De Castro, an erstwhile veteran broadcast journalist who hosted the popular prime time show Magandang Gabi Bayan, while campaigning here for the first leg of his Mindanao sortie. "Full economic growth cannot be achieved in the South without genuine peace and order," he said.
He added that the decades-old civil strife has been shooing away investors to the prejudice of the Mindanao people themselves.
"I do not believe that there is no permanent solution to this problem. All it takes is strong political will by both sides to come to terms for the sake of national welfare, progress and stability," De Castro stressed.
He pointed out that both the government and the MILF have expressed a common desire to resolve once and for all their differences, and have taken initials steps toward the forging of a peace agreement.
He lamented, however, that such efforts came to naught after the MILF walked out of the negotiations, giving way to renewed hostilities, giving rise to unnecessary loss of lives and property, and more sufferings for the people.
"As a journalists, I have seen the dire consequences of the war between the government troops and the Muslim rebels on one hand, and between the soldiers and the communist insurgents on the other hand," De Castro said.
"After 30 years of civil unrest, we may now be having the longest-running insurgency problem in the whole world," he said, adding that its collateral damage to the economy and the society is "unquantifiable."
He argued that there is no victor, only losers, in any armed conflict.
He appealed to the MILF and the extremist Abu Sayyaf group to lay down their firearms. And follow the road to peace and progress already trailblazed by the mainstream Moro National liberation Front (MNLF) which signed a permanent peace accord with the government in 1996.
De Castro also said he gave up broadcast journalism in exchange for public service "because I felt there is more that I can do as an actual public servant.