Peace at hand in the Philippines

Twenty years after Imelda Marcos and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi brokered an agreement in Tripoli to end a Moslem separatist rebellion in the southern Philippines, peace appears to be at hand in the long-troubled region.

Last week, a government panel and leaders of the mainstream Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) signed an agreement for the creation of a guerrilla-led council which will implement the provisions of the peace pact signed in the Libyan capital in 1976.

The establishment of the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD) broke the stalemate in the peace process springing from a fundamental disagreement on how to implement the Tripoli agreement.

It would give the MNLF, led by former state university professor Nur Misuari, a major role in developing the 14 provinces and nine cities in southern Mindanao island without the need for a constitutionally-mandated plebiscite.

The agreement is expected to be a significant part of a peace pact that is to be finalized in Jakarta by next month that will end a rebellion that has cost more than 50,000 lives since it broke out in 1972.

Past unilateral attempts by Manila to enforce the Tripoli agreement by holding plebiscites on the establishment of an autonomous government has been denounced by the MNLF as a violation of the pact.

After winning over the military rebels responsible for a series of coup attempts which almost toppled his predecessor, a pact with Moslem rebels will greatly boost (President Fidel Ramos') political stock and jump start development in the southern Mindanao which is part of a budding ASEAN economic growth area along the Philippines' common borders with Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.

His efforts at making peace with the communist forces have gained headway with the resumption of formal talks last month in the Netherlands. Four years after he become president, Ramos' peace efforts appear well on their way to a successful conclusion when he ends his term in 1998.

If he does succeed, he could very well be remembered as the soldier turned politician who was able to transform guns into plowshares in his time.

-- The Nation, Bangkok