SO help me, as the hour nears for the achievement of peace in Mindanao through the energetic exertions of the Aquino administration, I feel more anxious than hopeful. Within days of the signing of the last annex to the Bangsamoro Framework Peace Agreement, government forces were battling a breakaway faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)—the Bangsamoro Islamic freedom fighters (BIFF), in which scores of rebels were killed.

And now because they have been left out in all the negotiations, the