MILF soldiers guard a village in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao. (Mindanao Examiner Photo)
The rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which signed a peace agreement with Manila in March, has expressed serious concern over the delay in the signing of the proposed Muslim homeland law by President Benigno Aquino.
Aquino has already received on April 14 the Bangsamoro Basic Law or BBL drafted by the 15-member Bangsamoro Transition Commission. It was supposed to be signed by Aquino on May 5 after a battery of government lawyers review the draft law to ensure that nothing in its provisions violate the Constitution.
Once Aquino signs the BBL, it can be ratified and implemented in time for the 2016 local and national elections. The BBL will pave the way for the establishment of the Bangsamoro region in 2016 that would replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM.
The creation of Bangsamoro autonomous region would have to be decided on a referendum in the ARMM and in areas where there are large Muslim communities probably before the year ends. The new Bangsamoro region will replace the current Muslim autonomous region that has suffered from decades of poverty, corruption, and conflict.
“We are seriously worried about the delay in signing of the BBL by President Aquino and this further delay the implementation of the peace agreement – the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro – and it creates problems not only to the Aquino government, but the MILF as well. It’s a political problem and government has to address this quickly because we are running out of time here,” a senior rebel leader, who asked not to be identified, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Presidential peace adviser Teresita Deles has previously said that the BBL is likely to be certified as an urgent bill by Aquino and would be submitted to Congress for passage, and subjected to a plebiscite. But some lawmakers and various groups were saying that the accord was unconstitutional and vowed to challenge it in court.
The Aquino government insisted the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro is legal and that the deal was based on the Constitution. “The CAB is legal,” said lawyer Anna Basman, head of the CAB legal team.
She said they are open to engaging and informing everyone on the different provisions on the CAB.
“Our Constitution itself provides the justification for the asymmetry and reserved a separate set of provisions for two particular areas in the country – Muslim Mindanao and the Cordilleras. This progressive and enlightened section recognizes the uniqueness of the peoples belonging to these areas and provides for their rightful exercise of self-governance. The Bangsamoro Basic Law as the enabling law for the establishment of the Bangsamoro precisely aims to operationalize this constitutional objective,” Basman said.
Christian leaders of Zamboanga and Isabela in Basilan, also a province under the ARMM, also vowed to fight for their inclusion in the new Bangsamoro homeland, although many of the residents there are Muslims and supportive of the peace deal. The other provinces in ARMM are Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, and the cities of Marawi and Lamitan.
In the Lanao town of Wao, Christian villagers vowed to reject their inclusion to the new Bangsamoro region. Villagers said shortly after the deal was signed in March 27, Muslim groups have emerged and started claiming farmlands owned by Christians as theirs and invoking their ancestral rights in Lanao del Sur. Some villagers said several groups of Maranao, one of several Muslim tribes in Mindanao, have started putting up markers and began claiming farmlands as their ancestral domain. The markers had been destroyed by landowners.
Now, many residents have started arming themselves for fear that once the new Bangsamoro autonomous government is installed, Muslims will take away their lands which they inherited from their clan. Majority of the town’s 40,000 inhabitants is Christians.
In Sultan Kudarat province, villagers in the town of President Quirino were also facing the same dilemma, but many also have purchased illegal weapons to protect their families and lands from unjustified takeover by Muslims who warned them that they should leave the town immediately once the Bangsamoro autonomous region is installed because they would take over their farms.
Indigenous tribesmen in the ARMM were also worried about their future and asked the government to ensure their rights and ancestral domain, but others have rejected their inclusion into the proposed Bangsamoro region. Miriam Coronel, the chief government peace negotiator, and Deles's group continue to hold dialogues in Muslim areas, explaining the provisions in the CAB.
The MILF - a breakaway faction of the Moro National Liberation Front which signed a peace deal with Manila in September 1996 - is the country’s largest Muslim rebel group fighting for decades now for self-determination.
In 2008, rebel forces launched simultaneous attacks in southern Philippines after the Supreme Court stopped the signing of the territorial deal between the Arroyo government and the MILF, which is fighting for a separate homeland in Mindanao, because many of its provisions were unconstitutional. The MILF said the peace panels have initially signed the Muslim homeland agreement in Malaysia, which is brokering the talks.
The controversial deal also sparked massive protests from politicians opposed to the agreement that would have granted about four million Muslims their homeland in more than 700 villages across Mindanao.
http://www.mindanaoexaminer.net/2014/05/philippine-rebels-worry-over-delay-in.html
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