Bangsamoro hopes as ISIS looms

 

 

According to Mohager Iqbal, chairman of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, enactment by Congress of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) would bring to a close the suffering of the Bangsamoro people, foster unity, bring about economic development and end radicalism among Muslims in the Southern Philippines.

 

Citing the recent Scottish referendum in which those against independence from Britain won and Scotland decided to remain under the Union Jack, Iqbal was also confident that the Bangsamoro entity would not rift the country apart but rather unify it. But this could be wishful thinking because at this stage, the new Bangsamoro state is still very much an elusive dream.

Supporters of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro show their
jubilation upon signing of the agreement between the Philippine government
and the MILF peace panels.

Even if the Aquino-controlled Congress could easily steamroll the enactment of the BBL, it is likely to face a constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court, and its ratification by the constituents of the Bangsamoro nation is not expected to be a sure thing. With the growing spectre of the Islamic State in the Middle East (ISIS or ISIL) reportedly having reached Southern Philippines, particularly among the more radical and disenchanted members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and the formerly Al Qaeda affiliate, Abu Sayyaf, the urgency of a Bangsamoro state looms even more urgent as the only peaceful alternative to a never-ending insurgency or to the establishment of a dreaded Islamic Caliphate in Mindanao.

 

There are constitutional landmines that the BBL needs to hurdle before Congress can enact the law. Assurances from the government panel that amending the Constitution is not necessary only appear to blindside the obvious constitutional questions. The new Bangsamoro entity envisaged under the BBL will clearly have a wide range of political powers not hitherto delegated or devolved to any other existing political subdivision like a province, city or town. The mere idea of forming a substate or a nation within a bigger nation is inconceivable because the Philippine Constitution does not allow it.

 

Pursuant to the mandate under the current Philippine Constitution, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was created on August 1, 1989, through Republic Act No. 6734. The ARRM was officially inaugurated on November 6, 1990, in Cotabato City.

 

President Benigno Aquino III has said that the ARRM experiment was a complete failure because of corruption that plagued the new entity. In repealing the organic act that created the ARRM, the proposed BBL however goes beyond the framework of the current Constitution under Section 15.  For one, the BBL undermines the national sovereignty as well as the territorial integrity of the republic.

 

Although the BBL states that the Bangsamoro territory shall remain part of the Philippines, there are doubts however that it could be a preparation for ultimate secession from the republic. With a different government from the rest of the country based on the parliamentary system, exclusive and concurrent powers with the central government, and a shariah justice system for Muslims only, the BBL looks like a complete and comprehensive template not just for self-government, but for eventual independence.

Map showing the proposed new Bangsamoro territory.

Recall that the concept of a Bangsamoro nation is not the original creation of the peace panel that helped draft the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro. Muslims or Moros in Mindanao have long believed they could not identify with the rest of the country, thinking that they do not belong. It has always been their claim that they were a sovereign people before colonization by Western powers, that their integration was forced upon them. It was this lost identity that led to the formation of the Mindanao Independence Movement in Cotabato in 1968, and later embraced by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). This stirring for a separate nationhood is evident in the slogan of The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that seceded from the MNLF and is now the major partner of the current administration for the enactment of the BBL: “We are Moros, not Filipinos.”



But if the BBL is the most viable non-violent alternative to Muslim self-determination in the south, then it should be laid out to the front so that the current Philippine Constitution could be appropriately amended to reflect that objective. The current text in the Constitution on the creation of autonomous regions in Muslim Mindanao is obviously insufficient to accommodate a Bangsamoro territory as envisaged by the BBL.

 

The problem with the current Aquino administration is its inability to stay within the parameters of the Constitution as evidenced by the pork barrel allocations and illegal transfers of government funds, and its lack of respect for equal protection under the law when apprehending perpetrators of corruption. The notion that the state can just suspend the fundamental rights of individuals by detaining them without trial reeks of injustice and offends the rule of law.

 

President Aquino and Congress should not cut corners in enacting a law that promises so much for our Muslim brothers in the south. In these crucial times when Western powers are being tested by a nascent and more extreme form of Muslim radicalism, one serious misstep like an error in constitutional judgment can foment and provoke choosing violence as the only available option for self-government.

