10/10/2025
The Point: The Real Goal of Peace
For more than twenty-eight years, I have focused on helping the Bangsamoro people finally live in peace. I started as a United Nations volunteer, then drafted government policies, and once as a Commissioner and Member of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, helping write the laws that create stability. I’ve given my life to this.
But here’s a complicated truth I’ve learned: our work to build peace has sometimes become a vast, self-sustaining machine. I call it the “peace industry.”
In the beginning, our work was simple and pure. We had very little money and were focused on one goal: a future without violence. We knew that if we did our job perfectly, we’d eventually be unnecessary. Our goal was to make ourselves obsolete so that we could do other important things.
But something shifted as the peace process grew and gained attention—and significant international funding. Machinery took over. Suddenly, more workshops, consultants, and “project officers.” We got really good at writing reports and using fancy language like “peace and development.” We started measuring success not by the difficult, real-world metric of lasting peace but by the easier count of workshops we held or reports we filed.
The goal changed, too. It stopped being about achieving peace and started being about sustaining the peace process itself. I’ve sat in expensive hotels and listened to experts who flew in just for the day, giving elegant talks about a conflict they didn't actually live in. I’ve seen organizations try to fix our problems with cookie-cutter plans they used in totally different countries. A whole economy popped up where some people—both local and foreign—now rely on the conflict, or at least the non-resolution of it, for their careers. The peace process became a career path, not a mission to be completed.
As we look at the budget hearings for the peace process in Congress, my advice to our legislators is this: It is correct that we apply transparency and accountability. The agency assigned must find ways to set a timeline for terminating its mandate to allow the proper agencies to do their jobs. True peacebuilding isn’t a permanent job sector. It’s an act of convergence—bringing people together so they can handle their own problems.
Every action we take should be judged by one question: Does this empower the local community to the point where my presence is no longer needed? We must give the support and the decision-making power directly to the community level. Let local leaders, women's groups, and entrepreneurs lead the change. They know the context better than any outside consultant and will be there long after the planes leave.
Moreover, stop valuing the number of seminars we run. Instead, let's value things that truly matter: the reduction of local disputes, the number of former fighters who now have steady jobs, and the local laws created and enforced by the people themselves.
As peace workers, we must be humble as we plan our departure. Our legacy shouldn't be a permanent, fancy institution. It should be a resilient, self-governing community that has forgotten we were ever there.
The dream of the Bangsamoro was never to host an endless discussion about peace. It was simple to live in peace. The “industry” built around that dream needs to quietly pack up its bags, its purpose finally, gloriously fulfilled.
