COTABATO CITY – The Bangsamoro Women Peace Conference held last September 16, 2003 adopted a 7-point declaration on the resolve to stand united and visible in every step of the peace-building process and in the continuing struggle of the Bangsamoro people for self-determination.
Under the theme: “Bangsamoro at the Crossroads,” the peace conference was sponsored by the GOP-United Nations Multi-Donor Programme Phase 3 in partnership with the Bangsamoro Women Solidarity Forum and the Regional Commission on Bangsamoro Women of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (RCBW-ARMM).
Some 205 delegates from cross sectors of society – youth, professionals, academe, non-government organizations, religious and government – participated in the gathering of empowered and well-spirited Bangsamoro women.
The Bangsamoro women affirm the inalienable right of the Bangsamoro to determine their political, economic, and socio-cultural destiny. This historic right, they said, is founded on the legacy of self-rule and sovereignty, albeit de facto, in the political institutions of the Sulu and Maguindanao Sultanates, the Four Maranao principalities and the other indigenous forms of local self-government.
They affirm the self-claimed “Bangsamoro” as a collective identity, uniting the mostly Muslim 13 ethno-linguistic groups peopling the hills and coasts spanning the islands of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan in a territory they claim as their homeland.
The Bangsamoro territory and homeland and the natural resources within are owned by the present and future generations of the Bangsamoro in the same manner that the emblems of cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and symbols of their way of life and traditions are forever etched in collective memory, stated in the declaration.
Participants believe that only in a state of freedom to determine the course of Bangsamoro’s destiny can justice be realized and peace and development be meaningful.
“Only when the Bangsamoro can be free and remain proud and dignified as a people and enjoy their rights individually and collectively, can genuine peace and development be achieved,” said Tarhata Maglangit, Chairperson of the RCBW-ARMM.
ARMM Regional Governor Parouk Hussin, in his message read by Sharifa Pearlsia A. Dans, HRMO V of the Office of the Regional Governor, urged the Bangsamoro women from all parts of Mindanao to make their voices heard so that collectively they can push for an agenda that can address pressing issues and concerns closer to their hearts. The Moro women stress the primacy of justice in any move towards peace even as they noted, “To date, the Bangsamoro victims of Human Rights violations during the Marcos dictatorship up to the present regime have not been indemnified. Professor Nur Misuari remains a political detainee without due process. As atrocities, violence and fear continue, oppressors and perpetrators roam freely enjoying absolute impunity because of the incompetence and inadequacy of the present justice system.”
Efforts to denigrate and demonize the noble ideals of Islam, which has been pervasively sensationalized and promoted in the media and perpetuated in the battle cry of US-instigated “War against Terror” was vehemently opposed and denounced by the participants.
“Invoking the Qur’anic provisions on equality of men and women and the complementing roles of genders in upholding the values and ideals of Islam, we affirm that, in striving for social justice, equality and peace, the Bangsamoro women are equal in duties, obligations and responsibility with that of men and, at the same time, partners in advancing the Bangsamoro cause for self-determination,” the 5-page declaration stated.
End.
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