Thursday, January 1, 2015

MILF: Editorial - The year to watch

Editorial posted to the MILF Website (Jan 2): Editorial - The year to watch

2015 is the year of reckoning vis-à-vis the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) Its fate is hanging in the balance. We should watch how this year unfolds itself and how Congress shapes the destiny of this proposed law.
  
If we recall, the BBL has passed through rigid scrutiny and rigorous process involving not only the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC), the Peace Panels of the government and the MILF but also the Office the President (OP) and the BTC-MILF. The scrutiny did not end there but President Benigno Aquino III personally read through the document. Chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim and President Aquino also met to thresh out the six remaining unresolved issues as a result of these multi-tiered engagements that finally led to an “agreed version of the BBL”. This version was formally signed by the 14 Commissioners of the BTC, and submitted to President Aquino through the OP. On September 10, last year, the same version, certified as urgent bill, was transmitted during a ceremony in Malacañang Palace to Congress by President Aquino through Speaker Sonny Belmonte and Senate President Franklin Drilon.

To this day, the MILF has never wavered in believing in the sincerity and commitment of the Aquino Administration to deliver. That commitment has been made consistently and on almost countless occasions. Specifically, the commitment was and still is: “We will not sign an agreement that we cannot implement.” This is the reason that the GPH Peace Panel --- the MILF understands the wisdom --- saw to it that all the provisions of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) and Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) do not violate the Constitution. This is also the reason that the MILF consistently maintains that the Moro Question or Problem, which the two Parties agreed to solve right at the outset of their peace negotiation in 1997, cannot be addressed through the confines of the current Constitution, which is too restrictive and shallow. Besides, the issue is not a legal question but political in nature; hence, the BTC is also mandated to proposed amendments to the Constitution to ensure that the agenda of the talks will be fully settled.

Similarly, we also believe that Congress, the Supreme Court, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP), the business community, the Church, and everybody are one with the government in establishing peace in Mindanao. They want a genuine peaceful settlement of this armed conflict. They want a peaceful and progressive Philippines.

The key to this bright future, WE BELIEVE, is for Congress to pass a good BBL. The BBL is not an ordinary legislation. The BBL, as noted above, was crafted by the BTC and had passed through multi-layered engagements with the letter and spirit of the FAB and CAB taken into full account. These two historic documents did not come so easily; they came into being after 17 long years of harsh and prolonged negotiations, interspersed with three major wars and almost countless number of bloody confrontations between government and MILF forces.

It is for this reason that we appeal for the unqualified support for the passage of a good BBL in Congress. Its passage is good for everybody, not only for the Bangsamoro people, but also for all inhabitants of Mindanao and this country. It is also good for business and the international community.

http://www.luwaran.com/index.php/editorial/item/1435-the-year-to-watch

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