December 2003
Vol. X, No. 1

. . . also related to "Bringing Peace"

A number of Institute employees have recently returned from visits to the Philippines. Their assessment: though the atmosphere is promising for a peace agreement, a number of serious challenges remain.

Harriet Hentges, executive vice president of the Institute, visited the Philippines in August with Eugene Martin to develop an overview of the situation and determine how best the Institute might contribute to the peace process. Hentges came away with several ideas on how the Institute might help out. "A lot of the questions facing the parties have to do with such complex issues as federalism or autonomy and the settlement of claims to ancestral land—topics on which the Institute has achieved considerable expertise from our work elsewhere. Our experience also teaches us how important it is to focus on implementation issues at the outset of a negotiation. Too often, the parties start thinking about implementation the day the peace agreement is signed, with the likely result that the agreement will quickly founder. Second, the Institute can play an effective role as a backchannel communicator, allowing the parties to communicate in confidence without tilting the balance to one side or another. Finally, we are seen as an important witness to any agreement, leveling the playing field between the government and a group that remains fractured and as yet not very well recognized."

Hentges noted that several challenges remain. "We have to do a better job of bringing the Philippines' vibrant civil society into the peace process and facilitating dialogue between the two sides. And with the recent death of rebel leader Salamat Hashim, we have to do a better job of developing working relations with the new, still emerging next generation of leadership of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front." Yet Hentges remains optimistic. "While this is a long-running conflict, one that has gone on for generations, now is also a very propitious moment for reaching an agreement. As U.S. ambassador [to the Philippines Francis] Ricciardone told me during my visit, there is 'an alignment of the stars' to foster peace, and tremendous public support for the U.S. to play a role in those negotiations, in part because the people of Mindanao think they were best off during the era of U.S. colonial control of their islands."

Judy Barsalou, director of the Grant Program, visited the Philippines in late August through early September. "I was struck by how much of the conflict was rooted in economic and identity issues," she said. "These, even more than religious issues, seemed to me paramount." During her visit, Barsalou met with many individuals and institutions to learn about their interests and to tell them about the Grant Program. "The Institute is anxious to encourage more grant applications on the core issues of the conflict and its resolution," she said. "We're particularly interested in programs that will improve the Philippine public's understanding of the conflict in Mindanao."

David Smock, director of the Religion and Peacemaking Initiative at the Institute, visited the Philippines in mid-November, and had the opportunity to discuss the situation in Mindanao with government and civil society leaders as well as with numerous religious groups. "We focused on how religion intersects with other dimensions of the conflict and how religion can play a role in fostering peace. We attended a day-long seminar with the Ulama, Islamic religious leaders, and met with recently installed Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales of Manila, who spent ten years in Mindanao earlier in his career and is deeply concerned with the conflict there." Smock developed ideas for projects on how to stimulate interfaith dialogue and discussions on Islam and democracy. "There's a lot to do," he said. "And the Institute can help the parties negotiate the role that Islam can play within Mindanao society."

Alan Tidwell, program officer in the Education Program, first visited the Philippines in 2002 as part of a project providing faculty seminars on conflict resolution in the ASEAN countries. "The focus was on peace education in Mindanao, and we developed very good relations with Filipino academics," he said. "We returned to the Philippines in August 2003 to open a peace resource center at Notre Dame University in Cotabato City in collaboration with Catholic Relief Services. Our session was like a professional development program in peace education with primary, secondary, and university educators—most of them graduates of Notre Dame University." In the future, says Tidwell, the program would like to sponsor a faculty seminar at Mindanao State University. "Academics in these environments are not living in ivory towers," said Tidwell. "They are an active part of society—they form the NGOs, the activist groups, the groups that advise policymakers. That's why it's so important to reach them."