uphold, assert and defend all human rights for all!
uphold, assert and defend all human rights for all!
As the nation joins the international community in celebrating the UN declared International Day of Peace on September 21, we are hopeful that soon there will be more cause for celebration. We are confident that a negotiated political settlement between the GPH and the MILF is close by. This Peace Month of 2012 would be an extraordinary month and will be a defining moment in our decades-long peace journey.
We also commemorate and recognize that September 21 connotes a dark chapter in our country’s history- the declaration of Martial Law. Therefore our Peace Day celebration also highlights an assertion that peace requires that Never Again should we allow the loss of our fundamental rights and freedoms. It is a fitting moment, especially on this 40th anniversary of the Martial rule imposition to remember and honor the martyrs and heroes of that era who struggled against the Marcos dictatorship and eventually ousted the regime.
We are the Kilos Para sa Kapayapaan at Katarungan (KilosKapyapaan). We are civil society peace networks composed of members and partners involved in various tasks of conflict prevention, peacemaking and peace building from local to national levels. We joyfully welcome the statements and news releases of both the GPH and the MILF peace panels that negotiations have progressed substantially. And although the talks remain arduous, we sense and trust the parties are nearing consensus on a framework document.
Many of us have participated in the numerous consultations and assemblies gathered by the government or by the MILF. We held our own gatherings to hear and discuss the positions of both panels, and have provided them with our various proposals and positions on their common and respective agendas. We look forward to reading and engaging the actual details of the framework agreement when it is published before the signing.
We realize that this GPH-MILF peace agreement will not be a perfect document. It can never fully and immediately satisfy the goals of both parties and their constituencies. But at the end of very difficult and long negotiation, it must be a just resolution that honors the struggles and sacrifice of the parties, and meets the aspirations of the Bangsamoro people.
We believe that peace is being made possible, not only by the sincerity, diligence and insightfulness of the peace panels. It is made possible by the determination of the Principals - President Benigno Aquino III and Chair Al Haj Murad representing the MILF leadership - and by the affirmation and involvement of communities, sectors, LGUs, military forces of both sides that have sustained the ceasefire, as well as by the support of the international community.
Even as are optimistic that a peace agreement is in the air, we are aware that it will only be the beginning . The full realization of the forged agreements can only be through all-out and persistent implementation by all stakeholders. This administration's avowed peace legacy must be upheld by its successors, by all political parties and movements claiming to build a future of equity and sustainable peace.
We also have high hopes that this breakthrough for peace on the GPH and MILF process will have positive reverberations and will transmit an encouraging spirit to give a momentum in the stalled GPH - NDF peace negotiations. We pray that they will be inspired to return to their own peace talks as soon as possible and hopefully without any preconditions. Peace must be the way to peace, and there is no other way.
At this moment of happy anticipation, we are sobered but yearning even more for peace as we think of the many victims of war, the hundreds of thousands who have been repeatedly displaced and harmed, those who still bear hidden and unhealed wounds. Above all, we are haunted by the generations who have lost their chance for basic well-being and human development.
We in Kilos Kapayapaan and our respective networks commit to pursue and engage the peace processes even beyond any peace agreement. We will be more gladly determined to accompany, support and participate in the agreement’s implementation.
Our new day of peace is at hand! Our work for peace and justice continues!
Contact person:
Karen N. Tañada
Kilos Kapayapaan Secretariat
ktanada[at]gmail.com
(632)4266064/+639159932616
