Remarks of U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone to the conference on
“Terrorism, Peace, and Democracy: Thoughts from Muslim Mindanao”
Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Makati City
May 11, 2005

Salamalaykom, Hurahalayke. It’s a very special honor and privilege to be invited to join you. Thank you Amina. Thank you all the guests and hosts -- Dean Ocampo of the AIM. You should know that this is my last public engagement in the Philippines. I’m actually concluding my assignment. I will be leaving on Friday and it’s a very hectic time for me. I have packers in my house right now. My wife has just gone back to deal with them. But I didn’t want to miss this event because I really have spent a lot of my time and attention over these past three years concentrating on the issues of Mindanao. Why? People always say why are you doing this? Are we strategic? No. Is it the oil of Mindanao that the United States is after? Or the gold? Or something like that? I think, in a way, yes, it’s the human gold and riches that are there.

The fact of the matter is the Philippines is an important ally of the United States of America. For too many years after the closure of the bases I think we weren’t paying sufficient attention to each other. We woke up in September 2001 and found out that what had afflicted us had afflicted many countries of the world, and there was really a phenomenon, a global phenomenon of perversion of religion to promote a cult of death as oppose to life. And we, both of us have served throughout the world, particularly the Muslim world, know that this is not what Islam is all about. It’s not what Christianity is about, it’s not what any of the world religions are about. We woke up and we looked at the world with different eyes, I think. And we looked at the Philippines with different eyes. We saw a country that had been dealing with internal conflicts that had been exacerbated throughout outside inputs over much time, and we realized we mattered to each other once again.

I was just very lucky to be assigned here. I do have a background working in the Muslim world, not just the Arab world, but I was privileged to be a schoolteacher in Tehran early on. I did have long hair and a beard actually at one time when I was a hippie back packer in Afghanistan, and lived in Iran for a couple of years. So, for me it’s all humanity. We’re all part of the same world. And when I came here, I found out that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was already putting a disproportionate amount of our programs into Mindanao. Why? It’s not because we think there may be oil in the Liguasan marsh. I hope there is. God bless you -- I hope you find that it’s there. En shahala. But that’s not the answer to the problems of this great country. It could be part of one, I suppose, but oil could be a curse as well as a boon. I hope it’s there. But the reason we pay so much attention to Mindanao as we find it that that’s where the poverty is. That’s where the worst of the conflict has been historically. That’s where the injustice has been historically. That’s where the lack of development is. That’s where all the human development and disease that I’m sure you’ve been talking about all day are the worst in the Philippines. And so of course, we want to concentrate if we want to help an allied country to become stronger and to become more prosperous, it’s not just because of terrorism, but because we want our friends to be well. Everybody likes to have healthy friends and rich friends. We’re no exception as a country. It’s way better if your friends are not ill and suffering. So, that’s where we have, I guess always or at least in recent years, concentrated our attention through USAID, and all the more so over the past several years since 9-11, even before, but since then.

During my tenure, I think the one change has been is that we’ve put a greater emphasis on education. Having been a school teacher, and working for a President who has pushed education as a national priority, and seeing that the problems of Mindanao are not problems of religion as, I guess my colleague, Johannis De Kok has mentioned. The problems are underdevelopment, of ignorance, and the hate and the fear, and the violence have all come from that. We understood that this is not going be resolved overnight. There’s no magic solution. As several newspapers have said and my friends and colleagues in the Armed Forces have noticed there is no silver bullet, indeed bullets aren’t really much part of the solution at all. Maybe a tiny part for those who really won’t understand any other language, but that’s not the solution. That’s not the language most people in this country, and certainly Mindanao, speak. So, we’ve concentrated our interests in Mindanao because it matters to the Philippines, and therefore it matters to the United States. We’re concentrating in the full range of priorities that you all have set, whatever sector you’re from. Whether you’re an ustadz, whether you’re a local government leader, whether you’re from the business sector, whether you’re from a non-government organization, you have set the priorities. You’ve set education as it. Micro- finance, as we’ve seen women grabbing hold of their families, their futures, their fates, their communities through micro-finance programs and they have just taken off. Community health projects – small-scale infrastructure projects – going back to education – bringing the internet to schools. Not just computers, but the internet, and training on how to exploit the internet, and with that all these other good things like parent-teacher associations that organize to make sure their kids can even have greater access to computers. I see all these good things happening in Mindanao.