 

The history of the Muslim struggle for self-government antedates the Philippines’ own independence movement against the Spanish and American colonizers. In the 1950s, the Kamlon uprising reminded us that the Moro rebellion has not been finished after the Philippines became independent from the United States in 1946. Beginning in the 1970s, secession had become the battlecry of the Moros of Mindanao. The MNLF waged a three-decade war against the central government until it accepted political autonomy under the 1996 peace agreement. But that didn’t last long and the MILF seceded from the MNLF which also spawned other disenchanted and more radical factions of the Muslim secessionist movement.

 

The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro between the MILF and the present government probably has the best chance of achieving the lasting peace that has eluded all previous attempts toward a negotiated settlement of the Muslim problem. But if the government of President Aquino fails to deliver the Bangsamoro state to the MILF, what could be the last option for the Muslim rebels but embrace the more radical jihad of the Islamic State. They would seem better off to continue fighting for their own independence since that would ensure loyalty to their Islamic traditional beliefs, whether they follow the revivalist practices of Wahhabism espoused by Saudi Arabia or the extremism of Al Qaeda or of the ISIS.

 

Fixing the constitutional shortcomings of the BBL is not the only problem the government must do to satisfy the MILF. Conducting the plebiscite to get the ratification of the BBL is in itself a huge challenge. The proposed law is a voluminous text for the constituents of the Bangsamoro territory to digest and understand before they can make up their minds whether to ratify the law. The plebiscite is not just going to be like a referendum on sovereignty where a simple question that can be answered by a yes or no would suffice.

 

An example of a question which needs to be asked is how would the separability clause in the BBL be implemented in the event that some provisions of the BBL are rejected. How would that influence the entire law, or should it be allowed to stand despite some paragraphs being struck down?

 

If the constitutional objections to the BBL are cleaned up, the promise of the Bangsamoro state is an ambitious undertaking that could either break or make the Aquino administration. Previous presidents have failed, yet this current president who is perceived to be without a strong character but with the moral certitude bigger than the sum of his personality, could possibly emerge as a champion for the Muslim minority in the South if he knows how to play his cards correctly.

Negotiating in bad faith

 

 

In his novel, The Dogs of War (1974), Frederick Forsyth wrote about a group of mercenary soldiers hired to depose a fictional government in Africa. Forsyth called this group the dogs of war, much like the wild pack of soldiers Shakespeare referred to in his play, Julius Caesar.

 

But when the Philippine military named the two dogs and a cat they took into custody during the recent arrest of two high-ranking members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) as “Ben,” “Wilma” and “Joma,” obviously after the top leaders of the Communist movement, it was a cheap shot, an unfair and malicious attack against their prized captives. On other hand, Forsyth’s dogs of war could probably aptly describe the military like a wild bunch unleashed to pounce on their hated adversaries.

Top leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Benito Tiamzon and his
wife Wilma Austria raise their fists in defiance on their way to their hastily
arranged inquest in Manila after being arrested in Cebu last March 22.

The military also mockingly announced that the well-groomed pets owned by the captured Communist leaders, Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria, were better fed than the soldiers in the army whose monthly combat salary wasn’t even sufficient to pay for the pets’ food. Perhaps, the military was sending a hidden message to let the government hear that they are not being taken cared of unlike the Tiamzons’ pets.

 

We can excuse Forsyth in describing his villains as dogs of war since he was only writing a fictional tale. On the other hand, the military had no valid excuse to be insensitive and thoughtless in naming their hostages after their owners. The military’s insensitivity is not just to their prisoners, but to dogs and cats in general, who also have feelings and in fact are more sensitive than people realize.

 

Dogs are very sensitive souls, and if only they could communicate like human beings, they could have let those soldiers know how they felt. Not because they were named after their owners, but it’s just that naming pets is not something to treat like a joke, especially one that is made in poor taste.

 

No species has developed a closer relationship with humanity than the dog, or the cat. We name our pets when we’re prepared to adopt them, to bring them to our homes to become part of our families like our own children. Not to name them in order to poke fun at their owners. These soldiers do not understand what it is about dogs that allows them to live at ease with people.

