Philippine Peace Process Navigates Milestones: From 2008 Tragedy to a New Chapter in 2026

The first meeting this year of the government (GPH) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Peace Implementing Panels on Tuesday, August 4, fell on a historic date in the Bangsamoro peace process: tragic in 2008, euphoric in 2011 and what in 2026? Eighteen years ago, on August 4, 2008, the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order barring the government peace panel chair, then retired General Rodolfo Garcia, from signing the already initialed Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), scheduled for August 5 in Kuala Lumpur. In October 2008, the Supreme Court, by a vote of 8-7, declared the MOA-AD unconstitutional but noted that “surely, the present MOA-AD can be renegotiated or another one will be drawn up to carry out the Ancestral Domain aspect of the Tripoli Agreement of 2001, in another or in any form, which could contain similar or significantly drastic provisions.” The peace negotiations collapsed after the aborted formal signing of the MOA-AD. Hostilities resumed, displacing at least 600,000. The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre in its April 2009 report said the internal displacement of 600,000 residents in Mindanao in 2008 due to renewed skirmishes between government and MILF was “the biggest new displacement in the world” out of 4.2 million newly displaced that year. As of March 17, 2009, the last report of the National Disaster Coordinating Council’s (NDCC) on the internally displaced persons, the number of displaced had gone down to 209,320. The government issued a suspension of military operations on July 23, 2009, reciprocated by the MILF with a suspension of military action but the peace talks formally resumed only in December 2009, this time in the presence of the International Contact Group composed of representatives of governments and international non-governmental organizations. No peace agreement was signed under the nine-year Arroyo administration. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo stepped down on June 30, 2010, handing over the administration – including the unfinished Bangsamoro peace process – to the next President, Benigno Simeon Aquino III. By then, Aquino was the fourth President (Ramos-Estrada-Arroyo-Aquino) passed on with the responsibility of concluding a peace agreement with the MILF and the sixth President (Marcos Sr-Cory Aquino-Ramos-Estrada-Arroyo-Aquino) to finalize the implementation of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and the 1996 Final Peace Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) signed by founding chair Nur Misuari of Sulu. The MNLF was the main revolutionary group before a faction under Salamat Hashim of Maguindanao broke away to establish the MILF and Dimas Pundato of Lanao del Sur, the MNLF Reformist Group. Aquino vowed not to pass on the MNLF and MILF Bangsamoro peace process to the next administration. Breaking protocol, Aquino and key Cabinet secretaries, flew to Narita on August 4 to meet with MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim and his Central Committee, to fast-track the peace process, with the intent of signing a peace agreement by 2013 so implementation can be done in the next three years until he steps down on June 30, 2016. The Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) was signed on October 15, 2012 by GPH peace panel chair Marvic Leonen (now Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court) and MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal. On March 27, 2014, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed by Iqbal and GPH peace panel chair Miriam Coronel-Ferrer. Aquino appointed members of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, the body that would draft the Bangsamoro Basic Law, Congress deliberated on the proposed measure but the Mamasapano Tragedy of January 25, 2015 made it impossible for its passage. Forty-four members of the Philippine National Police’s Special Action Forces, 17 members of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, and five civilians were killed that Sunday. The SAF did not coordinate with the GPH-MILF’s peace mechanisms – the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group and the Joint Coordinating Committee on Cessation of Hostilities – before entering the area for their mission to capture international terrorist Zulkifli Abdhir. Aquino was succeeded by Rodrigo Duterte who, as Presidential candidate, vowed honor the peace agreements. The BBL that did not pass under the Aquino administration, was passed as Republic Act 11054 of the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) under the Duterte administration in July 2018. It was ratified in a plebiscite in January 2019, paving the way for the establishment of the BARMM. In February 2019, Duterte appointed the first 80 members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), the body tasked with governing the BARMM during the transition period that was supposed to end on June 30, 2022. The transition period was extended to June 30, 2025, was extended again to October 30, 2025 and October 30, 2026. The 1st Bangsamoro Parliamentary Election was postponed from May 2022 to May 2025 then October 2025 and finally on September 14, 2026. October 30, 2026 is also Day 1 of the first elected officials of the BARMM. After months of not sitting down as partners in the implementation of the CAB, the Peace Implementing Panels of the government and MILF finally met on August 4, 2026 and signed a two-page Declaration of Continuity of Partnership in the implementation of the CAB. The last time the PIPs met was in December 2025. (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)