MANILA: On August 22, negotiators from the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) would resume their exploratory talks in Kuala Lumpur in a renewed bid to put an end to the four-decade armed conflict in the Southern Philippines.

But even before the two sides could sit down, fierce fighting between MILF combatants and armed guerrillas of the breakaway Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) led by renegade MILF commander Ameril Umbra Kato broke out in Maguindanao, killing scores of Muslim rebels and displacing thousands of families.

Aside from the armed skirmishes, another type of war — a word war — also erupted between officials of the government of President Benigno S. Aquino III and the MILF.

Instead of calming nerves, the “secret” meeting between Mr. Aquino and Al Haj Murad Ibrahim, MILF chairman, in Tokyo last August 4, had further intensified the rhetoric on the sub-state issue.

The Tokyo meeting also emboldened the MILF to push for the sub-state proposal even threatening to revert to their original plan to secede from the Philippines and set up their own Bangsamoro Islamic Republic in Mindanao if their present demand is not met.

Michael Mastura, a senior member of the MILF negotiating panel, even dared President Aquino to sacrifice his popularity for the sake of peace in Mindanao.

Mastura was practically asking Mr. Aquino to choose between keeping his popularity among the Filipino people or working for peace by acceding to the sub-state proposal.

In reacting to Mastura’s challenge, Dean Marvic Leonen of the College of Law of the University of the Philippines and head of the government panel, said that “reducing the choices in the negotiations to simplistic dichotomies like popularity and peace is dangerous because it fixates on a debate that does not exist.”

Leonen said he was disappointed that a senior MILF official had gone down to that level. “If you say it’s a choice between popularity and peace, it’s like saying neither popularity nor peace at the same time. But the problem in Mindanao is more complex than that,” he said.

In the resumption of the talks in Kuala Lumpur, Leonen would present the government’s counter-proposal on the sub-state idea.

The proposed “Bangsamoro sub-state” desired by the MILF would exercise all government functions, except those of national defense, foreign affairs, currency and postal services, which would remain in the hands of the national government.

The scope of such a sub-state has yet to be defined but it could lead to the expansion of the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to include areas with predominant Muslim population in other provinces in Mindanao. [Times Editor’s note: These provinces had opted not to be made part of the ARMM in a referendum to determine citizens’ acceptance of the new arrangement.]

Under the MILF proposal, the sub-state would be governed by a chief minister elected by an assembly. It will have “asymmetrical relations” with the national government, similar to Hong Kong’s relations with China, according to the MILF.

Leonen and other government officials have admitted that to create a sub-state in Mindnao is still a long and tedious process.

Harry Roque, a law professor at the University of the Philippines, and former Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., a Christian Mindanao leader, have said that the creation of a sub-state would likely require an amendment to the Philippine Constitution.

Former North Cotabato Governor Emmanuel Piñol, [Editor’s note: A Manila Times columnist and political analyst, Piñol petitioned the Supreme Court against the MILF-desired MOA-AD in 2008.], has said that he would ask the Supreme Court to determine if it is legal for the government to agree to discuss a peace agreement within the context and spirit of the MOA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain), which the high court declared as unconstitutional in October 2008.

Piñol, former senator and now Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas 2nd, Sen. Franklin Drilon, Mayor Celso Lobregat of Zamboanga City and Rep. Isabelle Climaco of Zamboanga City were co- petitioners against the 2008 MOA-AD.

According to Piñol, the proposed sub-state is no different from the juridical entity that the MILF wanted established under the MOA-AD that the High Court declared as “contrary to law and the Constitution.”

“(Neither) the President nor the MILF can demand revision of the Constitution prior to the signing of a peace agreement,” Piñol said.

Piñol also noted that while the MILF claimed that it was abandoning its previous demand to create a separate Islamic state in Mindanao, it now wants to have its own Supreme Court and its own Constitution based on the Islamic way of life.

Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Chairman Nur Misuari also said that the MILF and the government cannot sign another agreement because there is already an existing one signed with the MNLF in l996.

In an interview with a major Manila daily [Editor’s note: The Manila Times], Misuari, a former ARMM governor, said that there could be no two agreements covering the same people and the same territory.


[Editor’s note: The statements of Mr. Manny Piñol quoted in this report, were first made in his exclusive analyses published in the Times.]