Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s greatest and most lasting legacy in Mindanao was not just infrastructure or economics but peace—specifically, the framework peace agreement he reached with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that has since undergirded the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol said Wednesday.
Piñol made the statement in an interview on DZRH News program The Situation Report on September 9, offering an assessment of the former president from someone who was both a close ally and a witness to the peace negotiations.
The former Agriculture chief said Duterte’s approach was characteristically direct: laying the terms before MILF Chairman Al Haj Murad and telling him to take it or leave it, and that the decisiveness was what finally broke the logjam after decades of failed negotiations.
“It was he who laid down the cards in front of Al Haj Murad and told the MILF chairman, ‘Oh, ito lang kaya kong ibigay, take it or leave it.’ I was there during their one-on-one conversations,” Piñol said.
The statement is particularly striking coming from Piñol, who as governor of North Cotabato was once marked as a number one enemy by the MILF for opposing the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain or the precursor peace document that was struck down by the Supreme Court.
Piñol said he later visited Murad’s camp personally as DA Secretary, sat with him, and explained that as governor he was defending his province, just as Murad was defending the MILF’s constituency as chairman.
The former Agriculture chief said Mindanao is now more peaceful than it has been in decades. He said this peace, built on Duterte’s frank and decisive negotiating style, is the foundation on which Mindanao’s future development must be built.
