Wednesday, January 15, 2014

MILF: Editorial - Security need in ASEAN Economic

Editorial posted to the MILF Website (Jan 15): Security need in ASEAN Economic

By 2015 the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) shall be formally established. However, for it to be fully operational, there has to have the following key characteristics: (a) a single market and production base, (b) a highly competitive economic region, (c) a region of equitable economic development, and (d) a region fully integrated into the global economy. And without saying, the need for risks-free region is part of the requirements.
  
Towards this end, this Community is committed to ensuring an ASEAN region living in a peaceful, democratic, and harmonious environment.

Guided by the Blueprint of the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), it strives to be a rules-based community of shared norms and values. In addition, it binds the member-states to share in the responsibility for comprehensive security in the realization of a cohesive and stable region in light of the continued dynamism of the world at large.

Thus, the existence of regional security dialogue fora such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), East Asia Summit (EAS), ASEAN Defense Minister Meeting (ADMM), among others, are clear manifestations that the body gives importance to the need for peace and security in the region.

It is said that any member state which does not succeed to secure its boundaries will not be admitted to full membership in the AEC. Surely, this is one of the reasons why Burma (Myanmar) is striving to heal the serious rift amongst its people and is getting more and more democratic in approaches in governance after decades of brutal military dictatorship. No less than General Thein Sein, Myanmar’s Prime Minister, signed the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint, alongside all ASEAN heads of states, in Singapore in 2007.

For the Philippines, without solving the multiple internal security threats especially the Moro-led rebellion in Mindanao, which used to be the longest conflict in the world, after Sudan before the signing of the Machakos Agreement with South Sudan in 2002, its membership in AEC will be held on hold. As a consequence, this country would be left behind in terms of progress and development. The threat of being clamped as a failed state will continue to hang in the balance.

This is why the current GPH-MILF peace negotiation has to succeed.  It is like shooting many birds with one stone. One, the threat of China is real; it is not only in the mind. Even if China does not invade and occupy this country, but mere military occupation of the disputed various islands in the China Sea (or South Philippines Sea) is already a nightmare. Two, the mother of all poverty is war. It will bring down both this country and the Moro areas --- and will have far-reaching adverse consequence in non-Moro communities. Third, the war in Mindanao is virtually stalemated: The government cannot defeat the MILF in protracted guerrilla warfare and the MILF’s inability to lick the government in massive conventional confrontation. Above all, the peaceful resolution of conflict is not only morally sound, but economical as well. It is the best legacy that President Benigno Aquino III can bequeath to the next generations of Filipinos and Moros in this country.

http://www.luwaran.com/index.php/welcome/item/767-“bangsamoro-basic-law-is-for-our-people”-milf

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