Erumanen ne Menuvù local peace process

The Erumanen ne Menuvù and Metenggewanen/Matanggawanun-Maguindanaon (Moro) Affirmation and Re-Enactment of their Ancestors’ Upakat or Peace Treaty: A Local Peace Process in Central Mindanao

Background:

The present administration’s peace process in Mindanao mandates and provides space for community-based consultations. This is to the highest degree helps issues and concerns affecting Lumad peoples may not be directly addressed by formal peace talks. While there have been consistent requests by Lumad advocates for representation in formal peace talks, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process (OPAPP) can also work with particular Lumad communities to harness sustainable traditional peace building mechanisms to complement and support the formal peace process. Re-engaging Lumad peoples’ communities in this manner will build broad support for government’s peace efforts and help re-imagine and re-invigorate the peace process with peace mechanisms that are not only culturally sound and historically rooted for both the Lumad peoples and the Moro but also sustainable and productive contributions to Mindanao peace efforts.
Based on the Maguindanaon and Menuvù guhuran or oral account/history, peace pacts and treaties have been conducted for conflict resolution and peace building. Mutual respect, peaceful co-existence and territorial boundaries were clearly articulated in these peace pacts.
One of these traditional pacts is the one between the Vansa te Iliyanen of the Erumanen ne Menuvù and the Metenggewanen Maguindanawon-Moro. This treaty of mutual respect and peaceful co-existence between adjacent tribes has remained part of both group’s collective memory and remains part of the guhuran of Menuvù and Maguindanaon. The Vansa te Ilianen (one of the 11 Erumanen ne Menuvù collective dignity) as an indigenous community have organized structures and processes to enhance their traditional governance systems which enable them to engage and negotiate with their Moro neighbors.
It is being proposed that the presence of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process or PAPP of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process-OPAPP be requested to witness the traditional rites of reconciliation and actual signing of treaty between these groups. The presence of the PAPP and the institutional support of OPAPP to this treaty will establish government’s presence, support and acknowledgement of community-led solutions to complement the formal peace process.
The rites will be conducted in a place known as Pegeletan (which actually means “boundary”) or any area within the vicinity of Peheleten. Pegeletan/Peheleten/Pagalatan is part of the Rio Grande de Mindanao better known as Pulangi River mutually agreed by the ancestors of the Vansa te Ilianen and the Metenggewanen Mehindanew as the boundary. It is along the fertile river banks of the river. Kemangà, Bara and other places are among those places that have been abandoned since the eruption of armed conflict in the late 1968 when the horde of Ilaga or anti-Moro Christian Settlers fanatics attacked both Moro and Menuvù communities along Rio Grande de Mindanao/Pulangi. This area is strategically located somewhat between the Moro stronghold and the Christian settlers’ established settlements. The degree of tolerance between parties of the treaty make the Lumad peoples the only ones who can occupy their ancestral domain peacefully and productively while maintaining good relations with both the Moro and the Christian settlers.
Objectives:
1. To re-affirm and sign the Document on Menuvù-Mehindanew Upakat or Peace Treaty for peaceful co-existence and mutual respect between the the Vansa te Ilianen of the Eruamanen ne Menuvu and the Matanggawanun of the Maguindanaon Moro;
2. To showcase a community where government can re-engage Lumad peoples in the peace process through community-led solutions complementary to the formal peace process;
3. To provide mechanism to re-establish the community and the sustained maintenance of the treaty;
Activity:
To hold the Kanduli--- this is traditional ritual for reconciliation and actual signing of the treaty between Vansa te Ilianen of the Derepa te Erumanen ne Menuvu and the Matanggawanun/Maguindanaon-Moro). This will be attended by more or less One Hundred leaders of both the Moro and the Menuvu’.
The Kenduli is an act of joint celebration of both leaders is very significant to both Vansa te Ilianen and the Matanggawanun and for the sustainability of peace along the Pulangi River. It will start the healing of the deep inflicted wounds brought about by the larger conflict in Mindanao. Since the conflict erupted in late 1960s, incalculable properties and human lives were already lost to both sides.
The re-establishment of the Ilianen community at Kemangà will open the gate of the vast fertile land that is abandoned more than 40 years ago and benefit the Menuvù and the Metenggewanen in the area.