Balázs Áron Kovács, Practitioner Consultant
The Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) in 2014, ending a civil war that had been going on for nearly four decades.
While the two parties had many disagreements, they robustly agreed to combat corruption, which they associated with their common rivals––the political clans who traditionally control politics and the economy in the region.
Anti-corruption: conspicuous by its absence in the 2014 peace agreement
Ten years into the agreement’s implementation, the peace process is largely on track. Not so with cracking down on corruption. While the peace agreement mentions inclusivity and accountability, it does not mention anti-corruption.
The spirit was willing, so what went wrong?
How is it that the parties have made much progress on hugely contentious issues such as secession and constitutional powers, yet floundered on something they had agreed on from the beginning? Based on research conducted in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, I will try to answer this question, and draw some lessons about options to address corruption within the limitations of a formal peace process.
"In an age of shrinking civil society space, coordinated efforts are needed to ensure a place in the process for civil society, including peace and anti-corruption advocates."
Three interconnected factors contributed to this outcome: the negotiated transition, insufficient political will, and lack of governing capacity. (These can also serve as entry points for peace- and anti-corruption advocates.)
It was a negotiated transition
Paradoxical as it may seem, the fundamental problem is that the conflict was resolved through a negotiated settlement. Of course, I would never advocate for the continuation of a war when the parties demonstrate willingness to conclude a peaceful settlement. But war-to-peace transitions based on compromise bind the hands of a new government in a way that military victory or government overthrow does not.
There wasn’t enough political will
Political will here means the determination to take and carry out measures even when they come at a cost. Some political will was present but clearly insufficient. While the parties agreed that levels of corruption needed to drop for the BARMM to function legitimately, this is not explicitly mentioned in the agreement. The parties made concerted efforts to build up the capacity of the MILF to govern the region, but they were not sustained over the 20-year span of the peace process.
Two main ‘should haves’ emerge
First, corruption should have been named and addressed more aggressively. The parties agreed that it was a bad thing, but their motives were less principled. Both perceived the entrenched political clans as adversaries, and corruption as key to their grip on power: they wanted to curb their rivals’ power more than they wanted to clean up politics and the economy. Ultimately, they were unable to muster the determination to confront the clans, they chose compromise, and they went with ambiguous wording in the CAB.
Second, anti-corruption efforts should have been consistent. With all six changes of government, the approach to the peace negotiations, corruption, civil society, and bottom-up initiatives within the government bureaucracy changed too. This is a structural problem of the Philippines, an oligarchic state captured from village to the presidency by the political clans and dynasties.
The leadership of the MILF was serious about corruption on both religious and secular grounds. In 2021 they introduced ‘Moral Governance’, which was effectively their official approach to combating corruption. When asked about its effectiveness, interviewees reported observing a slight reduction in corruption and, interestingly, that female government members were more effective at fighting it. They did suggest, however, that though welcome, this trend would probably be temporary, as the leadership does not have the teeth to discipline allies, family members, and former MILF commanders.
The will to curb corruption has been uneven and ceded to the political pressures to sign an agreement, to form the autonomous government, and to hold elections. The political reality of the Bangsamoro and the Philippines reared its head too: the traditional politicians that are most associated with entrenched corruption remain central in the Bangsamoro political space. Sadly, it was the necessary compromising that has allowed corruption to persist.
Lack of governing capacity
Various levels of the MILF leadership participated in capacity development to build skills to run the autonomous government. Institutions were created to support this preparation. Yet one of the most widespread comments on the MILF’s performance in my research has been on their lack of capacity to govern. Curiously, there has been no effort to improve the central government’s capacities, which are sorely lacking due to the bureaucracy’s politicisation and organizational deficiencies.
Some valuable lessons to ensure that anti-corruption is woven into future peace processes
Secure a seat at the table
In an age of shrinking civil society space, coordinated efforts are needed to ensure a place in the process for civil society, including peace and anti-corruption advocates. Yes, a peace negotiation is primarily a binary process between the conflict parties; as principals, they can admit or exclude other actors. But the shape the peace takes as a result is a concern for everyone.
Build coalitions and include the ‘spoilers’
Effective coalition building is important for the sustainability of the effort. Expanding constituencies that frame anti-corruption as an integral component of peace can nudge parties towards integrative solutions. In other words, mainstream anti-corruption in diverse fields of advocacy: environmental peace and economic justice, for example, cannot be brought about in a corrupt environment. An example of this in the Bangsamoro is the unabated land-grabbing sometimes by members of the MILF, especially at the expense of indigenous peoples.
Including potential spoilers can help with integrating corruption concerns into a peace process. All spoilers are not amenable to this, but some might be. In the Bangsamoro the political dynasties were potential limited outsider spoilers, whom the government tried to include sporadically in the process. While the dynasties did not act as spoilers, a more comprehensive approach that is more informed by a political economy analysis to better understand their motivations, could have channelled their perspectives into the peace process in constructive ways.
Prepare for the long game: Combining a long-term view with flexibility (and, of course, resources)
This peace process has been ongoing for over two decades. There are other processes in the Philippines which have been active for well over thirty years. In other countries, post-conflict peacebuilding often lasts decades, too. In each phase, advocates need to take a different approach, and this requires strategic preparation and resources.
In 2022, the case was made for a gradualist approach to create spaces for anti-corruption efforts in peace processes. Given that negotiated war-to-peace transitions are based on compromise, it seems to be the only plausible way.
Develop capacities: a more structured, long-term, strategic approach to capacity development
The limited success of building the MILF’s capacity highlights the need for a more structured, long-term, strategic approach. This needs to be both longitudinal, spanning the negotiation and implementation, and horizontal, including a broader set of actors. A long-term training plan should include diverse tools like accompaniment and coaching beyond instructional training, targeting members at multiple levels of organizations, and it needs to address staff turnover. It needs to expand its horizon beyond insurgents.
It is tempting to assume that governments have mastered bureaucratic functioning, but this is often not the case. Part of the difficulty of the Bangsamoro is that the National Government is not carrying out anti-corruption functions, which are its official responsibility.
In sum…
The history of conflict in Mindanao shows that people can coexist with corruption for a long time. But it eventually undermines peacebuilding. Peace and anti-corruption advocates can play an important, albeit limited, role in making peace processes more inclusive, just and legitimate. Following a gradualist approach, they can help keep corruption on the agenda and ensure the parties are better equipped to address it.
Balázs Áron Kovács is a peacebuilding specialist who works as a practitioner, researcher, trainer and (when he gets an opportunity) lecturer. His current work focuses on advising NGOs on adapting their work to the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus, in particular improving conflict-sensitivity and developing organisational capacities in context analysis and the integration of peacebuilding components in humanitarian programming. As a researcher, his interest is in the local-level dynamics of peacebuilding-as-statebuilding, the interaction between international, domestic and community actors in this ambit. This blog post was based on research conducted for the Berghof Foundation on the interplay between corruption, anti-corruption efforts and the sustainability of the peace process in the Bangsamoro region of the Philippines. More profoundly, it was informed by Balázs's now nearly two-decade-long engagement in the Philippines. He has worked there as a country director of forumZFD, a German peacebuilding NGO active in Mindanao; as an academic based in Ateneo de Manila University, conducting the field research for his PhD on local-level peace- and statebuilding in an area affected by the communist insurgency.
Balázs received his PhD in Humanities (Peace Studies/Politics and International Studies) in 2017 at the University of New England, Australia, an MA degree in International Peace Studies at the UN-mandated University for Peace in 2005, and a Juris Doctorate at Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, in 2002.