So, as I leave the Philippines, I’m really pretty optimistic about this country. I don’t white wash the problems. I don’t pretend this is wonderland. I don’t pretend that success is inevitable. Change is inevitable. Success, progress, are not inevitable. They will only happen if we, together, people like you, people like us who are foreigners, who wish this country well, will do all the hard things that are necessary and face down the ones who are preaching death and violence, and destruction. With the help of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the Philippines’ National Police, I really am optimistic that in a few years, the Philippines in general, and Mindanao in particular will no longer be seen as a focal point for conflict and terrorism, and poverty, but instead will be a success story. I’d like to think that people will come back here in a few years can study how you did it, how you reached the tipping point because I believe you can do it. Maybe you’re not into it now, you won’t know, but if you have to look back after a couple of years and see that it was conferences like this, it was projects like the speakers. Some of my favorite people in the room are the young people and the speakers internship program bringing the future leaders up to see how the Congress works. You can decide if it works well or works poorly. You’ll learn as much that you would hate much about it and dysfunctional as you like, and then you will go on and change it. You may look back at this period right now and decided this is when things tipped, tipped the right way. Suddenly the human development indicator started to work better. Micro finance took off. Small-scale infrastructure took off.

I was just meeting with the FOCAP people, the Foreign Overseas Correspondents Association in the Philippines. They asked me if you could really be optimistic about this, and I said yes. You should think all those World War II movies that showed the outset of war, the blackness of Nazism spreads all over Europe, and the blackness of the Japanese forces spreading over the Pacific, and you see the war goes on and slowly, slowly the black air is cleared away and there are just little pockets that pop, after the Allies come back. I can just imagine the look back that that sort of thing happening now. Even when I got here three years ago, Mindanao had places where most people from Manila wouldn’t go, and with good reason. It was scary. There was lawlessness. The relations between the Armed Forces and the local communities were tense. There was distrust. People did not see the Armed Forces as protectors, but even as part of the problem. I think, just from what I’ve seen as an outsider who didn’t know much about this country, I’ve seen – I’m able to travel to places where people would have thought it was dangerous, but now I went to Basilan four times. The first time, I saw burnt out schoolhouses, the last time, I saw the internet in high schools. I saw communities coming together, and kids just excited to be learning. It was so unlike before when they couldn’t get books. Now, they have access to the great libraries of the world through the computers. There are great things happening.

So, I didn’t want to miss this occasion. I wanted to express my optimism, my encouragement for all that you are doing, and just wish you well. Get out there and knock them dead. Don’t let a lot of bad guys hold you back. There are communities now that are not letting the Abu Sayyaf run around like they could before. There are communities out there that are not letting these Jemaah Islamiyah people who preach, and fully perverted ignorant versions of Islam. It’s not Islam by any stretch of the imagination. They are teaching people to kidnap. They are teaching people to use cell phones to detonate bombs in market places or in buses, and sow jihad. You know this is nonsense. I know this is nonsense, and more and more people throughout Mindanao are not being deceived, they were never deceived, but they are no longer afraid to turn them in, and to tell those people to get out of here. Go down to the road to the next town because I don’t want you in mine, or they’re going to the Armed Forces and turning them in through the Rewards for Justice program.

