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The signing by Philippine government and Moro Islamic
Liberation Front negotiators of the so-called MOA-AD (Memorandum of
Agreement on Ancestral Domain) in Kuala Lumpur today will make
Mindanao and the Philippines a much grimmer place than it is today.
For the MOA-AD is a formula for more tension in Mindanao and
Philippine dismemberment.
Mindanao will see various armed
groups prepare themselves for eventual combat with those who
threaten to take over their land and subjugate them.
These armed groups ranged against
the MILF will be both Christian and Muslim. The first group will be
those loyal to the thinking of Mayor Celso Lobregat of Zamboanga
City, Gov. Manny Piñol of North Cotabato, Mayor Lawrence Cruz of
Iligan City and Gov. Daisy Avance-Fuentes of South Cotabato, who
doubt that the deal with the MILF will bring about lasting peace.
The latter groups (Muslims) will be (a) MNLF commands resentful of
being badly treated by the MILF when the latter establishes its
overlordship over the expanded Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
and (b) armies of those sultans who feel they have been betrayed by
the Philippine government (this is especially true of the Sultan of
Sulu whose claim to Sabah is threatened by Malaysia, the MILF’s
patron).
‘Rogue’ MILF bands
Strengthened by the signed
MOA-AD, the MILF bands that have been raiding and taking over
Mindanao villages, will become bolder. The MILF’s central
leadership will continue to disown the raids and say their
perpetrators are unauthorized and even rogue branches of the
separatist organization. But—just as in the Palestine and Lebanon
experience rogue groups of Zionists officially disowned by the
formal Jewish authorities and rogue Arab militias that the Arab
League and the Palestine Liberation Organization also disowned—in
Mindanao, reputedly rogue MILF commands will add more and more
territories to the Bangsamoro state.
The future “comprehensive
compact” referred to in the MOA-AD to be signed today will not
have the goodwill and respect for the Republic of the Philippines
found in the 1996 Final Agreement between the GRP and Chairman Nur
Misuari’s Moro National Liberation Front. In that GRP-MNLF peace
agreement, authority over the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
is shared by the Republic and the MNLF by integrating the MNLF
political leadership into the Philippine Republic’s polity. And
the military and police forces of the MNLF are to be integrated with
those of the Republic (as indeed a goodly part of them in fact has
been).
Other indigenous groups
The deal with the MILF, if the
MOA-AD serves as a useful clue, will lead other indigenous
groups—such as those of the Cordilleras—to move so that they can
get what the government is giving to the MILF’s Bangsamoro
nation-state.
It could even embolden other
Filipinos, like nationalist Cebuanos, to claim as their birthright
and ancestral domain their provinces and lands of birth.
The Bangsamoro nation-state will
undoubtedly get the financing for development and armaments from the
Arab countries friendly to the MILF. It will easily raise forces
more powerful than that of the Philippine Republic, which the MILF
calls “the central government.”
If there is any doubt that the
MILF intends to rule, singly and without interference from the
“central government,” read and reflect on these provisions of
the MOA-AD:
‘Concepts and
Principles
“2. It is essential to lay the
foundation of the Bangsamoro homeland in order to address the
Bangsamoro people’s humanitarian and economic needs as well as
their political aspirations. Such territorial jurisdictions and
geographic areas being the natural wealth and patrimony represent
the social, cultural and political identity and pride of all the
Bangsamoro people. Ownership of the homeland is vested exclusively
in them by virtue of their prior rights of occupation that had
inhered in them as sizeable bodies of people, delimited by their
ancestors since time immemorial and being the first politically
organized dominant occupants.
“3. Both Parties acknowledge
that ancestral domain does not form part of the public domain but
encompasses ancestral, communal, and customary lands, maritime,
fluvial and alluvial domains as well all natural resources therein
that have inured or vested ancestral rights on the basis of native
title. Ancestral domain and ancestral land refer to those held under
claim of ownership, occupied or possessed, by themselves or through
the ancestors of the Bangsamoro people, communally or individually
since time immemorial continuously to the present, except when
prevented by war, civil disturbance, force majeure, or other forms
of possible usurpation or displacement by force, deceit, stealth, or
as a consequence of government project or any other voluntary
dealings entered into by the government and private individuals,
corporate entities or institutions.
“4. Both Parties acknowledge
that the right to self-governance of the Bangsamoro people is rooted
on ancestral territoriality exercised originally under the suzerain
authority of their sultanates and the Pat a Pangampong ku Ranaw. The
Moro sultanates were states or karajaan/kadatuan resembling a body
politic endowed with all the elements of nation-state in the modern
sense. As a domestic community distinct from the rest of the
national communities, they have a definite historic homeland. They
are the ‘First Nation’ with defined territory and with a system
of government having entered into treaties of amity and commerce
with foreign nations.”
Right of self-determination
There are other provisions that
will allow the Bangsamoro nation-state to deal with foreign
countries—just as a completely independent country.
And the concept that the
Bangsamoro has the right and freedom to determine its future by
separating itself from the Philippine Republic is amply indicated.
The prospects are of a grimmer
Mindanao and Philippines.
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