“For there to be any peace in the area, the Muslim population has to be disarmed and economic progress should be actively pursued so that progress can set in to the area.”
by Ducky Paredes
Mohaqher Iqbal, chief peace negotiator for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) talks sense when he says that the government should have consulted with Congress and the courts before it agreed to the setting up of a Bansa Moro Homeland. Of course, it should have; and, of course, the government knew that it should have,
“We have given up our secessionist position and we’re very committed to the peace process. I hope the central government could show the same sincerity and commitment. We’re getting frustrated and we can’t forever be taken for a ride.”
I personally do not believe that there will be peace with the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement or the actual establishment of a Moro Homeland. Still, what has been askew in all of these has been the fact that the government has kept us all in the dark on this matter.
Of course we are all affected. You cannot give up territory just because you are afraid of bandits and will give them anything to get them out of your hair. It does not matter to me if the territory is somewhere I have never been or even where I will probably never go. It matters to me that the national territory is being given away. And, if the fighting continues anyway, what then?
Will the fighting continue? Of course, it will. Remember that Fidel Ramos as President struck peace with the MNLF. Almost as soon as he did that, the MILF surfaced. And, in addition, we also have the Abu Sayyaf. What will surface after the MILF has had their homeland?
For there to be any peace in the area, the Muslim population has to be disarmed and economic progress should be actively pursued so that progress can set in to the area. Sadly, a Moro Homeland ran by our Muslim politicians has almost no chance of succeeding economically. For one thing, there is no one Moro tribe. There are the Tausug, the Maguindanao, the Maranao and the smaller Samal, Yakan, and other tribes.
In an interview in 2006, just before the ARMM elections, Zainudin Malang, head of the Center for Moro Law and Policy Concers, said: “The question is, is the ARMM still relevant? Since it was established, there has been little improvement in the lives of the people. The quality of life is actually retrogressing, not progressing.
“A vast number of people don’t care. ARMM is no longer relevant to their lives, and as a political vehicle, autonomy needs to be reexamined.
“There is little sympathy for autonomy, there is little awareness of what the regional government has done and there is little knowledge of who the people are in the ARMM.”
I still remember the expressions of hope from both Muslims and Christians when ARMM came into being in 1990, after decades of bloody separatist conflict. Our Muslim minority of four to five million would have their own executive, legislature and judiciary.
Today ARMM, which takes in five provinces — Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur — plus the city of Marawi, ranks among the country’s poorest regions.
The region covers about 12,000 sq km of rich agricultural land, but growth has been stunted by war and clan conflict among the Muslim factions, some with alleged links to foreign militants.
ARMM was created in 1991 and was recognized by the Organization of the Islamic Conference as the representative body of Filipino Muslims. The MNLF signed a peace treaty with Manila in 1996 and its chief, Nur Misuari, was then elected ARMM governor.
Despite hundreds of millions of dollars channeled into ARMM, it failed to usher in economic growth — two out of three people in the region live in poverty and only one in 10 children complete basic education.
Guns and politics do not mean progress. Education and industry will do the job. As long as Muslims depend on their guns to do the talking for them and on politicians to lead them, their situation cannot change.
Thus, giving them their own homeland at the point of their guns cannot possibly bring peace and progress to that homeland; it may even become the source of conflicts among the Muslims and the rest of us.
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The present fighting in North Cotabato where the MILF says that the rebels harassing Christian villagers are only positioning themselves and are not under orders to burn plantations and houses is what we can expect to continue to happen in Mindanao.
The military has declared these MILF elements as being part of some “lost command” to avoid declaring war on the MILF. The MILF says that these bandits are not doing what they are doing under MILF orders but that these will defend themselves if attacked. This has been the pattern of MILF responses to government charges of their violations of the peace agreements.
It seems to me that the MILF simply lacks the political will to actually stick to a peace plan or to peace with the military and the Christian population of Mindanao. Will their troops follow if told to give up their guns? Probably not. In reality, we are dealing with lawless bandits. We clothe them with political aspirations that are foreign to them and which they have no use for because they are actually simply bandits who live and die by their guns.
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Will someone please educate our vice president on proper dress! While the President was out of the country, President Pascal Couchepin of the Swiss Federation and President Jose Ramos-Horta of Timor Leste arrived and were met by our tie-less vice president in a black t-shirt under a gray coat. Vice President Noli de Castro looks good enough to star in a gangster movie in that outfit but it is simply not proper dress for meeting any head of state or even just a visiting minister.
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hvp 08.11.08)
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