MARCH 27 was the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), the peace accord signed by the government with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). It took 17 years of negotiations before the pact was signed and another five years before the formal installation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

The BARMM replaced the old Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Under the new agreement, the BARMM's geographical jurisdiction was expanded with the addition of Cotabato City and 39 barangay (villages) in North Cotabato.

Having been immersed in the peace, conflict and development work in Mindanao as part of my then job as senior advisor of the World Bank's Mindanao program, I was invited by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (formerly the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process), to be a resource person in a forum to commemorate the peace agreement's 10th anniversary.

I had to regretfully turn down the request due to a previous commitment. However, I am sharing some of my thoughts on the prospect of peace and development in the BARMM in the years ahead.

The adage that "there is no good war and a bad peace" undeniably applies to the peace process in the region. Instead of spending scarce funds to support the war effort, the same resources can be used for development purposes badly needed in an area like the BARMM, which has the highest poverty incidence in the country.

Besides, with the Chinese security threat looming, it will be far more judicious for the country to spend its resources procuring materiel and training military personnel to stave off the external threat rather than address an internal security one. For this alone, the peace agreement is of strategic value to our national security effort.

On the economic front, the BARMM registered the second-fastest gross regional domestic product (GRDP) growth of 7.5 percent in 2021. Although it tapered off to less than 7 percent in the succeeding years, the BARMM has grown twice as much as the average yearly growth of its ARMM predecessor. Undoubtedly, securing peace, despite intermittent instability, yielded handsome dividends.

The downside is whether the 2021 GRDP growth rate can be sustained. Data reveal that for 2021-2022, the combined annual average growth rate of the BARMM declined to 6.61 percent, the third lowest among the various regions in the country. The Western Visayas, Cordillera Autonomous Region and the Davao Region registered the highest GRDP growth rates over the same period of 9.3 percent, 8.7 percent and 8.15 percent, respectively.

Undeniably, a massive infusion of funds through the automatic block grant from the national government as stipulated in the CAB is the main reason propelling economic growth in the BARMM.

In 2023, the proposed budget for the region was P85.3 billion while in 2024 it is a whopping P98.4 billion. True, the total fund release was lower and actual spending even lower due to poor absorptive capacity. Nonetheless, the amount is far bigger than the budget most national government agencies receive annually.

Other unaccounted resources are those from external sources like the bilateral and multilateral agencies supporting the peace process in the region. The BARMM is host to an alphabet soup of donor agencies, which provide a wide range of assistance from human capability upgrading (software) to the provision of infrastructure facilities (hardware).

The combined result of massive infusions from the national government and donor agencies should have resulted in more impressive growth rates. Why should other regions in the country with lesser resources given by the national government outperform the BARMM?

I can think of three reasons.

While there is a dramatic increase in private sector interest in investing in the BARMM, there has been no massive outpouring of investments given uncertainty over the future of the peace process as reflected in the intermittent occurrence of violence from extremist groups still operating in the region. Many are worried that MILF candidates might not win in the scheduled election next year given the challenge being posed by traditional politicians to its political supremacy.

Traditional politicians in the region are salivating to restore themselves in power given the humongous amounts that can potentially be under their control in the form of the automatic block grant.

Second, the MILF leadership is aging. Most of the key officials are in their 70s, nearing 80 years old. There has been no deliberate and systematic effort to train the successor generation in leadership based on potentials and merits, and not only on clan or ethnic affiliation.

While those who led the revolutionary movement should be awarded for their courage and loyalty, there are limits to their capabilities to respond to their fast-changing environment. The only way to successfully address new challenges is to infuse young blood, who are qualified and adept in dispensing governance in an era of information and communication technology, into the system.

Third is the manner by which the BARMM allocates its budgetary resources. The region's major economic sector is agriculture, forestry and fishery, constituting 36.4 percent of GRDP next to services at 38.9 percent. However, its services sector is highly dependent on raw material inputs coming from agriculture.

Ironically, its Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Aquatic Resources received a measly budget of P1.5 billion in 2023 and around P1.9 billion this year. The sum is far from agriculture's contribution to the BARMM economy.

If agriculture is a major source of employment and income in the region, underinvesting in it will mean that the leading economic sector in the BARMM is being starved of much-needed resources to play its role of promoting high and sustained growth.

Unfortunately, it is not only the BARMM government that has been infected with this myopic perspective. Even the donor community pays little attention to creating jobs and generating greater incomes. Most donors are focused on promoting peace through dialogues and other instruments of greater stakeholder participation since this task, though important, requires little more than a facilitator's talent.

Consolidating and sustaining the peace momentum will have to address the basic needs of the Bangsmoro communities. Fortunately, we already know what these basic needs are since 10 needs assessments have already been conducted, spanning over two decades, among stakeholders.

The main problem is whether the Bangsamoro government and the donor community will seriously take into consideration the findings of these scientific studies to guide their plans and programs.

fdadriano88@gmail.com

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