015, by DEPUTY SPEAKER PANGALIAN M. BALINDONG Representative, 2nd District of Lanao del Sur

Mr. Speaker, distinguished Colleagues, I rise to speak for peace and support the policy of the President to push for peace without let up, and call for this August Chamber of Congress to deliberate on the Bangsamoro Basic Law with urgency and pass it in opportune time.

Mr. Speaker, distinguished Colleagues, the Bangsamoro Basic Law is a product of peace negotiation, and the MILF and the Government worked for 17 years to put it together.

No doubt, it is a political resolution to the secessionist struggle of the Bangsamoro.

As we all know, obstacles littered the way.

But the parties were able to surmount them.

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For peace, to borrow from George Bernard Shaw, is not only better than war, but more infinitely arduous.

That cannot be gainsaid.

But I’m afraid I’m hearing the drumbeats of war within this August Chamber in the wake of the Mamasapano Incident.

Mr. Speaker, at this time and without a thorough investigation as yet, I do not wish to locate responsibility for the incident.

But I understand that it is a foison of an earthquake, and some of our colleagues were stirred into antipathy at the BBL and are pushing for the suspension of its deliberation.

I too felt the shock.

But instead of antipathy, I was moved with greater resolve to work for peace and mend fences.

I know war and it is cruel.

Many kin and friends, more than the figure of 44, died in the struggle of the Bangsamoro for self-determination.

According to literature, more than 100,000 of our people, most of whom were innocent civilians, lost their lives, their graves mostly unmarked and the whole of Moroland their graveyard.

And how they were done in and abused were much horrendous.

Many were killed in the masjids and while in prayers, their villages and masjids looted and burned, crops destroyed, draft animals either

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killed for meals or carted away, the bodies mutilated, pregnant women disemboweled, children left to survive without ears.

Moroland was a warren for soldiers and the Bangsamoro were the game.

Let me highlight instances that flash me red even to this day.

In Manili, Carmen, 70 Muslims were killed inside a mosque including 29 women and 13 children, one of whom was a 3-month-old infant suckling his mother’s breast when they were both felled.

In Siocon, Zamboanga Del Norte, Muslim women were herded in a school building and openly molested and later killed.

In the towns of Lebak and Kalamansig, Muslim women were dried naked under the heat of the sun and made to do striptease act, the pretty ones frequently taken to naval boats to satisfy the lust of its officers and crewmen.

Every night at least four to seven men took turns to divest every woman of her dignity.

Many professionals with promising careers have left the comforts of life and preferred a difficult existence in the care of rebellion to vent their pent-up emotions.

In economic terms, the war is a deadweight on the progress of the country. In a 26-year period, the Philippine military spent 73 billion pesos, or an average of 40 percent of its annual budget.

Mr. Speaker, distinguished Colleagues, I want this war to end now.

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I am afraid time will come when I have no more tears to shed for empathy.

I am now old and I know when that time comes, my legs will not carry me to the warfort of rebellion.

But many of my descendants and kin will.

The Muslims persevere and their armed champions have entered into peace agreements with the government and observed ceasefire holidays.

We Muslims love peace, its pursuit an injunction of our faith.

One of the names of God is Peace.

Our salutation is an expression of peace.

Our formalistic prayers end with words of peace. The Qur’an says “If your enemy is inclined to peace, Muslims should also be inclined.”

Mr. Speaker, the Bangsamoro have taken wounds for peace.

The Tripoli Agreement of 1976 between the MNLF and the Government were violated by the latter and went on to create an Autonomous Region for the Bangsamoro sans the participation of the MNLF and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The 1996 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the same parties were not implemented fully, and until Misuari’s Zamboanga’s show off, it was a subject of discussion between them under the auspices of Indonesia.

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The 2008 Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the MILF and the Government was scrapped off by the latter despite having initialed it.

Autonomy for the Bangsamoro was treated by Government as a political experiment and only half-heartedly passed an emasculated autonomy law, Republic Act 6734 and its amendatory law, Republic Act 9054.

Mr. Speaker, at this juncture, let me pose the question: What is bothering some of us as to be unwilling to take wounds for peace?

The voice of the first woman legislator in the U.S. House of Representatives and human rights activist Jeanette Rankin brattles in my ears.

She said, “You can never win a war than you can win an earthquake.”

Even Napoleon Bonaparte himself, the first emperor of France and one of the greatest military generals in history, puts premium on peace.

He said, “If nations want peace, they should avoid pinpricks that precede cannon shots.”

I emphasize, however one slices it, war is cruelty.

Earnest Hemingway says it is a crime.

It dehumanizes warring parties.

To borrow from John F. Kennedy, war ensues because of failure of wisdom. And in the Mindanao Conflict whose failure of wisdom is it?

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Mr. Speaker, Just asking, and I have no intention to dwell on the issue.

What I am concerned about is our state of affairs in relation to the Bangsamoro Basic Law. Do we stall its passage in view of the Mamasapano Incident and wait for what eternity will bring and miss altogether the bus of peace?

A great medieval bard wrote an eternal verity, a font of wisdom that should guide our action on the issues before us today. And I quote him: “As peace is of the nature of conquest, for then both parties nobly are subdued and neither party loses”

The pursuit of peace is not only a divine injunction to Muslims.

It’s a mandate on Christians as well. In the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul wrote: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.”

Mr. Speaker, distinguished Colleagues, In conclusion, I urge the Leadership to resume our review of the BBL, and not to equate the bill with the Mamasapano incident, or else, those who want the armed struggle to continue will have won.

We must not fail to take the chance to make our nation right, or the lives lost for the sake of peace, like those of the fallen in Mamasapano, shall have died in vain.

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It is NOW, or it may be NEVER. Thank you.

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