The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
“Horribly expensive.”
This was how a former official of the World Bank whom the multilateral agency tapped for development projects in the Philippines described the cost—in both human and material terms—of giving up on the peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front by rejecting the Bangsamoro Basic Law or BBL
Nigel Roberts, former World Bank director and author of the 2011 World Development Report on Conflict, Security and Development, said the consequence of abandoning the BBL would be the strong possibility that Mindanao slides back into armed conflict, “and the fragile boundaries separating those seeking a settlement and those who want no such thing disappear.”
The Mindanao conflict has claimed over 120,000 lives in the past 40 years, and has displaced 2 million people. Economic losses have been estimated by the World Bank at $10 billion between 1975 and 2002, according to Roberts.
War may enrich a few individuals but it bankrupts nations, Roberts said,
Citing the World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report on global conflict that showed civil wars, on average, cost countries 30 years of gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
“It takes about 15 years to get back to prewar GDP growth rates, and 20 years for trade to recover,” Roberts said.
The BBL has been legislatively sidetracked, as both chambers of Congress deferred deliberations on it amid high public emotions over the botched police mission to capture high-value Muslim terrorists.
The mission, dubbed Operation Plan (Oplan) Exodus resulted in the death of Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan but at a heavy cost: 44 Special Action Force (SAF) commandos perished in the process. The involvement of MILF rebels in what was concluded as a massacre of the elite police forces stoked public outrage and sparked opposition to the BBL.
“The fallout from Mamasapano continues. Almost two months later, emotions are still running high. The government’s handling of the peace process is under the microscope,” Roberts said.
Roberts said much more worrying is the way some leaders are talking of delaying or even abandoning the BBL.
Roberts noted a few people who want to keep the war in Mindanao going such as the “hardline ideologues on both sides and the war profiteers.”
“And, of course, those politicians who thrive on lawlessness—the folks, in other words, who have gifted parts of Mindanao with 50 years of warlordism, corruption and injustice. They’ll be in the driver’s seat, and they won’t be complaining,” Roberts added.
Roberts said war, peace and reconciliation are intensely emotional experiences, and thus need careful psychological management.
“Violence evokes anger, humiliation and the desire for revenge—passions that can drive all logic before them. This is why trust and belief are so vital to sustaining peace processes, even more important than concrete steps like ceasefires, peace agreements, constitutional amendments and reconstruction programs,” he said.
Roberts said that when confidence in a peace process falters, “as it is now faltering,” it is essential that national and community leaders act to prevent hope from evaporating.
“History tells us that peace processes never proceed smoothly. Many fail outright, or take decades to get anywhere,” Roberts said.
He cited the example of Northern Ireland, in which the peace talks with the United Kingdom inched their way over the last 30 years, beset by constant crises.
“As just one example: the assassination in 2009 of Ronan Kerr, a Catholic member of the new unified Police Service of Northern Ireland, by Catholic dissidents. This murder could have traumatized the province, but leaders and the public from all sides refused to let this happen,” he said.
Kerr’s funeral saw former enemies in church together for the first time, standing in defiance of those who wanted a return to war, he added.
Setbacks are inevitable parts of a peace process; the question is how leaders respond, Roberts said. “Do they have the guts to do what’s needed to restore public trust?”
He said countries experiencing major violence throughout 1980s and 1990s entered the new century with 20 percent more of their citizens poorer than those that remained at peace.
“Violence in Mindanao affects everyone in the Philippines—not just those who have suffered directly. Everyone’s prospects are compromised by a long, dirty war that compromises the country’s economic reputation,” he added.
He said the BBL might not be perfect, and it probably won’t fully satisfy everyone “but that is no reason to throw it under the bus in the wake of Mamasapano.”
“Confidence in the peace process does have to be restored, but the law then needs to be passed. After years of effort, this is the Philippines’s best chance of achieving peace—of joining the prosperous club of nations that fight their battles in court, not in cornfields,” Roberts said. Luis Leoncio