 

Not so many people really know who the Tiamzons are in person. Just because they were Communists and have lived in the shadows for almost four decades, many who believe the alternative to Communism is far superior think it is perfectly all right to treat the Tiamzons like animals, or even worse than criminals. But it is their affection for dogs and cats that separates them from most of the worst among us who cannot appreciate that such animals also have feelings and rights like people.

 

It is this cavalier attitude of the military and the government that makes the so-called peace negotiations with the rebels really a joke, a process that is wrought from the start with insincerity and lack of genuineness of purpose in achieving the goal of lasting peace. It makes the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) issued by the government to the rebel participants an ineffectual document of safe passage. Because the government believes they unilaterally impose the JASIG guarantees, that at any time the government wishes to suspend the JASIG’s effect, they can always round up and detain the rebel leaders.

 

Before the capture of Benny Tiamzon and Wilma Austria, other consultants of the CPP and the National Democratic Front (NDF) were also snatched by the military on the pretext that the JASIG has lost its effect because of the impasse in the negotiations.

 

Yet the JASIG guarantees were the product of an agreement, therefore, they can be suspended only if both parties also agreed to do so. But not in the present case. It was only the government who decided on its own irrespective of the other party that the JASIG guarantees are no longer operative since the negotiations were stalled.

 

According to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, former head of the government peace panel, Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria should be released if they were carrying genuine immunity papers during their arrest. Duterte added that the government should honour its commitment under the JASIG.

 

Under the JASIG, all rebels duly accredited as participants in the negotiations either directly or as consultants are guaranteed free and unhindered passage in all areas in the Philippines. JASIG’s protection covers immunity from surveillance, harassment, search, arrest, detention, prosecution and interrogations or any other similar punitive actions due to involvement or participation in the peace negotiations.

 

JASIG’s immunity is considered necessary in facilitating the peace negotiations between the government and the rebel group because it helps create and sustain an environment conducive to peace talks. It also attracted the Royal Norwegian Government to act as facilitator because of the JASIG guarantees. JASIG further enhances political stability in the Philippines and the government’s peaceful approach towards local insurgency, and this process is made known to the global community.

 

But when the Philippine government asserts that the JASIG guarantees are suspended due to the impasse in the negotiations, it was making a unilateral decision that has not been agreed by the parties. Besides, the process was never concluded nor deemed terminated. It must also be considered that the JASIG guarantees were the most contentious and toughest to negotiate because they covered essentially the procedural agreements between the parties before they could really commence the negotiations. To say, then, that JASIG has been suspended is in bad faith and without the agreement of the other party.

The arrest of Tiamzon and Austria and the other NDF consultants before them despite their JASIG accreditation, however, signals a clear indication that repression of the 45-year old insurgency continues and it is going on with impunity.

 

Recently, the Philippine Supreme Court has ordered the trial with dispatch of the trumped-up murder charges against former Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo and CPP-NDF consultants in the peace negotiations Randall Echanis, Rafael Baylosis and Vicente Ladlad in connection with the mass graves discovered in Leyte eight years ago. The mass graves discovered by the Philippine Army were said to contain the remains of individuals believed to be victims of “Operation Venereal Disease” launched by the CPP-NDF’s armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), to purge their ranks of suspected military informers and collaborators which happened 23 years ago.

 

Also early this week, the Philippine military reported the mass surrender of NPA supporters from Cagayan de Oro City to the army’s 14th Infantry Division, said surrenderees included civilians and children. Using a hoax surrender by the NPA is a patented pys-war tactic by the Philippine military to flush out other insurgents from their mass base and one of the biggest sources of corruption for AFP field commanders in pocketing the reward money from the government’s Social Integration Program for firearms surrendered.

 

Now the government panel is announcing plans to resume the peace negotiations with the Communist rebel group, but insisting that they are willing to negotiate only with CPP leaders based in the Philippines, and not with their counterparts in Utrecht in Netherlands.

 

Where is good faith and trust in the negotiations when at the same time the government is rounding up and detaining the rebel forces? Immunity from arrest was the purpose for installing the JASIG guarantees in the first place but the government apparently respects the agreement only when it works to their advantage.

