EYES SEE

By MIRIAM CORONEL FERRER

Although the MILF and the government learned lessons from the failed government-Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) process and are anxious to do it right this time, they are faced with the same disturbing scenario that followed the post-September 1996 signing of the accord with the MNLF: absence of popular support, and convoluted political interests that messed up the whole undertaking.

The government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have finally agreed on a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on Ancestral Domain that should be signed any day now in Malaysia to become official.

For now, the MOA has served the purpose of putting back on track the peace process. The long delay in the negotiations had made local MILF commanders edgy. A signed document is at least proof to the restive troops that the road to peace taken was not a dead-end.

Another immediate gain accruing from the agreement is that the international monitors and facilitators frustrated by the slow pace of the talks will presumably stay on after threatening to pull out. Most importantly, the ceasefire remains, along presumably with the Coordinating Committee for the Cessation of Hostilities and their local monitors on the ground. For people who have endured forced evacuations many times in their lives due to fighting, this is no small consolation. In this time of economic difficulties and environmental disasters, everyone somehow benefits from the extended reprieve from hostilities.

With this step forward, the two parties have also averted the loss of donor interest in development programs for Mindanao, and the emergence of more opportunistic groups that could only make the sources of armed violence in Mindanao more intractable.

As for the president, the breakthrough was pretty well timed for her State of the Nation Address (SONA) this year, and can thus be one other highlight in her speech.

But lasting peace cannot stand on short-term gains alone.

Although the MILF and the government learned lessons from the failed government-Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) process and are anxious to do it right this time, they are faced with the same disturbing scenario that followed the post-September 1996 signing of the accord with the MNLF: absence of popular support, and convoluted political interests that messed up the whole undertaking.

So far, the different franchise-holders to Mindanao are uninformed, and have had no chance to discuss and soberly reflect on the terms of the agreement. Those who have seen the MOA did so only under wraps. Also, there is no contemplated mechanism that can help generate the needed popular support. Without such means, all sorts of real and imagined fears will flourish and take over.

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A particularly emotional concern is the coverage of the soon-to-be Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE). The current ARMM provinces and city, plus six Muslim-dominated municipalities in Lanao del Norte will automatically be included in the new territory. Sultan Kudarat province; the cities of Cotabato, Isabela and Iligan; and some municipalities/barangays in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte, Palawan and Zambaonga del Sur will be be asked in a plebiscite if they wish to be part of the planned BJE. Unlike in the past two plebiscites for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao where the majority vote was determined at the provincial and city levels, the majority vote will be determined at the level of the identified municipalities and barangays , thus enabling more subprovincial units to join the BJE.

The vesting of the ownership of the public domain on the Bangsamoro is also bound to be contentious. Even now, conflicting claims on land and other natural resources, between and among Moros, settlers and lumad, and big corporations abound. When the new governance entity is created to assume authority over the domain, one can imagine the resistance that will arise.

To address all of these multiple claims, legal, political and socio-cultural conflict resolutions mechanisms should be in place and made functional as soon as possible. These could help ensure that land and other resource-based conflicts will be properly adjudicated and not unilaterally resolved through force and violence.

Along with the ceasefire and monitoring teams, the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (AHJAG) tasked to enhance government-MILF coordination in addressing criminality should be retained to help deter criminality and unwarranted hostility between the government and the MILF, and serve as a mechanism for developing MILF capacity for self-policing. The AHJAG was formed as a venue for the sharing of intelligence on the field and coordination. In this arrangement, the government forces would undertake pursuit and arrest of suspected criminals, with the MILF serving as a blocking force .

Lawyer Zainuddin Malang of the Young Moro Professionals rightly argued that the peace process should be seen as an attempt to close the democratic deficit that has long defined Philippine-Moro relations. This is not just histrionics. For at stake are the resolution of an historical problem and the viability of ongoing "peace and development" initiatives that are part of long-term foundation-building. Everyone, Christians, Moros and lumad should keep open minds as they partake of sober and informed discussions, not saber-rattling.

Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin’s ahistorical and macho remarks that we should just lick ‘em, these insurgent groups who "break our republic" and "kill our soldiers" since "the army has the capability to wipe out the insurgency if they are given the right orders" is one concrete example of saber-rattling. Coming from someone who supposedly reads history, it is doubly unsettling.

Oppose, concur, rethink, accommodate, yes, but one should do so based on the right information, and the desire for just solutions, real reforms and the end goal of peaceful coexistence, not extermination. Let not the discussions on the MOA be like the population debate where, by merely equating responsible parenthood and family planning with abortion, all meaningful discussion is quashed.

(E-mail: mcf178@yahoo.com)