Ceasefire among feuding clans signed

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Leaders of feuding Iranon clans and local executives signed on Sunday a “rido ceasefire” to stave off any escalation of family feuds in four Maguindanao towns while efforts to establish a new Bangsamoro political entity are underway.

The term rido means clan war in most Moro dialects.

The government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front are aiming to create before 2016 the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)-led Bangsamoro political entity replacing the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, through the Basic Bangsamoro Law.

The crafting of the rido ceasefire, meant to deescalate bloody clan wars among big families in Parang, Buldon, Barira, and Matanog towns, and in nearby Balabagan in Lanao del Sur, capped off Sunday’s traditional Moro thanksgiving community banquet hosted by local officials led by Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, to celebrate the March 27, 2014 signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro (CAB).

Some 2,000 ethnic Iranon community leaders, and representatives from the police, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team and MILF officials participated in the twin events, held at the municipal gymnasium in Parang, a seaside town in the first district of Maguindanao.

In their separate messages, Ghadzali Jaafar, first vice chairman of the MILF and the IMT’s head of mission, Malaysian Gen. Abdul Samad Bin Yaakob, called on the public to support the Mindanao peace process to hasten the restoration of normalcy and economic growth in conflict-stricken areas in the south.

Mangudadatu said he is grateful to the local government units in the four predominantly Iranon towns, the MILF, and the Army’s 603rd Brigade, and a local socio-economic development entity, the Iranon Development Council, for having initiated the forging of the rido ceasefire, as a domestic normalization process in support of the CAB and the Oct. 15, 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro.

Mangudadatu, chairman of the inter-agency provincial peace and order council, and Jaafar also both affixed their signatures, as principal witnesses, to the three-page rido ceasefire accord, before Brig, Gen. Romeo Gan, assistant division commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and his subordinate-brigade commander, Col. Noli Orense of the 603rd Brigade.

“This agreement among feuding Moro clans and the local government units in these towns will surely improve the local investment climate and bolster the interest of Malaysian investors to put up viable agricultural ventures in partnership with Iranon landowners,” Mangudadatu told reporters.

He said he had repeatedly met abroad members of the Malaysian business community in recent months, and was delighted to hear about their plans to invest in areas in Maguindanao where rubber, oil palm and coffee farming can be viable, apparently enticed by the recent milestones in the GPH-MILF talks, and the absence of any military-MILF hostilities in the province since his first election as provincial governor in 2010. 

Parang Mayor Ibrahim Ibay, himself an ethnic Iranon, said Maguindanao’s hinterland Iranon town accounts for most number of clan wars in the province.

“And so we want our towns to become peaceful ahead of the creation of the Bangsamoro political entity as an early start of the GPH and MILF’s envisioned normalization process as indicated in the CAB,” Ibay said, referring to the final peace pact between the government and the MILF.

Mangudadatu, who described the rido ceasefire as “sort of a mini CAB,” said he is certain the cessation of hostilities among influential Iranon clans will hasten the implementation of the provincial government’s peace and development projects in areas whose community leaders are locked in deadly decades-old clan wars.

“It is so encouraging to see our people embark on this kind of a peace initiative just to build peace in their communities in support of the GPH-MILF peace efforts,” the governor said.