Gov't, MILF urged to promote 'culture of peace' in Mindanao

COTABATO CITY - Orlando Cardinal Quevedo urged the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to propagate a “culture of peace” among Mindanao's culturally-pluralistic communities to hasten the implementation of the final peace pact between the two panels.

The government and the MILF on Thursday signed in Malacañang the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, after 17 years of negotiations for a political settlement of the decades-old Moro quest for self-governance under the international right-to-self-determination (RSD) doctrine.

Quevedo said the “southern culture of peace,” which is needed to strengthen religious, political and socio-economic unity among Muslims, Christians, and indigenous non-Moro highland communities, can be propagated via extensive inter-faith peace dialogues.

Quevedo, who was designated cardinal by the Pope only last January 12, was among hundreds that witnessed the signing of the CAB by the government’s chief negotiator, Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, and her MILF counterpart, Muhaquer Iqbal.

Quevedo, also serving as bishop of the Cotabato Archdiocese, said he will spearhead more interfaith dialogues to complement the government and MILF’s effort to educate the public on the importance of the Bangsamoro peace agreement.

"We will engage, not only the (church) leaders, but also the masses and other major stakeholders to the peace process in Mindanao,” Quevedo said in Filipino.

Quevedo belong to the Rome-based Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) congregation, which operates schools in Mindanao that pioneered peace education subjects.

The OMI has been operating various missions benefiting Muslim, Christian, and indigenous people (IP) in Central Mindanao and in the island provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi since before World War II.

Quevedo, who was ordained to priesthood  in 1964, helped organize in the 1990s the Bishops-Ulama Conference (BUC), which groups Catholic religious leaders and Muslim clerics helping promote religious solidarity among Mindanao’s spiritually diverse sectors.

Many Muslim preachers belonging to the BUC studied Islamic theology at the Al-Azzar University in Cairo Egypt, and at the World Islamic Call University in Libya.

The first ever cardinal from Mindanao had also called on Catholic schools under the Notre Dame system, which has more than a hundred member-institutions scattered across Mindanao, to maximize the teaching of peace education not only among elementary pupils and high school students, but to parents and faculty members as well.