The Advocates for a Peace Covenant (APC), a group of Filipino peace practitioners convened by International Alert’s former Board Member and Senator Bobby Tanada and Alert’s Senior Policy Adviser Ed Garcia, recently initiated a consultation on a Peace Covenant based on the respect for human rights and the pursuit of social justice in the Philippines.
The Covenant stresses the importance of adopting a negotiated approach to address the protracted armed conflicts in the country by tackling their underlying factors such as poverty, inequality, human rights violations, injustice, social exclusion and discrimination. In particular, it invokes the protection of human rights, urging coalitions across the political divide to work together to put an end to political killings and electoral violence, and to refocus their efforts on the provision of basic needs for the society’s most vulnerable.
Through the Covenant, which is aimed at encouraging multi-partisan support for peace processes in the country, the APC intends to catalyse a modest yet timely effort to broaden and deepen the peace constituency in the country. Opening the discussion, Ed Garcia affirmed, ‘We gather here to take decisive steps towards a just peace by calling on our people and their organisations to adhere to a Peace Covenant based on the respect for human rights and the pursuit of social justice. Peace is far too important to leave to politicians, diplomats or negotiators alone. We have to put people at the heart of the process’.
After four decades of armed conflicts and protracted peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, the National Democratic Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front – and previously the Moro National Liberation Front – the inherent causes and factors of the conflict have still not been seriously addressed. As the country’s peace pioneer, the late Senator Jose W. Diokno had argued soon after the people’s power experience in the eighties, that to resolve the situation of violence confronted by the country the priority needs to shift from the use of military means to a negotiated approach that would focus on ‘jobs and justice, food and freedom’.
The proposed Covenant attempts to forge a working consensus among political leaders to support principled peace processes as the country enters a crucial electoral season. The document was endorsed by various civil society organisations and by the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines, designated as the Principal Witness and Independent Monitor for this Peace Covenant. Acknowledging the importance of the Covenant, Leila M. De Lima, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, affirmed: ‘The work of the Commission on Human Rights and the Philippine peace process impact directly on one another. Efforts to promote human rights and achieve a lasting peace are inextricably intertwined’.
The APC will now seek to gain further endorsement from individuals, groups and movements during the course of the year and particularly during the campaign period in the run-up to the 2010 national elections. Further consultations will take place around Peace Day in September and Human Rights Day in December, coinciding with the annual Waging for Peace Conference where the APC hopes to formalise adherence to the proposed Covenant by diverse political parties and coalitions.
A monitoring process will also be discussed and put in place to ensure the implementation of the provisions of the Peace Covenant as a new government and new set of political leaders take office in the aftermath of the 2010 elections.