ON PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

Sometimes earning a diploma is not enough for us to know how to negotiate our way through society. My own degree, AB Speech and Drama was not enough for me to know how to work my way through life -- like how to face interviews at work, how to run a drama club and make it earn so that you could have funds for the next production, how to reach out to the public so that they would buy the tickets to the show, and most of all, how to psychologize the actors and actresses so that they would stick to the production till its final presentation, among other things. Instead, I learned this along the way -- when I had been producing shows myself,.

To negotiate should be an important part of knowledge in college, and possibly high school. Sometimes the young people could be misguided and think that to achieve they have to trade off something -- money, chastity -- or perhaps use "konek" in order to get by. Actually this happens only when the rules of acceptance in a job are not clear at all and the applicant is highly desperate to find a job.

Actually learning to negotiate is very important whether inside the family or the larger society, especially in the latter. Being in government most of all, requires knowing how to negotiate -- not just within the office, but also outside, when there are tasks to be done, like pacifying groups of people who want to get answers to their needs rather quickly.

Neither can one learn how to negotiate in the office, unless the "boss" initiates the employees to it.

But negotiating with the armed groups in our country requires greatest tact and diplomacy, i surmise. Tact is important so as not to hurt the feelings of the people one is facing to negotiate with. On the other hand, "diplomacy is the employment of tact to gain strategic advantage or to find mutually acceptable solutions to a common challenge, one set of tools being the phrasing of statements in a non-confrontational, or polite manner."

Of all the people I have heard talk about the problem in Mindanao, it was only Sen. Nene Pimentel who called the MILF and all other groups there, "our brothers." A brother is one we are related with by blood. By calling them "brothers," Sen. Pimentel is already considering them as his relatives, not strangers in our land.

I think that is a good way of starting any peace talks with the MILF and all other groups at war with the government. Let us call them "brothers" even if they had killed a number of our soldiers, simply because to call them otherwise is to deepen that schism between us and them.

The problem with negotiating however is that the people you are faced with on the table may not be the right ones who can make the final say on any agreement. And that is where the problem starts. Those behind the scenes could be a lot more radical and unwavering in sticking to their guns. That is where the problem begins. No one can invoke "palabra de honor" from any of those in the negotiating panel; instead there would only be "verbal exchanges," meaningful or not, it will depend on those at the back in the long run.

Say, everyone by the table are honorable and would honor whatever would be said there, what is the next? I think that as a citizen of the country, I would like to know the minutes of such discussions. I would like to know how the government panel is answering or responding to the questions of the Muslim groups. Here is where I think that the media should really get into. We must know how the government panel is facing them and then we would know why the discussions are bogging down all the time.

This much I would grant our Muslim brothers and sisters at this time: media space. All radio stations should have at least one hour daily program devoted solely to their concerns. All newspapers should also have Muslim opinion makers -- women and men -- so that we would know what they want and need. When writers talk of women and children, they must include them as well, including all other indigenous groups.Cultural programs must include the arts of the indigenous groups. Write-ups about food, about fashion, could also include those that would make the Islamic shine side by side with the "Christian" or western ideas of products and designs.

I recall now that in every production that the Kalipunan ng Malalayang Pilipina women in media theatre group, we have always included Prof. Kanapi Kalanduyan, his kulintang ensemble and lately even a dancer. Last January 8, 2011 during the centennial celebration of the creation of the UP Department of Biology, we present the ensemble in the beginning and during the program itself. They provided the kulintant music during the breaks. Then at our show with Paco Park Presents, last March 4, 2011, coordinated by National Parks Development Committee Gie Villasor-Arnold, we presented the dancer while an elderly Muslim woman, wearing a turban, played the agong.

By culturally integrating our Mindanao kababayan, we are giving them due recognition and respect of their culture; as a consequence, we would be erasing the idea that the Philippines is run by imperial Manilenos and Manilenas or metroManilans.

I think we have been able to cleanse many government institutions, especially the executive department, in our country simply because it has been easy for the media to get the right facts and information from them. Hence, scandals, scams and corruption do not go unnoticed. However, in the military scenery, all we get are second hand information -- from spokespersons, from this and that individual who could be indirectly connected only to the actual negotiations.

How else should we integrate them into our society -- as I believe we should not have a separate state for them- ?

Cultural integration is the key to winning their hearts and minds not merely money and never through bullets and bombs.