Editorial

Coming together for good

        The 18th ASIAN Games opened on the night of August 18 with  participating nations converging at Jakarta Palembang in Indonesia, which is also an archipelago like the Philippines, one of the gaming competitors in the event. The opening ceremony was magnificent, well spent and very colorful that is much entertaining even only viewed live through television.

        These athletes from different nations play to demonstrate their prowess in sports and most especially, demonstrate the values of sportsmanship, camaraderie, and cultural understanding. Notably, the two Koreas marched as one, showing no divisiveness among two sovereign states, separated only perhaps by differing ideologies --- communism and democracy. So the two can come together through sports, hoping that the talk for peace would finally reunite the Koreas... they alone can come together as one.

        In analogy, different organizations/groups with differing ideologies can co-exist and come into terms through dialogical communication and interplay. After long years of negotiation, the Moro National Liberation Front came into peace agreement with the Philippine Government and so with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a break-away group from the MNLF. The GPH-MILF talks paved way to the signing of the Bangsamoro Organic Law that will establish the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a parliamentary-democracy political set-up, which could also be a prelude to the formation of a federated region/state should federalism in the country is pushed forward.

        If nations come together in sports, if two Koreas march together in sports as one, then conflicting or warring groups can come together in a venue to thresh out differences and craft a peace agreement without

bloodshed. Anything is possible if we all listen to reason and spare innocent civilians from harm and meaningless destruction as this will only bleed to avenge and further distancing from each other. Hopefully, the Bangsamoro autonomy paradigm will lead us to the patch for lasting peace as this will also advance development. Of course, the peace process takes time but for so long it moves and finally the settlement. Historically, there were West and East Germany and then one power Germany.

        We know that coming together to resolve conflict is not that simple because of biases and prejudices, hatred, and suspicions. But conflict as a paradigm has its function toward change as this leads to accommodation to ease pain and further harm and restore order to make life more livable. For after a storm comes the light from the sun.

        We have to come together to process what many would want or desire --- PEACE, UNITY, and SOLIDARITY with prospect for co-existence. Sounds heavenly but it can be done… so be it! In this, all emerge as winners.