Students will eventually gain a deeper understanding of the Bangsamoro struggle to attain genuine peace and autonomy with the integration of its history in the K-12 curriculum.

Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) Secretary Teresita Deles said incorporating the history of Bangsamoro in the K-12 curriculum is part of their continued initiatives for transitional justice and reconciliation, which is a “a major dimension of the Bangsamoro peace process”.

This is just one of the several measures that the Aquino administration is undertaking to operationalize the recommendations made by the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) in its report launched in March.

”With the DepEd (Department of Education), we have the integration of Bangsamoro history into the K-12 curriculum. We have been working with DepEd even before the TJRC Report came out,” Deles said during the opening of a two-day workshop on Transitional Justice and Reconciliation and Peace held in Sta. Mesa.

She noted that the template for the integration into the K-12 curriculum should be finished by next year.

In addition, various information and education campaign materials are also being developed regarding the Bangsamoro narrative.

”We are working with the NDU (Notre Dame University) for a possible introductory seminar or workshop for the government bureaucracy on the Bangsamoro narrative. We hope it can be piloted before we end our term,” Deles said, noting that a similar program for the National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security, launched by the OPAPP and its partners, has already been accredited by the Ateneo de Manila University.

Other initiatives of the Aquino administration to promote healing of wounds due to the decades-long Mindanao conflict include addressing the compensation package for victims of human rights violation in the region during the Martial Law period and also mapping the entire Bangsamoro region. -- Filane Mikee Z. Cervantes/PNA