By Satur C. Ocampo
At Ground Level | The Philippine Star
Besieged by the threat of an impeachment complaint to be filed against him before he delivers his fifth state-of-the-nation address on July 28 — stemming from the unanimous Supreme Court ruling declaring as unconstitutional the Disbursement Acceleration Program that he had approved — President Aquino must grapple with yet another big problem.
A serious conflict has arisen over the Office of the President’s tinkering with a proposed legislation intended to implement the GPH-MILF Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro — the peace accord signed, after 17 years of negotiations, with much hoopla in Malacañang only last March 27.
The proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), embodying the essential elements of the Agreement, was submitted to P-Noy the following April 22 by a 15-member Bangsamoro Transition Commission. He purportedly wanted to certify the bill to Congress for urgent approval within 2014.
Once approved by Congress and ratified in a plebiscite by the people in the areas of coverage, the BBL will serve as the charter of the new political entity, to be named Bangsamoro, replacing the current Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao.
Per the timetable agreed on by the two parties, a Bangsamoro Transition Authority, led by the MILF, will replace the ARMM in 2015 and elections for the regular Bangsamoro government will be held in 2016.
But this timetable may be upset, or altogether scrapped, if the conflict that has arisen isn’t promptly resolved.
What’s the problem?
The copy of the proposed law, bearing comments from the OP, was received by the MILF on June 23. It “heavily diluted the original proposal” of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, according to Mohagher Iqbal, chair of both the MILF peace panel and the Commission.
(Iqbal spoke last week, June 29, at a peace forum in Istanbul, Turkey. The MILF website, Luwaran, has posted his full statement.)
If Malacañang’s comments are given weight, Iqbal quoted a MILF lawyer as saying, the new law “would be worse” than RA Act 9054 that created the “so-called ARMM.” He pointed out that “no less than President Aquino has called the ARMM a ‘failed experiment’.”
Iqbal warned: Unless the parties to the Agreement and “supporters and friends of the peace process come to the timely rescue and prevent the foreseeable collision of approaches,” the consequence would either be: 1) the proposed legislation will not be submitted to Congress on July 28 in time for P-Noy’s SONA, or 2) “the government would proceed to submit the bill without the concurrence of the MILF.”
Broadly hinting what the OP comments could be, Iqbal declared:
“The position of the MILF on the proposed BBL is very simple and straightforward. All those explicitly expressed and provided for in the CAB will no longer be subject to negotiation. They are finished and settled. It is therefore nonsensical to raise them anew.”
But on whom to blame for “the almost total disregard of the proposed BBL crafted by the BTC” that “irritated, if not infuriated… many a member of the BTC and the MILF,” Iqbal was forthright. He said:
“What is amazing is that the very government office tasked to oversee the conduct of the peace process on the part of government, that led to the signing of the CAB, instead of defending the essence of this historic document or at least inhibited itself out of delicadeza, virtually led the review team of the OP to overhaul almost the entire proposal of the BTC.”
He was referring to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), headed by Teresita Deles. Ironically, a few months ago the OPAPP issued a press release quoting P-Noy as assuring the MILF thus: the agreements his peace negotiating panel had signed and which he approved were “carved in stone and not written on water” — that he would implement them.
So how come the OP/OPAPP now wants to overhaul or dilute the Commission’s BBL proposal which, Iqbal emphasized, “copy-pasted the essential elements” of the Agreement? (When the CAB was signed, P-Noy stood as witness along with Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak.)
Despite the government’s apparently turning out to be the “spoiler” of the CAB, Iqbal expressed confidence that the two parties would not allow the situation “to degenerate into something we do not like.”
Moreover, he seemed to trust in the “infrastructures of the peace process” built after the signing of the Agreement, involving mediation by foreign governments and international NGOs, saying these “are so well-knit and all-embracing that any sign of fissure can be addressed well and promptly.”
But no matter what happens next, whether the BBL is enacted or not by Congress, Iqbal assured:
“The MILF will remain focused on pursuing the Bangsamoro people’s right to self-determination at all cost. The MILF will also leave no stone unturned in exposing the true state of things surrounding the BBL, which must be faithful to the letter and spirit of the CAB Truth must be pursued and error must be shunned.
”More urgently, the MILF will continue to capacitate our people, including building of institutions, linkages, networks, and alliances, so that they will have greater clout and power in asserting their right to self-determination.”
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E-mail: satur.ocampo@gmail.com
July 5, 2014
