04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly the peace and order problem is still with the Executive where the matter should be; the initiative still lies with that branch of government. The Court's role, under the constitutional scheme that we are sworn to uphold, is to allow the initiative to be where the Constitution says it should be.[22] We cannot and should not interfere unless our action is unavoidably necessary because the Executive is acting beyond what is allowable, or because it has failed to act in the way it should act, under the Constitution and our laws. My conclusion is in no small measure influenced by two basic considerations. First, the failure to conclude the MOA-AD as originally arranged by the parties has already resulted in bloodshed in Mindanao, with blood being spilled on all sides, third party civilians included. Some of the spilled blood was not in actual combat but in terror bombings that have been inflicted on the urban areas. To date, the bloodletting has showed no signs of abating. Lest we become confused in our own understanding of the issues, the problems confronting us may involve the socio-economic and cultural plight of our Muslim and our indigenous brothers, but at core, they are peace and order problems. Though others may disagree, I believe that socio-economic and cultural problems cannot fully be addressed while peace and order are elusive. Nor can we introduce purely pacific solutions to these problems simply because we are threatened with violence as an alternative. History teaches us that those who choose peace and who are willing to sacrifice everything else for the sake of peace ultimately pay a very high price; they also learn that there are times when violence has to be embraced and frontally met as the price for a lasting peace. This was the lesson of Munich in 1938 and one that we should not forget because we are still enjoying the peace dividends the world earned when it stood up to Hitler.[23] In Mindanao, at the very least, the various solutions to our multi-faceted problems should come in tandem with one another and never out of fear of threatened violence. Rather than complicate the issues further with judicial pronouncements that may have unforeseen or unforeseeable effects on the present fighting and on the solutions already being applied, this Court should exercise restraint as the fears immediately generated by a signed and concluded MOA-AD have been addressed and essentially laid to rest. Thus, rather than pro-actively act on areas that now are more executive than judicial, we should act with calibrated restraint along the lines dictated by the constitutional delineation of powers. Doing so cannot be equated to the failure of this Court to act as its judicial duty requires; as I mentioned earlier, we have judicially addressed the concerns posed with positive effects and we shall not hesitate to judicially act in the future, as may be necessary, to ensure that the integrity of our constitutional and statutory rules and standards are not compromised. If we exercise restraint at all, it is because the best interests of the nation and our need to show national solidarity at this point so require, in order that the branch of government in the best position to act can proceed to act. Second, what remains to be done is to support the government as it pursues and nurses the peace process back to its feet after the failed MOA-AD. This will again entail negotiation, not along the MOA-AD lines as this recourse has been tried and has failed, but along other approaches that will fully respect our Constitution and existing laws, as had been done in the 1996 MNLF agreement. In this negotiation, the Executive should be given the widest latitude in exploring options and initiatives elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/47263 126/203