 

Obviously the government treats the Muslim rebel forces under the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) quite differently from the CPP-NDF and other Muslim factions. The pivotal role of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in facilitating the negotiations between the government and the MILF has been hailed and credited with the adoption of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB).

 

It should be recalled that the father of the current Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Haji Abdul Razak bin Haji Dato’ Hussein, was also Malaysia’s prime minister from 1970 to 1976. It was also common knowledge during that time that he supported the Muslim insurgency under the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) by providing the rebels with arms, training and funds. The support of the former Malaysian PM was conditional on the Muslim insurgents preventing the government in Manila from pursuing its Sabah claim.

 

With the change in the leadership of the Muslim insurgency, the current Malaysian Prime Minister shifted his support to the MILF and he became the chief facilitator of the Bangsamoro framework agreement.

 

Would the motive for the current Malaysian Prime Minister’s involvement in bringing the Philippine government and the MILF to the table be the same as his father’s?

 

In both peace negotiations by the government with the MILF and the CPP-NDF, it is crystal clear that the government is hiding its true intentions. Acquiescing to the integrity of Malaysia’s territorial right over Sabah and using JASIG as a pretext for rounding up Communist rebels are now surfacing as the real motivation for the government and not the genuine pursuit for lasting peace.

 

Perhaps, the current government can learn something from dogs and their sensitivity to social cues from people that enables them to fit with human society. Humans often fail to realize the unusual skills of dogs in communicating with their masters. But it’s not just their skills but their sense of loyalty which counts most. That is why dogs are our most trusted friends. Dogs know how to build and foster trust, which seems sorely lacking among humans. If only the military and the government could treat dogs in a better light.

Fear of the Bangsamoro state

 

 

Today there is a far less rigid understanding of the meaning of independence than was the case during most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The growing perception is that flexibility is needed with respect to the status of some territories that do not desire or cannot sustain full independence but are not “dependent” territories.

 

The Compact of Free Association is a case in point. Three small nations that used to be part of the U.S.-administered U.N. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands – the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau, entered into the so-called Compact of Free Association which terminated their status as wards of the international community in 1986 and gave them a new status of free association with the United States. These new freely associated states retain their sovereign right of self-determination but have assigned their security and defence and the conduct of foreign affairs to the United States, the latter being the larger partner.

 

This concept of sovereignty association has also been tried by the independence movement in Quebec but the separatists lost in the 1995 referendum by a close vote. There are also those who view the European Union from its beginnings as the European Coal and Steel Community as a complex sovereignty association of a special nature. More than a century earlier, a number of tiny European fragments left over from the pre-Napoleonic period – San Marino, Liechtenstein, Andorra and Monaco – were recognized as technically independent by the Concert of Europe.

Bangsamoro rebels of Mindanao, Philippines. Click link to view "Bangsamoro
Mujaheedin," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRvlZET-vE4&feature=related

Thus, those who fear that the formation of the Bangsamoro nation could lead to separation might be out of touch with history. It is almost inevitable that a population with a very distinct cultural and religious ancestry will always pine for freedom to self-governance, if not alone, through an association with the larger or central power that is willing to devolve some form of autonomy to this new entity. To achieve this type of autonomy would require a military uprising which has been the status quo ante before the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) recently negotiated a Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro that defines the sharing of political and economic powers.

 

But this Framework Agreement is not a perfect document. It is wrought with inherent risks. If it is a roadmap to peace as the government panel sees it, then there are too many roadblocks ahead, some of which might seem insurmountable, either by legislation or pragmatic politics.

 

Splinter groups within the Islamic liberation movement like the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) have already vowed to continue their armed struggle for self-determination as a separate state. Even the old Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) under Nur Misuari has charged that the Framework Agreement was illegal because of the existing peace accord between the government and MNLF.

 

The indigenous peoples such as the Lumads, and the predominantly Roman Catholic communities in the new Bangsamoro state may not totally support the new entity because of fear of being subjected to the Sharia justice system, and naturally for their displacement and loss of property. Although the Framework Agreement makes it clear that only Muslims will be under Sharia jurisdiction.

