RPM-M/RWP-M: A critique of the Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro (FAB) between the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)

From the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa (RPM-M) also known as the Revolutionary Workers Party-Mindanao (RWP-M) (Dec 8): A critique of the Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro (FAB) between the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)

[The document is a lengthy critique of the FAB.  This critique also appeared in International Viewpoint-Online News & Analysis of the Fourth International. Below are the concluding paragraphs of the critique.]

Can the Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro (FAB) be an answer to the Moro Question and the Philippine/Mindanao problem?

At a glance, there are substantial similarities between the processes and the substance of the MNLF-GRP Final Peace Agreement (FPA) and the FAB and the eventual FPA between the GPH and the MILF. Both have gone through elaborate stages before reaching political arrangements for the transition from old to new forms of political governance. In the case of MNLF, the process and agreement had been reached to form an expanded ARMM and had amended R.A. 6734 to have R.A. 9054 to ensure its constitutional bases. It had established the SPCPD which would manage the development activities in the SZOPAD under the leadership of the MNLF. In the case of MILF, it will make laws called Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) to amend R.A. 9054 and form the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) to replace the ARMM. All of these initiatives will be under the leadership of the MILF and which will be part of the formation of the Bangsamoro Government (BG).

Both processes look very elaborate at least theoretically and politically doable except that, they both would be implemented in the socio-economic and political context of the existing dominant system of the Philippines. This brings one and all to ask basic question of the root cause/s of the Bangsamoro struggles for self determination. The dominant system in the country is a neo-liberal stage of global capitalism which has caused the intensification of the current form of national oppression of the Bangsamoro especially the most oppressed and exploited sections of its population. The Bangsamoro people in general has been economically exploited, politically marginalized and culturally alienated for a very long time. The struggles for self determination led by different Moro revolutionary fronts were all geared towards the elimination of the national oppression and the causes which made them possible. The setting-up of the political and economic structures has been part of the process of building a nation within a bigger nation.

Instead of initiating activities to resolve the causes of the national oppression the dominant system through the Philippine government has tried to hasten the mainstreaming of the Bangsamoro into the system of the country. This kind of solution has been patterned to the pacification model used by the colonial governments in the past.

The glaring ineffectiveness and failure of this kind of model had caused the upsurge of the Moro uprisings and revolutionary movements since the colonial years and even today.The FPA between the government and the MNLF is the latest version of this model where peace is won not in the battlefields but on the negotiating table but miserably failed. And one of the strong manifestations for its failure is the FAB. But where did the MNLF-FPA fail that the FAB can take on and learn from it?

The national oppression of the Bangsamoro which is the main reason for its struggle for self determination has never been addressed in the FPA. The focus was only on the MNLF leadership especially Nur Misuari and when the former and the latter became divided and weak, they became marginalized while the whole population of the Bangsamoro have been subjected to the process of mainstreaming.

The FAB, this early has shown similar signs where the MNLF is being swallowed by the dominant system. The BBL cannot be and will never be allowed to be contradictory to the substantial laws framed by the dominant system of the country. The BG will soon become integral part of the country’s political system which will be dictated by the neo-liberal framework and its technocrats. The MILF does not have its own economic system and therefore it is a matter of time when new Bangsamoro elite or recycled elite will dominate the whole Bangsamoro population in connivance of the elite of the dominant system.

The FAB is not inclusive in spirit and in deed and if this orientation will not change it will lose the vital support of the non-Moro and non-Muslim population in Mindanao in particular and the whole country in general.

It has never factored in the distinct history and circumstances of the Indigenous (IPs) both as a people and having their distinct territories. Therefore, it cannot have genuine support of the IPs before, during and after the BG is established.

These are just few signs that the FAB cannot really answer the Bangsamoro issue on self determination and the Mindanao/Philippine problem with regards to the national oppression in the context of the neo-liberal capitalist-led globalization in Mindanao in particular and the whole country in general.

http://www.grenzeloos.org/jl/?p=435