In March 2014, just two days before the government’s chief peace negotiator Miriam Coronel Ferrer signed the landmark agreement to end decades of Moro separatist rebellion, she described the effort as a journey that had reached a crucial destination.
“There is no turning back. Only moving decisively forward. The peace train is on track. Its design is complete. Most of its elements are in place,” she said, adding that signing the accord was only “a short station stop in this difficult but rewarding journey to build peace, development and meaningful autonomy.”
On March 27, 2014, Ferrer, the other members of the government panel, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) negotiators sealed the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) in Malacañang.
They celebrated hopes of a new era of peace and prosperity for Moros and other Filipinos in Mindanao, where a new autonomous region and Moro self-rule would be established after 17 years of negotiations involving other peace panels.
But 12 years to the day, looking back at what has been achieved, the peace advocates were much less celebratory in the face of the stalled implementation of the accord and the important milestones that have yet to be reached.
“It’s hard to say ‘Happy 12th anniversary,’” Ferrer said last Friday. “Because, precisely, why are we doing this forum instead of…at least having a joint celebration or at least commemoration?”
Former presidential peace adviser Teresita Quintos Deles, former government peace panel members Yasmin Busran Lao, Zenonida Brosas and Senen Bacani (who attended via Zoom), and Ferrer presided over a forum in which they asked “Anyare?” (What happened?) 12 years after the signing of the CAB.
In a statement issued later in the day, they and other civil society groups warned that “the peace process is at risk of drift and deterioration due to leadership gaps, stalled implementation, and weakening trust between the parties.”
Two tracks
The realization of the goals of the peace accord was to follow two tracks—one called “normalization” and the other “political.”
Normalization included the critical component of “decommissioning” or deactivation of 40,000 MILF combatants, with about 7,200 weapons to be “put beyond use” as they transitioned from guerrilla fighters to productive civilians.
This was to be accomplished in four phases—the ceremonial decommissioning (done in 2015), 30% decommissioning (in 2019–2020), 35% (in 2021–2024), and the remainder in the fourth phase.
But on July 26, 2025, the MILF central committee announced that it was suspending the decommissioning of the remaining 14,000 combatants and 2,450 weapons. It said the government did not substantially comply with the normalization track, including providing socioeconomic packages for the 26,145 combatants who had been earlier decommissioned.
It added that “not a single one” of the combatants had successfully transitioned “to productive civilian life” as other interventions for decommissioning had essentially not been provided, except for the ₱100,000 grant per combatant.
For the MILF, Ferrer said, “the biggest issue has been the nondelivery of the socioeconomic packages.”
Marcos Jr.’s opposition
The political track includes legislation by Congress to create a new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the establishment of a transition parliament called the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), and finally an elected Bangsamoro parliament.
This quickly hit a snag as then Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. strongly opposed the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) drafted by the administration of then President Benigno Aquino III.
According to Marcos Jr., the BBL would create a “sub-state,” violating the 1987 Constitution. He also criticized the government peace panel for supposedly exclusively catering to the MILF and ignoring other stakeholders like the Moro National Liberation Front and the Sultanate of Sulu.
He filed a substitute measure called the Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region. It included a provision giving the Commission on Audit full jurisdiction over all regional funds and another giving the Philippine National Police chief full command and control over the Bangsamoro police.
His proposal also required decommissioning to strictly follow the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process of the United Nations.
As a result of the protracted disagreements over the bills, no autonomy law was passed when Congress adjourned in 2016.
The Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) was passed by Congress and signed by then President Rodrigo Duterte in July 2018 and approved in a regional plebiscite in February 2019. Marcos Jr. was out of government by then as his Senate term had expired and he had lost the vice presidential race to Leni Robredo.
But now, President Marcos Jr. has to implement the BOL.
The law retains the parliamentary form of government for the BARMM. Its features include: a regional police force still under the PNP but with a regional police chief that reports to the Chief Minister; shared control with the national government of strategic resources, like Lake Lanao; 75% of revenues from most resources to be held by the region; and 75% of internal revenue taxes staying in the BARMM instead of first going to the national government and then returned to the region as an allotment.
Two days before the 12th anniversary of the CAB, the President signed Republic Act No. 12317, an amendment of the BOL to set the first regional elections to Sept. 14, 2026. This is the fourth postponement of the elections, comprising another delay in a key component of the peace agreement.
‘Uncertainty,’ not ‘consolidation’
In their statement of concern over the fate of the CAB, the peace advocates said that instead of a “consolidation” of the gains from the peace accord after over a decade, there is now “uncertainty.” It pointed out that the MILF has no “credible government counterpart” with which it can continue to engage as no one is heading the government Peace Implementing Panel (PIP).
Cesar Yano, a retired general who chaired the PIP, resigned last February. He tried to step down in August 2025 after two years at the post, but he was retained by the President.
In an interview with MindaNews, Yano said he resigned in February “to give way to Opapru,” the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity led by Carlito Galvez Jr.
MindaNews said Yano reportedly “felt he was not empowered to exercise his mandate as [PIP] chair under the Opapru.”
In a Feb. 12, 2026 editorial in Luwaran, the official publication of its central committee, the MILF said the absence of a permanent PIP chair is not merely “an administrative vacancy.”
“It is a structural rupture [in] the peace process,” it said. “The MILF finds itself without a dialogue partner. The CAB, in practical terms, is in a state of suspension.”
The peace advocates and the MILF are urging the President to fill up the vacancy.
“The Government Implementing Panel remains underpowered, and direction across agencies is unclear. Core commitments are stalled—from decommissioning and socioeconomic packages to camp transformation and long-promised security sector reforms, including the disbandment of private armed groups,” they said in their statement, adding:
“These gaps point to a deeper problem: The national government has yet to fully internalize the CAB as a framework for governance.”
‘Temporary pause’
Last March 12, MILF Chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim said in a statement that the MILF “deems it appropriate to declare a temporary pause in several aspects of engagement under the peace implementation mechanisms until a full-fledged chairman of the government Peace Implementing Panel is appointed.”
Murad, who had been the Interim Chief Minister of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority since it was set up in February 2019 after the BOL was approved in a plebiscite, was eased out of his post in March 2025 by Malacañang and replaced by Abdulraof Macacua, the former chief of staff of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, the MILF’s armed wing.
Macacua’s first act as the new leader of the interim parliament was to ask all Cabinet members under Murad to submit their courtesy resignations. He removed most of them, keeping only a few, including Mohagher Iqbal, who was the chief MILF peace negotiator and Yano’s counterpart.
Iqbal called Murad’s removal a “regime change.”
For former presidential peace adviser Deles, the government’s moves undermined mutual trust and appeared intended to weaken its “peace partner.”
“You cannot proceed without trust. That has to change,” Deles said at the forum.
“I would tell the President, it’s very important that you try to keep your peace partner strong, with integrity, because you are still implementing [the peace agreement],” she said. “It is only with the two of you working together that the full package will be delivered.” CS
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