GENERAL SANTOS CITY — Raising the issue of unconstitutionality against the MOA-AD was premature. Most of the consensus points are not controversial or unconstitutional. Those that are will be resolved during the negotiation of the comprehensive compact. Those that are deemed unconstitutional should be considered as proposals to amend the Constitution; as proposals, they are not unconstitutional.

Consumed by constitutionality, opponents and critics of the MOA-AD, could not see it from the perspectives of the peace process and the history of the Mindanao Problem. They see the constitution as a stone wall not as a door adjustable to the need of the time. They see it as an end for the peace process to adjust to, not as a means for it to succeed.

What do all these imply?

Ignorance

The quest for justice for the historic wrong done on the Muslims in Mindanao is stuck in the mire of ignorance – not that of the Muslims but that of majority Christian Filipinos and their leaders. How many today still sneer – if not aloud, subconsciously — “A good Moro is a dead Moro”?

This is bias bred by ignorance.

How many see “Moroland” in the correct historical perspective? As land that historically belongs to the Moros, as the Visayas to the Visayans and Luzon to the Luzonians? They see Mindanao as the “land promised” to them to the prejudice of the historical owners.

How many see as unjust (1) the imposition of the Torrens land title system to invalidate and abolish the traditional Moro land ownership system; (2) the series of land laws that grant the Moros half as much land as that granted the Christian settlers; (3) the establishment of settlements for Christians but none for the Moros; (4) the grant of thousands of hectares to ranchers and plantation owners while depriving of lands hundreds of thousands of Moros?

There are more and more wrongs at the root of the Mindanao Problem of which the majority Christian Filipinos and their leaders are ignorant of – ignorant, not that they don’t know; but that they ignore what they know or they refuse to know. This is ignorance by preference.

So, the peace process is mired in ignorance.

Contradictions

Is it then to be wondered how the MOA-AD has unmasked contradictions?

The Philippines is proud of its diverse cultures. Each ethnic group, from the Ilocos in the north to Mindanao in the south, has songs, dances, festivals they are proud of. Each group is proud of their ethnicity and history. In Portland, Oregon, for instance, the Pampangueños, Ilocanos, Ilonggos and Cebuanos have separate associations to distinguish one from the other. In a Filipino-sponsored parish festival, they presented the Singkil dance of Lanao.

Yet, when the MOA-AD identified the Bangsamoros as a distinct people – proud of their birthright, as indigenous people and original inhabitants of Mindanao – this was unwelcome, unappreciated. This is contradiction bred by ignorance and prejudice.

The framers of the 1987 Constitution envisioned the autonomy for the Muslims in Mindanao and the people of the Cordilleras as a means to hasten their political and social development as distinct peoples. Yet, the MOA-AD seeking to establish a regional entity more autonomous than the ARMM was deemed unconstitutional – fearing that a prosperous Muslim autonomy would lead to secession.

Does the Philippine government really want the Muslims to be truly autonomous?

President Arroyo abandoned the MOA-AD but not the peace process. Her peace advisers want peace with justice. Is that not what the MOA-AD proposes – addressing the historic injustices as the root of the Mindanao Problem? No, no! By “justice”, they mean the prosecution of the MILF commanders who attacked Christian communities in Lanao del Norte and Cotabato. The peace talks can resume only after the surrender of these commanders.

By all means, the victims of the unjust MILF raids should be given justice – if not under the Philippine legal system, by the MILF. But by no means should there be justice for the victims of the military punitive campaigns and the historic wrongs addressed by the MOA-AD?

The peace process is also mired in contradiction.

Posturing

Then President Joseph Estrada stated very clearly his policy. He had no patience for peace talks; defeat the MILF and dictate the terms of peace, don’t negotiate. He launched the all-out war that unfortunately proved him wrong. Fortunately, his ouster averted more bloodshed.

Immediately after the Malaysian government had agreed to host and facilitate the peace negotiation, the Arroyo government, on Mach 24, 2001, signed with the MILF in Kuala Lumpur the agreement to resume the talks. Signing for the GRP: Eduardo R. Ermita, later to become the present executive secretary; for the MILF: Al-Hadji Murad Ebrahim, later the present chairman of the MILF.

Significantly, the talk was revived two months and four days after President Arroyo had assumed the presidency; holding the talks in a foreign capital with a foreign government of their preference had always been what the MILF had wanted. President Arroyo displeased the Estrada hawks but the peace doves sang hallelujah to her.

President Arroyo strongly impressed on how she would want the Mindanao Problem resolved:

First: The Kuala Lumpur agreement of March 24, 2001 set the principle of continuity. “The Parties commit to honor, respect and implement all past agreements …” (Article IV) affirmed the principle, “The parties recognize that there will be lasting peace in Mindanao when there is mutual trust, justice, freedom, and tolerance for the identity, culture, way of life and aspirations of all the peoples of Mindanao,” adopted in the Agreement of Intent on August 27, 1998.

Three months after, on June 22, 2001, an agreement was signed in Tripoli, Libya setting the three aspects of the negotiation – security, rehabilitation and ancestral domain. The first two — more for confidence building — were to be the subjects of interim agreements; the third, of the final agreement or comprehensive compact.

Second: Talks on ancestral domain did not start until late in 2004 due to disagreements and the February-April 2003 Pikit war. In the next three years and eight months, the GRP and MILF negotiators persevered and navigated through impasses threatening to abort the talks. Before midnight of July 27, 2008 the MOA-AD was initialed to end the negotiation.

The negotiation had hit a critical impasse. President Arroyo sent back on the 27th her chief negotiator and her adviser on the peace process to Kuala Lumpur to iron out the kinks. She hailed the initialing of the MOA-AD in her State of the Nation Address on the 28th.

How genuine and lasting was the impression?

For having not been consulted, officials of North Cotabato and Zamboanga City petitioned the Supreme Court to stop the signing of the MOA-AD on August 5. After the release of official copies of the agreement to defang the petition, the issue of constitutionality supplemented the complaint. The Court restrained the government from signing the agreement.

Instead of defending the MOA-AD before the Court and the mounting protests and criticisms as the true solution to the Mindanao problem for addressing comprehensively the roots of the Muslim grievances, President Arroyo abandoned it. She dissolved the GRP negotiating panel and reversed her peace policy with an entirely new approach.

Why did her legal team not tell the Court, the protesters and the critics the true state of the MOA-AD? It is not yet implementable; it will be the subject of a final negotiation — the comprehensive compact where questions on constitutionality and other concerns will be resolved.

Why could the Arroyo government not stand on the principle that the Constitution is made to be amended for the good of the people and country? Amending the Constitution to implement the

MOA-AD to bring just and lasting peace to Mindanao is for that good.

But the MOA-AD has turned out to be politically disastrous. Never mind the peace process; let it be mired in political posturing.

The Status

What now is the status of MOA-AD? Is it dead or just comatose?

The Arroyo government has abandoned but not forgotten it. When the peace talks resume, it will be one of the references. This, the Malaysian government was officially informed.

The MILF is upholding the primacy of the MOA-AD. When the peace negotiation resumes, it will start from where it ended – the signing of the MOA-AD, then on to the negotiation of the comprehensive compact.

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