The Issue of Risk in Peace-building: A Personal Concern

1. The first question is, why is there a proliferation of arms and ammunitions. bombs and land mines  in Mindanao? This is not about the provision on

Demobilization in the Signed Agreement; it’s not only about gun running and arms smuggling either, which is common knowledge.

It is about the multi-

billion dollar weapons

Industry abroad whose marketing agents here have become report-

edly a serious threat to

peace-building and peace-

builders. Peace-building is bad for this business.

2.Who are these marketing

agents from abroad? Who are their local contacts? Is it part of their covert activ-

ity to keep violent conlicts and wars in Mindanao so the weapon industry will make contube to prosper? Are they directly or indirectly arming the  moro rebels, moro bandits and

kidnappers, warring families engaged in redo or family feud, the NPA’s, and the terrorist trainnees in secret hinterlands of Mindanao, an info supplied to me by an American expert on Southeast Asia? Were they in some indirect and clever way involved in arming killers of the Oblate Bishop Ben de Jesus and 3 other Oblate priests, killers of PIME Fathers Favali, Carzeda and Tentorio, killer of Irish Columban Fr Rufus Halley, killer of Fr. Satur, and the killer who attempted 3 times to shoot me and the gun-runner Amor Ramos who on 22 April 1992 threw a grenade on the spot where I was supposed to stand in religious assembly in front the Cathedral in Iligan City but because I arrived late it missed me but killed several children and wounded others? And how about the many massacres of Christians by Muslims, and massacres of Muslims by Christians during my 17 years in Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur? Enough of questions.

. Concluding reflection.

1.The questions presented here sound clearly negative and can cause pessimism. But I am a Christian and thereforeI must hope. What is the basis of this hope?

2. The basis of my hope is Jesus Christ whom Christian tradition calls the Prince of Peace because He embodies the true meaning of peace which is wholeness and integrity of the individual and community. This is why St. Paul calls Him our “our peace”, our “shalom” (Eph 2:14), the Hebrew word for peace. By the way, from Shalom is derived “salam”, the Arabic word for Peace from which also comes its derivative “Islam”, the religion of peace.

3. St. Paul in verse 14 of that letter to the people of Ephesus said that Jesus Christ was our peace because His humble self-emptying motivated by a gracious and forgiving love hidden in suffering and death on the cross was a unifying factor in bringing together believing humanity into God’s family.

4. Pope Francis seems to echo the edifying humility of Jesus when he said,

“I am a sinner”, and “who

am I to judge”. With even

these brief but loaded

expressions he is already hinting at the true meaning of “reconciled diversity”.

5. Finally, dying to pride,

arrogance, selfishness,

greed, deceit, and violence are indispensable personal requirements of  Christian and Islamic shalom- builders who is engaged in inter-religious and intra-religious dialogues. To people like the Christian missionaries, bishops, religious and lay in  Muslim areas of Mindanao, physical death is something inevitable, something they have to expect sooner or later. True Christian peace-building leads to the Cross.