April 20-21, 2010 @Brokenshire Convention Center, Davao City, Philippines
Around 60 community leaders of the BangsaMoro, indigenous peoples and settlers from all over Mindanao gathered for the Peoples Peace Assesmbly to discuss the directions of the peace process and how civil society will engage the incoming administration this year.
The Assembly also launched the MPW People’s Peace Agenda (MPPA), the flagship project of the Mindanao Peaceweavers (MPW), a convergence of peace advocates in Mindanao which was conceived in 2003 by seven peace networks in the spirit of cooperation and concerted action towards a common peace advocacy platform.
Highlights
Opening Ceremonies
Input: “”Peace Process and Civil Society Engagement, Prospects and Challenges”
University of the Philippines Professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer shared about “Peace Process and Civil Society Engagement, Prospects and Challenges”. She points to the following main challenges to the peace processes in the Philippines:
- Getting out of the vicious cycle of on-off peace negotiations;
- Towards sustained peace building, transformed/transformative relations (conflict transformation as essentially transformations in relationships)
- New discursive practices
Among the ways she proposed to address these challenges is rethinking the game of “grand peace agreements”. She stressed that peace agreements are still important, but there’s a need for a more cohesive process. She said that among the possible approaches are having agreements on general principles and modalities such as guarantees for meaningful roles of armed parties and other stakeholders; cohesive government approach addressing all parties and giving more authority to peace negotiators (i.e. mandated by law).
Validation of the draft MPPA
Network caucuses and plenary sessions were held to validate the draft MPW Peoples’ Peace Agenda (MPPA). The draft MPPA, prepared by the MPW secretariates, is drawn from results of network and area consultations organized and facilitated by the MPW convenors.
