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We laud Senator Richard Gordon for opposing moves to postpone the
elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)
scheduled to be held on August 11. This stand happens to be also
that of all opposition figures who have spoken on the
subject—including Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon.
Even pro-Palace politicians in the ARMM,
including the region’s Governor Zaldy Ampatuan, couched his
support for the postponement with the grand declaration that he
wholeheartedly backs the peace process between the government and
the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). He was saying in effect
that only because of Malacañang’s desire to finalize a deal with
the MILF is he willing to suffer the consequences of the
postponement of the election in which he is seen to be the
front-runner (since he is the incumbent). Deferment will give others
who want to become ARMM governor a better chance of beating Gov.
Ampatuan.
Most likely with the governor’s approval,
local government officials and political leaders in ARMM—provincial
governors, town mayors and barangay chairmen—have announced their
opposition to postponement. They will continue to campaign for Gov.
Ampatuan’s and their own re-election. They are thinking and
behaving correctly. For no one can be sure that the ARMM election
would really be postponed, since deferment will require Congress to
pass a law repealing the ARMM’s electoral schedules.
The Palace and allies claim it is vital to the
finalization of the peace agreement with the MILF for the ARMM
election to be postponed because the rebels have asked for it.
Obviously, if the ARMM is to be enlarged with
more towns and barangay in Mindanao and most if not all of Palawan,
the election must be held in abeyance until the larger ARMM has been
properly defined. But this means elections in ARMM can only happen
after the Constitution has been amended precisely to accommodate the
“ancestral domain” provisions of the “GRP-MILF Final Peace
Agreement” naming those parts of our country that are to become
the territory of the so-called “Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.”
Underhanded Cha-cha scheme
For the Constitution to be properly amended, at
least a “preliminary peace agreement” or an “agreement on
consensus points” with the MILF must first be finalized. The
contents of the agreement would then be made the basis of the
proposed Charter amendments. (Note that these documents, signed by
Philippine government representatives, are enough for the MILF to
declare independence for a Bangsamoro State whose people supposedly
want to exercise self-determination.)
Then the proposed amendments would have to be
approved by a constitutional convention with elected delegates.
Or the Congress could be turned into a
Constituent Assembly approving the proposed amendments. These must
be passed with three-fourths of the votes of Congress—with each of
the two houses voting separately.
Or the proposed amendments could be made the
subject of a citizens’ initiative.
Whichever method is used will require that the
proposed amendments be ratified by the people in a plebiscite.
Any of these three options will take
time—unless the Palace and its allies are bent on steamrolling the
Cha-cha process as they tried to do in the past.
All this makes Sen. Gordon’s objections
magnificently valid and legitimate. He sees a link between the
administration proposal to postpone the ARMM election—and the
MILF’s desire for postponement—to the Palace’s long-held
desire to amend the Constitution.
“They are laying the predicate for
constitutional amendment,” Sen. Gordon, chairman of the Senate
Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes and
Laws, said. He has therefore vowed to oppose not just the deferment
of the ARMM election but also any move to make immediate amendments
to the Charter.
“I see no reason why Charter change should be
done before 2010,” he told The Manila Times. We think he does see
the reason but is just too polite to say it.
The United Opposition (UNO), however, does not
have Sen. Gordon’s qualms. UNO spokesman Adel Tamano, who is
concurrently president of the Pamantasan ng Maynila, said the
postponement is being used by the administration as a means to force
through amendments to the Constitution that will enable it to remain
in power beyond 2010.
“As a Filipino Muslim, I am personally and
deeply offended by the use of the peace process as a tool and a
cover for maintaining this administration’s hold on power,” Mr.
Tamano said. He predicted that all Filipinos, Christian and Muslim
alike, would oppose this “underhanded scheme to amend the
Constitution.”
Don’t postpone ARMM election
The Republic of the Philippines must not
surrender territories and sovereignty to the MILF. It must not even
surrender on paper.
Our negotiators must not give the MILF signed
documents in which the Republic recognizes the Bangsamoro as a
nation-state, agrees that it has its own territory and that the
lands claimed to be the Bangsamoro’s “ancestral domain” are
its people’s birthright, therefore outside the sovereignty of the
Philippine Republic.
Such recognition contained in a signed agreement
will arm the MILF with the moral right to declare itself and the
Bangsamoro State to be independent of the Republic—as Kosovo did.
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