A YEAR AGO today, a remote and little heard-of town in southern Philippines called Mamasapano, one that had been under relative peace in the previous three years owing to a cease-fire agreement between the government and Moro rebels, would suddenly wake up in the early morning hours to bursts of heavy gunfire.
Residents search a corn field, the site of the encounter between police commandos and Muslim rebels, in this 2015 file photo. -- AFP
By now, Mamasapano is a familiar word. One that has come to be associated with controversy and tragedy; a place where five civilians, 18 Moro fighters, and 44 members of an elite police force lost their lives.
It also turned the tide on the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which, until Jan. 25, 2015, was sailing smoothly in Congress with all stakeholders then highly optimistic that the creation of a new geopolitical area that would replace the existing Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was going to take off before President Benigno S. C. Aquino III steps down from office.
Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, the government panel’s chief negotiator, said the Mamasapano incident prompted a myopic view of the decades-old conflict in parts of Mindanao and compromised what was achieved after 17 years of negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
“This resulted in three months’ delay in the legislative process on the bill. Also, the involvement of MILF forces in the unwanted firefights with Philippine National Police-Special Action (PNP-SAF) forces troops affected the public perception on the peace process, leading to the public’s negativity,” Ms. Ferrer said in an e-mail response to BusinessWorld. “The wider perspective of addressing the bigger problem of ending the armed conflict with the MILF, enabling them to join the mainstream, and instituting social and political reform was lost,” she added.
For MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, what happened in Mamasapano “is almost the singular incident that spelled the disaster for the BBL.”
The other factor is many lawmakers fear for the Moros, founded on biases, hatred, prejudices that if given enough power and resources they will secede from this country,” Mr. Iqbal told BusinessWorld.
In the months following the Mamasapano clash, the draft BBL -- which is based on the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) signed in October 2012 and the succeeding Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) signed in March 2014 -- was pulled apart and chopped in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The resulting new versions, renamed the Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BLBAR), remain pending in both chambers even as the Senate committee on public order reopens its investigation today on what supposedly really happened in Mamasapano.
The reinvestigation is also supposedly meant to settle who should ultimately account for what became the messy aftermath of the operation against “high-value” terror targets Zulkifli bin Hir (alias Marwan) of Malaysia and his Filipino accomplice Basit Usman. Secretary Teresita Quintos-Deles of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, in a statement issued yesterday, welcomed the reopening of the investigation to put closure on the issue.
At the same time, Ms. Deles said the reinvestigation should not affect the schedule for the BBL. “[W]e will keep on pushing and not give up hope on this. It’s a very tight window but those who know the legislative process said that it is still possible,” she said.
THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION
At the House of Representatives, Rep. Rufus B. Rodriguez (2nd District, Cagayan de Oro City), chairman of the BBL House ad hoc committee, admitted that lack of quorum continues to be the main stumbling block of the BLBAR, but expressed optimism that enough warm bodies could be mustered before Congress adjourns on Feb. 8 as the campaign season starts for the May elections.
“I urge my colleagues to attend the remaining session in the House so we can decide on the fate of the BLBAR. Sayang (What a waste),” said the congressman, who spearheaded the removal of several provisions from the original BBL, including the creation of the Bangsamoro Command, Bangsamoro Police, and Commission on Audit, Civil Service Commission and Commission on Elections.
Ms. Ferrer does not fully share the optimism of Mr. Rodriguez, but nonetheless assured that both the government and MILF peace panels will continue to push for the passage of the BBL, not the BLBAR.
In an article posted in luwaran.com, a Web site maintained by the MILF, the front said that the ulama (Islamic scholars) have urged lawmakers to pass the original BBL because it “will lay down the foundation to neutralize violent extremism.”
The statement was issued during a forum held by the religious leaders who stressed the need to pass a law that is compliant with the CAB and the peace deal.
“We believe that that proposed law that will create the ideal Bangsamoro autonomous region will lay down the foundation to neutralize violent extremism,” the ulama said as they condemned those behind the killing of civilians in Paris, Istanbul, and Jakarta by radical groups.
“A genuine autonomy can be realized if the terms of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro are retained in the BBL,” the ulama said. Ms. Ferrer pointed out that the CAB “remains a signed document and our peace infrastructure -- cease-fire and normalization bodies -- are in place and will turn these over to the next administration if the BBL will not be passed in this present Congress.”
“[It] is up to the next administration to pick up the pieces and carry the process forward... But, of course, we very much prefer to pass on a solution rather than a problem to the next President so we are still trying very hard to get our legislators on board,” she said.
