SEPTEMBER is significant for the longest conflict-affected country in Asia — the Philippines.
The first week of September is the anniversary of the peace talks between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
Sept. 14 is the day of regular elections of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Sept. 2 reminds us to remember the promises of peace. Sept. 14 asks the Muslim people of Mindanao to exercise the democratic power that peace helped make possible.
September is also National Peace Consciousness Month, and this year carries particular significance for a population of 5.691 million. Thirty years ago, on Sept. 2, 1996, the Philippine government and the MNLF signed the final peace agreement, bringing to a close one chapter of armed struggle while opening the far more difficult work of building lasting peace.
The first BARMM parliamentary elections hold deep meaning for us activists who advocated peace in the streets. While there sprung a separate peace process between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and MNLF, both MILF and MNLF have joined political parties to compete for some of the 80 seats in parliament.
After three postponements, the day is here. Sept. 14 has been declared a special nonworking day to allow the region’s people to participate in this historic democratic exercise.
For those of us who have known Mindanao beyond the headlines, peace has never been an abstract word.
We know what conflict looks like when translated into ordinary life: families leaving their homes with whatever they can carry; children growing up surrounded by checkpoints; mothers waiting for sons who may never return; communities learning to live with uncertainty as though it were normal.
That is why 1996 mattered.
It did not solve everything. No peace agreement could. But it proved that even after decades of bloodshed, Filipinos could still choose dialogue over bullets.
The peace process continued. Negotiations with the MILF eventually led to the Bangsamoro Organic Law and the establishment of the BARMM.
Covering the peace talks, I remember MNLF founding chairman Nur Misuari and Robinhood Padilla walking side by side in front of the powerful Organization of Islamic Conference.
Much continues to be done for monitors to ensure the gains of the peace process cascade to the grassroots. Congress must continue to exercise oversight to monitor the peace process.
Elections and institutions alone cannot guarantee peace.
Peace must reach the farmer, the fisherfolk, the teacher, the displaced family and the child who deserves to know Mindanao not as a battlefield, but simply as home.
Thirty years after the final peace agreement with the MNLF, our obligation remains.
Remember those who walked before us. Protect what they built. And never allow another generation to inherit the wars of its grandparents.
Peace must have a memory.
And this September, that memory must also have a future.
