February 24, 2010 - The Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) has thought of another innovation of pushing “peace” in Mindanao in the form of “reflective dialogue”, while its peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is ongoing.

This was disclosed to the media by no less than by Secretary Anabelle T. Abaya of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), who said OPAPP will employ academic speakers to give details on the position of the government and MILF, and facilitate group discussions. It also plans to hire two speakers and get 300 participants in each of the 12 dialogues, nine of which will be held in Mindanao.

This will involve around 300 people in every region, with the aim of gaining their sentiments and views on issues being tackled at the negotiating table.

Abaya has designated Apo Hiking Society member Danny M. Javier, along with the two others, as "peace ambassadors" in Mindanao.

Javier, president of Pidro Communications Inc. -- producer of the Pidro T-shirts that depict Filipino culture, worked as communications and stakeholder engagement adviser to foreign-backed Sagittarius Mines Inc. starting last year.

He has since become visible in this city and neighboring areas to push the Tampakan project.

Javier, who was tapped to work on the new peace initiative, said the reflective dialogue concept allows for a wider consultation and participation by Mindanaoans.

"Whatever inputs will be gathered from the dialogues will be collated and given to the peace negotiating panels. With the reflective dialogue initiatives, the peace negotiations will now be made transparent,” he added.

Asked to comment on this, Khaled Musa, deputy chairman of the MILF Committee on Information, described the new approach as a menu designed to derail the peace process rather than to push it to a successful conclusion.

“Only now that the government is engaged in ‘deep careful thought’ of the peace process after 13 long years since 1997?” he asked.

He urged Secretary Abaya to better hurry up, saying she will be out of office in June this year.

Musa described the present government’s negotiation tactics, aside from making full use of the spoilers of the peace process, in talking to the MILF as follows:

·After signing several substantive agreements with the MILF, the GRP is trying to retrieve back what it had conceded to the MILF, like the identity issue; e.g. Commission for Muslim Filipinos;

·Trying to draw the talks away from agreed principles and paradigms towards internal constitutional processes; and

·Conduct dialogues to drag and dribble the talks to inconclusive end.

Musa appealed to current GRP peace panel to follow the footsteps of their predecessors, Secretary Silvestre Afable and Secretary Rodolfo Garcia, who stood by their principles up to the time they resigned or, in the case of the latter, “sacked” after negotiating and initialing the botched Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).

He said the two are honorable men who earned the respect of the MILF Peace Panel in their years of engagement across the negotiating table.