Peace rally at the Oval of the Iligan City High School with MNLF commander Omar Solitario Ali (extreme right) sometime in 1987. (L to R) Col. Raul Aquino, military commander of the Lanao provinces; then Iligan Bishop Fernando Capalla; and Ike delos Reyes of the National Democratic Front-Northwestern Mindanao. MindaNews file photo by BOBBY TIMONERA
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 8 January) – Meranaw civic leader and peace advocate Samira Gutoc acknowledged the contribution of Davao Archbishop Emeritus Fernando Capalla in promoting interfaith dialogues in Mindanao.
Paying her last respects to the late archbishop on Monday, January 8, Gutoc noted that “peace talks were possible in Mindanao because of interfaith workers like Capalla.”
She pointed out that while the peace talks then between the government and Moro rebel fronts were the formal ones, the interfaith dialogues were the “back channeling method.”
“It is the gate to the people. It’s the frontline to the church community, to the masjid community,” Gutoc said.
Capalla, one of the founders of the Bishops Ulama Conference (BUC), passed away on January 6 at the age of 89.
He co-convened the Mindanao Bishops-Ulama Forum (now Conference) in November 1996, an interfaith mechanism that assisted in the peace process in Mindanao, initially in the aftermath of the signing in September 1996 of the Final Peace Agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
Gutoc recalled that Capalla had mentored them as young peace advocates, particularly during the 2000 all-out war ordered by deposed President Joseph Estrada against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which eventually signed a peace agreement with the government in 2014.
“He removed all politicians in our minds. Sila lang yung nakikita namin (It was them that we see) in our minds, sila lang ang (they’re the only) celebrity, wala kaming social media noon (we don’t have social media then),” she said, referring to the BUC.
Gutoc stressed that the BUC served as the “gatekeeper” to the grassroots communities.
“I was lecturing for the youth commission and him as BUC before the MILF youth. They don’t believe that Christians can be our friends. But because we’re exposed to Bishop – me even wearing a hijab and a woman – we (proved) that we can be friends with Christians,” she said.
The BUC, she added, had inspired her and her fellow Muslim peace advocates that collaboration is possible.
Gutoc further recalled that amid the war in 2000, Capalla managed to initiate several peacebuilding activities on the ground.
“He is a man of history. I think God gave him to us because he had to solve mistrust at the highest level at that time. He left that foundation to us until the formal peace process was concluded.” (MindaNews)
