This idea came while I was in Lanao del Norte discussing about many things including the attacks of the MILF in 2008.

The many untold sufferings and sadness experienced by the innocent civilians both from the Muslims and Christians were told that day and the heroism of ordinary people slowly putting life to their towns despite the MILF and Government failed to give justice to the victims and to those who have suffered.

Townspeople with the Civil Society are slowly rising from the ashes, building trusts with one another and bringing everything back to normal. It is a local action initiated by ordinary citizens.

The GRP Peace Panel has done nothing significant in building back these affected communities to where it was prior to the attack. Peace agreements today from the government or from the MILF are still unacceptable even in my own city because of their irrelevancy to the immediate needs of the people to be given justice, a valid claim universally valued by every human being.

Building trusts is important for at the end of the day it is still these ordinary townspeople who will decide on what is for Mindanao.

We came up with many ideas, and one is: what if the government will declare a day in a year as a national day of forgiveness. We have a national day for the sea, water, air and others, why won’t we have a day of forgiveness.

A few months ago the MILF, with the government and the civil societies initiated consultations in the region on their proposed Comprehensive Compact Agreement (CCA). Many are doubtful on the intentions of the consultations. Even political leaders are not endorsing it for fear that their future political careers will be at stake because of the unpopularity of the proposals. There is a presumption that this is not different with the furtive MOA-AD which was stricken down by the Supreme Court in 2008 that paved to that MILF attacks and the injustices in Lanao del Norte.

It’s not a riddle on who will come first like the ‘chicken and the egg’ but rather there is a missing link.

The missing link, to me, is the closure of this part of our history. The closure should not just be on the signing of an agreement or the plebiscite or the apportionment of territories or to force the people to give their consent.

Our institutions’ leaders must accept their mistakes for the crimes or omissions that have been committed in the past in the guise of those institutions, and shall ask for forgiveness from the people.

If a child will read our history, the war in Mindanao since the time of Magellan and until today is a continuing war. There’s none in our history that this war has ended, that peace is brokered or that warring parties come to terms.

I’ve been to Germany last month and I noticed that their monuments symbolize their acceptance to their mistakes during the last two world wars and have asked for forgiveness for the death and sadness they have caused to the citizens of the world.

In our country, we need to be true to one another in accepting our mistakes and to ask for forgiveness. That as we build this nation we have caused miseries, deaths and sadness to our fellow Filipinos, the indigenous peoples and those who are not Christians. And that is the truth, and truth, as we know it, will set us free.

If a day will be set for this where our President will officially ask for forgiveness for the mistakes that the past administrations of this country have done, from Aguinaldo to Arroyo; for the MILF and the NPA to ask for forgiveness that in their struggles for self-determination and freedom they have also victimized innocent citizens; for the Roman Catholic Church and other faiths to ask for forgiveness that in their evangelization particularly in Mindanao from the time Christianity or Islam have reached the shores of this country, they have also causes miseries to many innocents.

Our children and our successor generations will then know that there is a period in our nation’s history that we have asked for forgiveness, accepted our failures as a nation and now have dedicated all our being to move forward as one and united nation.

America had done this for the Indians and the Blacks, Pope John Paul II on the Jews and on the inquisition, Australia for the aborigines and South Africa through their Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

As a Mindanaoan, it is my moral obligation to start this one by publicly saying through this blog to ask for forgiveness for the wrong I’ve done to my country and fellowmen and for and in behalf of my ancestors who in the past may have done the same thing. With all sincerities, I shall commit myself for the generations that will come after me towards building peace in Mindanao and for the whole country.

I’ll tell you that it will be a great jubilation for our nation if it will be our President, the Cardinals, the top rebel leaders and the other leaders of our nation’s institutions to heroically ask for forgiveness, so that any conflicts will be officially close down and for this nation to move forward.