MindaNews / 26 January — More than a decade after the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), its implementation is lagging behind the global average for similar peace agreements, hampered by delayed decommissioning, slow amnesty uptake, and postponed regional elections, among others, an expert on international peace processes said.
Madhav Joshi, research professor and associate director of the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM) project at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, said the CAB is “going through a watershed moment.”
In a research brief, Joshi noted that after the COVID-19 pandemic, “peace implementation mechanisms continue to work but face challenges in delivering programs, with a relatively slow process felt in every area of the normalization track.”
His piece, entitled “The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Year: What the Bangsamoro Peace Process Can Learn from Comparative Peace Processes,” was published last Friday at the website of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG), a Cotabato City-based think tank.
“According to Peace Accords Matrix data that compares 42 comprehensive peace agreements (CPAs) around the world, at the 10th year of the implementation process, the CAB’s overall implementation trajectory is already behind the average implementation rate of 77%,” he wrote.
The Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed the CAB in 2014 after 17 years of peace negotiations. It paved the way for the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in 2019. The peace pact covers political and normalization tracks in the Bangsamoro region.
Key implementation challenges remain in areas of implementing various programs and initiatives in all eight dimensions in the normalization track, while constitutional revisions remain an unfulfilled task from the political track, he said.
“Implementing these provisions are necessary to transform the MILF armed struggle into a peaceful political process to promote their livelihoods and development of the autonomous Bangsamoro region,” Joshi said.
The normalization track provides for the decommissioning of MILF forces and weapons, the transformation of six recognized MILF camps into peaceful and productive economic zones, disbandment of private armed groups, granting of amnesty to MILF members, the redeployment of the Armed Forces of the Philippines from or within the Bangsamoro region, policing, transitional justice and reconciliation, and recovery of unexploded ordnance and landmines, among others.
Amidst this slow pace of implementation, the MILF Central Committee made a decision to pause the fourth phase of the decommissioning of some 14,000 combatants, while the amnesty application did not attract serious interest from MILF members, he noted.
In July 2025, the MILF Central Committee, in a resolution signed by MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, suspended the fourth and final phase of the decommissioning process for MILF combatants and weapons, until there is “substantial compliance by the Philippine government in the other tracks of normalization, including the provision of socio-economic package as agreed upon by the GPH and MILF Peace Implementing Panels to the 26,145 decommissioned combatants.”
A total of 40,000 MILF combatants and 7,200 MILF weapons are to be decommissioned as agreed upon by both parties. Of this number, 26,145 MILF combatants and 4,625 weapons have been decommissioned in Phases 1 to 3. The fourth phase would have involved 14,000 combatants and 2,575 weapons.
As for the amnesty grant, only 991 MILF members have applied as of last January 21, data from the National Amnesty Commission showed. Their deadline of application is on March 4.
The list of slow, delayed, or stalled implementation of key priorities in the 2014 CAB also includes the postponement of the October 2025 parliament elections in the Bangsamoro region, which was postponed twice in 2022 and in May 2025, Joshi stated.
Despite the slow progress, he noted that both the GPH and MILF reiterated a strong political commitment to achieve peace and stability by implementing the 2014 CAB.
“The fulfillment of political commitment, however, can only be measured when the stalled peace implementation process advances,” he said.
Joshi suggested, among others, the conduct of dialogues in the peace implementation process.
“When parties are engaged in dialogue, not blaming, it sends a very different message to broader society. And, when in dialogue, parties need to listen carefully to understand each other’s perspective, which helps build trust. Trust is built by listening to the other side, not only speaking to the other side,” he said.
Generally, a successful implementation of the peace agreement could lead to a decline in the number of armed groups in a country.
However, he warned that “when the peace implementation process stalls (and) underlying grievances persist, the signatory rebel group may return to armed conflict, as they still have civilian support for the underlying grievances.”
As peace implementation is not an event but a process, there will be ups and downs, he said.
Because of the contentious nature of implementation, there are examples where parties briefly return to violence (e.g., Sierra Leone in 2000, Cambodia in 1992) during the peace implementation phase, he added.
“But a successful peace implementation process pulls in groups that had been outside the process previously, as it addresses underlying grievances and stigmatizes organized violence,” Joshi said. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)
