|
By Brett M. Decker
Southeast Asia is a key front in the global war against Islamist
terrorism, and the region has seen some notable counterterror
successes. The Philippines, however, is in danger of taking a big
step backward. Witness the unprecedented autonomy agreement
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is trying to strike with the Moro
Islamic Front, or MILF, the largest armed Islamist separatist group
in Southeast Asia.
Called the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral
Domain, the deal would grant Muslims significant governing autonomy
and the right to live under Shariah law in an expanded area of the
archipelago’s southern islands. The deal is designed to appease
Muslims who want to break away from the Philippine nation and unify
with other Muslims in the region. Under the agreement, 700 towns,
many with sizable Christian populations, would be turned over to
Islamic rule. Residents and local leaders were not consulted about
the transition, and a constitutional amendment would be necessary to
free Muslim areas from national governance. Such a national campaign
to empower Muslims faces an uphill battle in a country whose
population is 93 percent Christian. Which is just as well, since it
would be a major mistake for at least four reasons:
First, by carving up provinces into separate
Muslim and Christian enclaves, the deal would surrender any hope
that Filipinos can find a way to live together and instead falls
back on the myth that countrymen can live healthy “separate but
equal” lives in an apartheid-like arrangement. This would undo the
decade of progress toward greater political integration since former
House Speaker Jose de Venecia started welcoming Muslim
representatives into his ruling congressional coalition.
Second, it would increase rather than decrease
the likelihood of territorial disputes because the agreement
concedes to claims that the region constitutes a traditional Islamic
homeland. This would likely inflame Christians, who would be kicked
off of land where they have lived for decades when Muslims make
claim to their legally mandated “ancestral domain.”
Third, further removing Muslims from the rest of
Philippine society and enabling them to shape an entirely separate
culture would encourage the separatist mentality that dreams of
carving out a pan-Islamic state from other existing countries in the
region, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. This has been a
MILF goal since its founders broke off from the Moro National
Liberation Front in the 1980s after that group made peace with
Manila.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly for the
outside world, greater Islamic independence and less Philippine
control over the Islamic regions would invite even more terrorist
activity in an area that already has strong ties to al Qaeda. With
the deployment of US. Special Forces to the southern Philippines now
in its seventh year, joint US-Philippine operations have pacified
the most lawless Muslim areas. Expanding the Islamist sphere of
influence now threatens to undue this success.
The Arroyo administration’s openness to
relinquishing control of so much territory has stirred up massive
protests. On Monday, the Philippine Supreme Court temporarily put
the brakes on the deal, which was scheduled to be signed in Kuala
Lumpur on Tuesday. Without a doubt, Manila needs to significantly
reform the way it deals with its Muslim minority, which has long
been neglected, particularly in the government appropriations
process. However, a more worthwhile policy would be to improve the
lives of isolated Muslims so that they could be assimilated into
greater society, not further excluded from it.
Then again, this agreement may not even be about
the Muslim areas at all. The most plausible explanation for Ms.
Arroyo’s support for such a problematic deal is that it’s a ploy
to consolidate her own hold on power.
Expanding Muslim autonomy would require changes
to the Constitution, which would in turn require a constitutional
convention. The likelihood this deal would pass such a convention is
virtually nil. But Philippine law does not allow for limits to be
placed on the mandate of a constitutional convention, or, for that
matter, for the agenda to be predetermined. This means that once the
convention was called, the door would be open to discussing other
constitutional changes—like the switch from a US-style
presidential system with a bicameral legislature to a unicameral
system run by a prime minister.
That just happens to
be a pet project of Ms. Arroyo’s, not least because it would pave
the way for her to stay in office past the end of her current
constitutionally term-limited single term, which expires in 2010.
President Arroyo’s support for greater Islamic autonomy can thus
be seen as a Trojan Horse to extend her stay in Malacañang
Presidential Palace by forcing a constitutional convention to be
called on a separate issue.
That’s crazy, and the scheme may well not
succeed. But Ms. Arroyo has shown herself to be a deft politician in
the past. The real problem, though, is that this entire episode
suggests she’s more interested in playing domestic politics than
she is in fighting the war on terror. Countries in Asia that have
racked up the biggest counterterror successes—like
Indonesia—have done so because political leaders have been willing
to stand up to strong political interests and focus on counterterror
policing. Ms. Arroyo isn’t showing that kind of resolve, and the
consequences both for the Philippines and its neighbors could be
serious.
Mr. Decker, a former editorial page writer
for The Wall Street Journal Asia, is an adjunct professor of
government at Johns Hopkins University.
Wall Street Journal Asia
|