So, I think you could be turning the corner, and we’re glad to be part of it. We’re going to stick with you. As to whether there is a peace agreement signed or not signed, we only hope that it would be signed. It would be great. I think, as most of your panels were saying, I came at the end of the discussion. In our view, a peace agreement is neither necessary nor sufficient. We’re doing everything we can now together with our Japanese colleagues, Australian colleagues, the European Union, the Government of the Philippines, NGOs, Philippines’ businesses – we’re doing everything we can even in the absence of a peace agreement and we’ll keep doing that. If you should be so lucky as to get a peace agreement, and it doesn’t actually lead to peace, then the peace agreement would not be sufficient. That’s why I say it’s neither necessary nor sufficient -- highly desirable, I hope you get it. It should certainly contribute. We’re glad to work with the Bangsamoro Development Agency even now. Dr. Juanday several time in different projects in Cotabato. We’ll keep those things up.

There was just one other question because it was asked at FOCAP, and that’s the question of the MILF. And I just put that question back to you. We see Mindanao as potentially another in a string of successes, as we look forward and maybe we’ll look back a few years historically -- when did the Muslim world flower in the modern age. When did it open up to democracy? All these subjects that Amina and her mother, and all these NGOs that are talking, when did it happen? Let’s hope that we will see this happening now, and we decide that it would happen now. We saw the elections in the Palestine. We saw the elections in Iraq. We saw people power in Lebanon pushing out dictatorial, military and intelligence forces. We see in Eygpt people are talking about for the first time having a multi-party election. This has nothing to do with Islam. his is people who happen to be Muslims saying wait a minute, we want to decide our fate too, and who knows in August in the ARMM, you’re supposed to have elections. It’s something that didn’t get any press out of the Philippines at all and barely got press here. Just last week, the spokesman of Malacañang, I think it was actually Gabby Claudio, who said, we’re not going to choose Manila’s candidate for the elections at the ARMM. No Filipino believes that. We’re not naïve. It’s a cynical response. Everyone said, oh yeah, that’s part of the game. But I’ve spoken with the leadership here and they said no, no, we really mean this. Why should we choose a leader down there and be blamed for whatever happens. There are plenty of candidates, let’s have them fight it out and we at the national government will make it out objective to protect the citizens as well as we can, and have as credible an election we can.

Ha…ha…everyone laughs again about elections in the Philippines. But prove the cynics wrong. Prove the cynics wrong. Why not show – there was a national election a year ago that everybody challenged and had questions about. In the ARMM of all places, the people are going to organize and make those elections turn out in a way that the people there believe in because they’re going to live with the consequences. Can you imagine between now and only a hundred days from now, that’s in August, a hundred days. You have an election, hardly anybody gets killed, it’s fairly non-violent, you have an outcome of screaming and yelling in these campaigns, and there are challenges, and all. But at the end of the day, you have an outcome that people believe in. Imagine what that would mean for the Philippines, and for Muslims around the world to say here’s another example. The people of the Philippines, the Muslims had every disadvantage – discriminated against for years, the worst poverty statistics in the country, did it to prove it can be done. Boy, that would be pretty exciting. You know, we’re all glad to be part of that. We’re foreigners, we can’t do it for you. We can’t impose it, but we can stand by, applaud, uphold and contribute the lessons learned in governance, the lessons we’ve learned around the world. We can support local leaders like many of you, doing the right things, teaching people the right way to the future, political leaders who are trying to inspire their people to do the right thing.

MILF – you know, we’ll figure out what they stand for at a certain point. I believe they really do stand for, you know, justice and jihad through peace and engagement, and conviction, persuasion rather than through murder and kidnapping. There are people who call themselves MILF who certainly are covering up for bombers and kidnappers, and you know, we would all have to figure out how to deal with that. As for the United States, we’re with you. We’re the reformers preaching democracy and freedom and the struggle for justice and development through legitimate means. Count us in your corner and we’ll be rooting for you.

So, with that, all the best ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the privilege of being with you all these years. Salamalaykom. Maraming salamat.

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