In a press statement, the Moro-Christian Peoples’ Alliance (MCPA), said that the derailment of the peace negotiations has been tainted with a "breach of trust and confidence."

"With the vehement denial of the MILF of having instigated the June-bombing in, why was there no response of trust from the government, but instead, it responded with military might?" the group asked. 

The fighting in Maguindanao has forced some 4,000 families or 20,000 individuals from their homes.

Once again, it said, life has been gripped with fear and anger in Maguindanao, the center of the current GRP-MILF hostilities. Schools were closed as their buildings were transformed into evacuation centers. 

"The people’s economic activities have then again been interrupted. The people are hungry, angry and anxious. Is there no end to the unjust war that destroys our lives and family?" it asked.

"The people’s woes cannot be summed up in words," the group stressed.

"But glaring facts on the wave of internal displacement in the country by the Arroyo administration suffice to show the massive scale of destruction and violence that state-led or military-exacerbated wars have caused in recent years," it said.

Studies show that an average Mindanaon family living within the provinces in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and other Moro-dominated provinces outside ARMM such as Zamboanga, General Santos, North and South Cotobato, and Sarangani would have been displaced five to six times in a span of five years.

Also, during the period of President Arroyo’s term, around 600,000 individuals have been forcibly displaced, according to MCPA.

This figure sums up the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) data on the number of displaced persons during the three most devastating wars during the Arroyo regime — the wars in Sulu in 2005, which displaced nearly 80,000, the war in Northern and Central Mindanao in 2003, which displaced more or less 450,000, and the state of lawlessness in Basilan in 2001, which displaced nearly 80,000.

With the recent surge of violence and its disastrous effects on the people, the people have no reason to believe the Arroyo government’s pronouncement that the GRP-MILF peace negotiations has genuinely progressed," said the MCPA. 

"The vicious cycle of war that the Arroyo government offers is a far cry from the aspirations of the Moro people — a life that is free from the shackles of state – perpetrated violence, a kind of peace that is based on justice and democracy," it concluded.