Incidentally, the MILF peace panel, in cooperation with the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and with support from the European Union Delegation to the Philippines, is launching in Manila today a compilation of three volumes outlining different historical phases in the government-MILF peace process.
Titled Journey to the Bangsamoro, the publication is composed of all the signed agreements between the government and MILF, with accompanying narrative.
Pedro Rufo N. Soliven, governor for the Western Mindanao chapter of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foundation, Inc., gave a conceding and pragmatic view, saying, “Since the BBL will [likely] not be taken up to vote by both houses of Congress... let’s give to the new administration the chance to iron out the kinks if ever that will satisfy both camps.” Ismael I. Musa, the indigenous peoples’ mandatory representative to the Zamboanga City council, insisted that the BBL must be given priority by Congress, but acknowledged that the lingering Mamasapano issues as well as the Zamboanga City Siege in September 2013 carried out by another group, the Moro National Islamic Liberation Front (MNLF), are a manifestation of “how dim or difficult it is to implement the said framework on inter-governmental mechanism.”
Ms. Ferrer, for her part, said, “There have been very good progress in converging the MNLF and MILF tracks under the rubric of the BBL. So no BBL means scuttling this initiative that would have seen most of the MNLF leaders and the MILF working together for peaceful transformation of the region.”
STAYING THE COURSE
While admitting that conflict-affected communities will be “disappointed” and those supporting the BBL would be “frustrated” by the shelving of the BBL until after the May elections, both lead negotiators are holding on to positive thoughts.“Frustration is toxic; it can lead to many complications. Some aspects of normalization especially decommissioning will not proceed,” Mr. Iqbal pointed out. The first stage of the decommissioning process pushed through in June 2015, but the succeeding steps will have to be undertaken after a Bangsamoro law is passed as provided under the FAB and the CAB.
During the decommissioning ceremony last year, MILF Chief Ebrahim Murad said this marked the beginning of “the long walk towards transformation, not surrender, to a higher struggle -- the start of the transformation of the MILF from an armed revolutionary organization to a political organization ready to govern and serve the Bangsamoro people.”
The leader of a Mindanao-wide civil society organization support initiative, Cardinal Orlando B. Quevedo, archbishop of Cotabato City, which is not part of the ARMM but serves as the base of the ARMM government, said the BBL is about changing the “history of governance.”
“The BBL and the MILF movement is a movement not only for self-determination, but to change the history of the Bangsamoro, and the history of governance. They realize that the governance done by political dynasties, clans have not been very good. So, the MILF now is a rebellion against traditional Moro leadership. And the parliament is supposed to take care of that.”Ms. Ferrer said she has full confidence the MILF leadership will stay the course of peace and, “We pray that that there will be no fallout in their ranks.”
Mr. Iqbal said, “I do not want to imagine any grim scenario. Let it be thought by those who are against the BBL. The MILF will continue to look for [a peaceful] settlement of the conflict in Mindanao.”
In a related development, an association of retired police officers has expressed support for the reopening this Wednesday of the Senate investigation of the Mamasapano incident.
Retired Police Chief Superintendent Tomas G. Rentoy III, chairman of the Philippine National Police Academy Alumni Association, Inc. (PNPAAAI), said on Sunday the reopening of the investigation is necessary to “ferret out the whole truth and bring closure to the case.”
He said the investigations thus far by the Senate, House of Representatives, Department of Justice (DoJ), and Philippine National Police (PNP) are still far from unearthing the whole truth.
“What we’ve been hearing also is that some of the benefits promised by the government to the widows and families of the slain 44 SAF men are still unfulfilled. I have strong doubts that justice can ever be served to them under the present regime,” Mr. Rentoy said.
But Presidential Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma, Jr. on Sunday maintained the families of the SAF members killed have received more than P188 million worth of government assistance from the government, Malacañang said Sunday.
Mr. Coloma said that amount includes national government assistance (P151,283,115.49); monthly pensions from April last year to this January (P10,180,349.50); and donations by the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Dasmariñas, Cavite, local government (P26,875,000).
The national government assistance includes lump sum benefits from the National Police Commission and PNP (P68,338,262); livelihood assistance (P15,746,668); housing (P60,800,000); education (P48,578,184); and other forms of assistance (P1,820,000).Mr. Coloma also said aside from the immediate family members (spouses, parents or children), the government also provided assistance to 261 extended relatives (cousins, siblings, in-laws) of the fallen SAF members.
http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Nation&title=revisiting-mamasapano-a-disaster-for-the-bbl&id=122002
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