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Last week and on Monday, it became clear—from retired Generals
Ermita, Esperon and Garcia’s failure to give satisfactory answers
to honest questions asked by House allies of the administration—
that the government should renegotiate the highly flawed draft of
the MOA-AD.
But on Wednesday Presidential Peace Adviser
Esperon ruled out renegotiation.
A Philippine Information Agency news story
published in the official Malacañang website tells of Gen.
Esperon’s resolve to overcome the Supreme Court’s TRO on the
MOA-AD.
The story reiterates the Malacãnang view that
the MOA-AD is “just one part of the negotiations and is also just
a document that still [sic] need enabling laws passed by the
Congress before it gets implemented.”
“Nevertheless, this MOA is considered by both
panels from the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front [MILF]
as a very important building block in the Mindanao peace process,”
the story by Mai Gevera says.
Haphazard thinking
That Palace thinking is haphazard. In fact, the
MILF leaders insist that the “ancestral domain agreement is a done
deal” because it has been initialed by Esperon and the chief of
the GRP peace panel, Gen. Garcia. The MILF and the international
community, they say, expect the government to honor its word.
“Esperon is against the suggestion of some
politicians calling for a re-negotiation as this would only mean
prolonging the peace process and that would bring back the country
to where it first started many years ago,” the PIA story also
says.
These politicians are obviously the three
representatives from Mindanao who filed a House resolution urging
the government to renegotiate because the people of the 700-plus
villages that the government is ceding to the so-called Bangsamoro
Juridical Entity must first be consulted.
These three are South Cotabato Rep. Darlene
Antonino-Custodio, North Cotabato Rep. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, and
Zamboanga City Rep. Maria Isabelle Climaco. They are supported by
other congressmen/women who agree that there should be a
renegotiation with the MILF—including Muslims.
These three lady legislators believe that the
shooting war in North Cotabato would not have happened had the
government not concealed the facts from the people.
Esperon apparently believes, undemocratically
and in violation of the laws upholding the people’s right to
information, that there is no need for the people to be told now
about things that affect their lives and their future because anyway
they will be consulted later in a plebiscite.
Fascist plebiscites
There is big hole in the retired general’s
knowledge of how democracy—republican democracy as opposed to the
pretend democracy of fascist states—works.
This goes also for those in the Palace and their
allies everywhere who have debased the balance of power among the
branches of government by making “executive privilege” a license
to keep secrets from the citizenry.
“We fought for a plebiscite because this is
the highest form of consultation in our democracy,” Esperon is
quoted by Gevera as saying. What?
The plebiscite—like an election—is the final
process of determining what the electorate’s decision is. Before
the plebiscite, the citizens are supposed to contribute their
inputs. If there are facts to be learned before they can make an
informed contribution, these must be made known to them. Just as
before an election, the people must be allowed to know who the
candidates are and what they stand for. Democracy is giving citizens
the right to make informed decisions.
Are the plebiscites in Gen. Esperon’s mind
those that were held in the Marcos Martial Law regime, in the Third
Reich and in the Soviet Union?
Sorry about that, Ma’am
This column and editorials of this paper have
pointed out the treasonous parts of the MOA-AD. In the House,
Esperon and Garcia were berated for excluding the words
“Philippine Constitution” from the MOA-AD.
Rep. Maria Isabelle Climaco demanded an
explanation for the inclusion of areas in her city where the City
Hall, the City Government complex, the BIR regional Office, the Main
Office of the Land Bank of the Philippines, the Commission on Audit,
Bank of the Philippine Island, the Port Areas, Public Market, a
children’s hospital, a college, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the
Fort Pilar Shrine, the Ateneo de Zamboanga University, the big
department stores, commercial banks and the residences of many of
Zamboanga’s top leaders are located.
Esperon could not explain it. But he admitted
that yielding these key areas to the MILF was a mistake.
Yet, he is against renegotiation?
rqb@manilatimes.net
rq_bas@yahoo.com
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