 

Another relevant question is how this agreement achieved by the MILF will affect the other peace negotiations between the government and the communist insurgency group represented by the National Democratic Front (NDF). The negotiations have reached an impasse with the government being apparently disinterested to continue. But should there be a peace agreement with the NDF-led communist group, is it going to be similar with the MILF Bangsamoro deal? This might further heighten the fear of dismembering the Philippine territory as defined under the Constitution, thus create more worries of future Balkanization of the republic.

 

Under the Framework Agreement, the new Bangsamoro entity shall replace the existing Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which makes it almost similar to the previous Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) entered between the Arroyo government and the MILF. In other words, the provinces, cities, municipalities, barangays and geographic areas within the ARMM territory shall be the constituent units of the Bangsamoro. The Supreme Court has struck this latter agreement as unconstitutional although the main objection to Arroyo’s peace initiative was the secrecy and lack of transparency in how the agreement was made. This led to some speculations that Arroyo was simply paying back the MILF and her Muslim supporters for her re-election as president.

Proposed Bangsamoro Core Territory. Courtesy of Keith Bacongco,Mindanews Graphics.
Click link to view Speech of President Aquino on the preliminary peace agreement
between the government (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),
http://www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/13752-agreement-paves-way-for-enduring-peace-in-mindanao 

While the new Bangsamoro nation under the Framework Agreement shall have a ministerial form (parliamentary) of government, its relationship with the central government is asymmetric. This means that the relationship between the two levels of government is not equal. Or expressed mathematically, Bangsamoro can have a relation with Manila, but Manila cannot have the same relation to Bangsamoro.

 

Who is Bangsamoro? Under the Framework Agreement, “Those who at the time of conquest and colonization were considered natives or original inhabitants of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago and its adjacent islands including Palawan, and their descendants whether of mixed or of full blood shall have the right to identify themselves as Bangsamoro by ascription or self-ascription.”

 

The territorial breadth of the Bangsamoro entity and the definition of the Bangsamoro identity might fuel some form of controversy that would be difficult to untangle. Constitutional purists, for one, will naturally thumb down any scheme of dismembering the Philippine territory without going through the amendment process. They will view this as giving up territories which the country has earned from the time of independence from colonization.

 

This Constitution-based objection to the Bangsamoro territory, however, can be overcome by the new political modality between the new entity and the central government. Their relationship is asymmetric, which means that while Bangsamoro will be an autonomous entity, to the central government it is not an independent state. The distribution and sharing of powers confirm this type of relationship.

 

Under the Framework Agreement, the central government shall have reserved powers such as those bundled up and assigned to the national government like defence and external security, foreign policy, foreign trade unless those already devolved under the law to Bangsamoro, coinage and monetary policy, citizenship and naturalization and postal service.

 

On the other hand, Bangsamoro shall have exclusive powers like the establishment of the Sharia justice system for Muslim inhabitants. Other powers will be shared between the two levels of government.

 

In effect, there would be no diminution in central political powers. The central government is not diminished by devolution of some types of autonomy to the new Bangsamoro entity.

 

But the most contentious of all issues in the Framework Agreement is how the parties will agree to the sharing of the largely untapped wealth of Mindanao’s natural resources. Currently, ARMM has a 50 percent share in the proceeds of exploiting strategic minerals in the region. Under the new Bangsamoro entity, it will get a 75 percent share in wealth produced in the areas under its control, or 75 percent of revenues generated, leaving the central government a mere 25 percent. Under any percentage sharing scheme, disaster looms either way. It cannot also be discounted that the new Bangsamoro entity could just be dominated by the same set of local elites that will bend to the agenda of the ruling national elite and American multinational corporations which have economic interests to protect in Mindanao.

 

Arguably there is no need for a constitutional amendment to enshrine the new Bangsamoro entity as the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law could be considered part of enabling legislation in support of the constitutional provision for autonomous regions like the ARRM and the Cordilleras. Or on the other hand, the proposed Bangsamoro entity could just be a ruse to open up the Constitution in order to change its economic and patrimony provisions that would give equal rights to foreign companies to exploit our natural resources.

 

Congress, which has been overeager to convene a constituent assembly to amend the Constitution, and President Benigno Aquino III, who has been ambivalent to Charter Change, might have finally stumbled on the rationale for amending the Constitution. The Bangsamoro juridical entity as envisaged by the Framework Agreement might be the biggest casualty of the peace process.